#591: Further Clarification on the Forbiddance of Transliterating the Qurʿān
QUESTION
” Assalamu alaikum, I don’t understand this post or rather, I want to know how else we’re supposed to understand the Qur’an if it’s not translated in the first place… I heard a lecture by Mufti Menk where he dismissed this same things as wrong, not all of us understands Arabic so how are we supposed to know what we’re reading in Arabic? At some point we have to go back to the English text to know what we’re reading… I need more clarification on this”
ANSWER
Wa alaykum Salām Warahmatullāh Wabarakātuh.
Alhamdulillāh.
Beloved brother/sister!
What has been mentioned is that we should avoid transliterations and exert efforts in the comprehension of reading Arabic Alphabets. This is what the Ulamā agreed upon.
Imām Ibn Hajar Al-Haytamī – rahimahullāh – mentioned in his Fatāwah:
“Mālik was asked whether the Mus’haf (Scripts of the Qur’an) can be made using the innovated alphabets of people. He said: No, except that it be written in the original script…. This is the position held by the Four Imams.”
He then went further to elucidate that the ruling remains Harām even if its done for the purpose of leaning.
The reasons for this forbiddance are as follows:
1. Allāh ta’ālā sent down the Qur’ān in Arabic.
2. The Companions of the Rasūl – salallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam – in the era of ‘Uthmān – have formed a consensus on the Arabic text that we have today, and anything other than that text is not referred to as a Qur’ān.
3. Transliterations, no matter how thorough cannot convey the correct wordings in the Qur’ān.
4. These transliterations lead to a perversion of the Qur’ān and laziness to learn the Dīn.
Az-Zarqānī – rahimahullāh – mentioned all of these in his book Manāhilu Al-‘Irfān and Rashīd Ridā in his Tafsīr Al-Mannār.
Please note that we are here speaking about Transliterations and not Translations or Interpretations. As for Translations/Interpretations, then they have been referred as permissible on the following conditions:
1. That the translator has a firm and deeply rooted knowledge of Arabic Language and the Language he wants to translate to
2. That the translator has a firm and deeply rooted knowledge of the Tafsīr of the Qur’ān
3. That the translation is accompanied by the original Arabic Text.
Know O beloved one that this injunctions were agreed upon by the ‘Ulamā, past and present, not to make things difficult but because it is detrimental to the preservation of the Dīn.
May Allah make learning the Dīn easy for us and for you, āmīn.
Jazākumullāhu Khayran
Bārakallāhu fīkum
9th Ramadān, 1439 AH.
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