Advice of Scholars - THE QUR’ÂN AL-KERÎM CANNOT BE TRANSLATED INTO ANY LANGUAGE

The Qur’ân al-kerîm cannot be translated into any language, even into Arabic. It is impossible to translate any poem into its own language precisely. It can only be explained, interpreted. We should not read the Qur’ân’s translation in order to understand it. To understand the meaning of an âyat means to understand what Allahu ta’âlâ means through this âyat. A person who reads a translation of this âyat cannot learn murâd-i ilâhî (the divine purpose). He learns what the translator has understood according to his level of knowledge. And he who reads the translation written by someone ignorant or by an irreligious translator, learns not what Allahu ta’âlâ says, but what the translator, who assumes that he understands it, is expressing from his own thoughts.

The government does not send a law concerning villagers directly to villagers because villagers cannot understand this law even if they can read it. This law is sent to governors of cities first. These governors, understanding it well and adding their explanations, send it to the mayors of towns, who, explaining it more clearly, send it to directors of districts. Directors of districts can understand the law with the help of these explanations and can explain them to headmen of villages. Headman of a village could not have it understood just by reading it. The headman explains it to the villagers in village dialect. By the same token, the Qur’ân al-kerîm is divine rules. It is divine law. Allahu ta’âlâ has shown the way of happiness to His born servants through the Qur’ân al-kerîm and has sent His own word to the highest of mankind. Only Hadrat Muhammad can understand the meaning of the Qur’ân al-kerîm. No other person can understand it completely. Though the Ashâb-i kirâm ‘alaihim-ur-ridwân’ knew Arabic as their native language and were literary and eloquent, they couldn’t understand some âyats and asked Rasûlullah to explain them.

In short, only Hadrat Muhammad understood the meaning of the Qur’ân and explained it through his hadîths. It is he who interpreted the Qur’ân. The correct book of interpretation is his hadîths. By not sleeping or resting, by sacrificing their repose, our religious scholars gathered these hadîths and wrote books of interpretation. The book of interpretation entitled Baydâwî is one of the strongest among them.