Translation Sample

Translation of a classical Arabic philosophical treatise on epistemology and the structure of knowledge

Arabic → EnglishOriginal translation

A translation of a dense philosophical text dealing with how knowledge is established and validated, how methods of inquiry relate to the conclusions they claim to support, and how competing schools of thought can fall into error by committing themselves to a single method and following its implications wherever they lead. The source material is classical Arabic scholarly prose characterised by long, layered arguments and precise technical vocabulary. Such texts are often translated into English that is technically accurate but rigid and difficult to follow, because it mirrors Arabic clause structure too closely. The passages below show an approach in which the intellectual content is preserved while the English reads as though the argument were constructed in English from the beginning.

Passage 1: Distinguishing Between Category and Series

This is one of the text’s most intellectually demanding sections. The author distinguishes between the general category of temporal events, understood as an unending type, and a finite series of particular events.

The phrases “on the one hand … on the other” and “is altogether different from” are structural additions. They are not stated in those exact forms in the Arabic, but they make visible an argument structure that an Arabic reader can follow through shifts in syntax. In English, that signposting allows the reader to see where the examples end and the author’s conclusion begins.

وكثير منهم يفطن للفرق بين جنس الحوادث، وبين الحوادث المحدودة؛ فالجنس: مثل أن يقال: ما زالت الحوادث توجد شيئاً بعد شيء، أو ما زال جنسها موجوداً، أو ما زال الله متكلماً إذا شاء، أو ما زال الله فاعلاً لما يشاء، أو ما زال قادراً على أن يفعل قدرة يمكن معها اقتران المقدور بالقدرة، لا تكون قدرة يمتنع معها المقدور؛ فإن هذه في الحقيقة ليست قدرة. ومثل أن يقال في المستقبل: لا بد أن الله يخلق شيئاً بعد شيء، ونعيم أهل الجنة دائم لا يزول، ولا ينفذ. وقد يقال في النوعين: كلمات الله لا تنفذ، ولا نهاية لها؛ لا في الماضي، ولا في المستقبل، ونحو ذلك. فالكلام في دوام الجنس وبقائه، وأنه لا ينفذ، ولا ينقضي، ولا يزول، ولا ابتداء له: غير الكلام فيما يقدر محدوداً له ابتداء، أو له ابتداء وانتهاء.

“Many among them, however, do recognise the distinction between the general category of temporal events on the one hand, and a finite series of events on the other. The ‘general category’ is what one would have in mind when saying, for example, that temporal events have always been coming into being one after another, or that the category itself has always existed, or that God has always been speaking whenever He wills, or that He has always been doing whatever He wills, or that God has always had the power to act in such a way that the object of His power can be brought about so long as that power exists, as opposed to a power accompanied by the impossibility of what it is supposedly capable of producing, for that would not be true power by any means.

“The same may be said of the future: that God will go on creating one thing after another, and that the bliss of the people of Paradise endures without ever ceasing or running out. And some things may be said of both together. For example: that the words of God are inexhaustible and without limit, neither in the past nor the future, and so on.

“So, to speak of the general category of events as perpetual and enduring, as something that is never exhausted, never comes to an end, never ceases, and has no beginning, is altogether different from speaking of what is posited as finite, having a beginning, or both a beginning and an end.”

Passage 2: The Cycle of False Implications

This passage describes how different theological schools, working from the same flawed starting point, each accepted problematic conclusions in order to preserve their method. When critics exposed the falsehood of those conclusions, they often adopted a different set of implications in order to maintain the same argument, and fell into the same pattern themselves.

The Arabic builds the argument as a sustained chain of connective particles. A literal English rendering would sound mechanical. The translation turns that chain into two complete English sentences that preserve each logical step while giving the argument natural momentum.

فإن أئمة هؤلاء الطوائف صار كل منهم يلتزم ما يراه لازماً له ليطردها، فيلتزم لوازم مخالفة للشرع والعقل، فيجيء الآخر، فيرد عليه، ويبين فساد ما التزمه، ويلتزم هو لوازم أخر لطردها، فيقع أيضاً في مخالفة الشرع والعقل.

“Their leading figures, by contrast, came to accept whatever consequence they took the argument to require in order to maintain its consistency. In doing so, they would bind themselves to implications that contradicted both revelation and reason. Then others would come along, reject that position, expose the falsehood of the implications previously accepted, and yet take on a different set of implications in order to keep the same argument intact, thereby falling once again into contradiction with revelation and reason.”

Passage 3: The Argument from Contingency and Necessity

The passage presents a disjunctive argument. The celestial bodies are either pre-eternal and necessary, or contingent and originated. Either way, a necessary and pre-eternal being must exist.

The Arabic is compressed, with technical terms repeating in rapid succession and logical connectors driving the argument forward. The translation opens up the structure only enough to let each step breathe. “Either way, then” gives a natural English equivalent of على كل تقدير, while “at the most basic level of reason” captures both the literal and rhetorical force of في بداية العقول.

فهذه الأفلاك إن كانت قديمة واجبة، فقد ثبت وجود الموجود القديم الواجب، وإن كانت ممكنة، أو محدثة، فلا بد لها من واجب قديم؛ فإن وجود الممكن بدون الواجب، والمحدث بدون القديم ممتنع في بداية العقول. فثبت وجود موجود قديم واجب بنفسه على كل تقدير. فإذا كان ما ذكروه من نفي الصفات عن القديم والواجب يستلزم نفي القديم مطلقاً، ونفي الواجب: علم أنه باطل.

“These celestial bodies are either pre-eternal and necessary, in which case the existence of a pre-eternal, necessary being is already established, or they are contingent or temporally originated, in which case they must depend on some pre-eternal, necessary being, since for the contingent to exist without the necessary, or the originated without the pre-eternal, is impossible at the most basic level of reason. Either way, then, the existence of a being that is pre-eternal and necessary in itself stands established.

“So in light of this, if stripping the pre-eternal, necessary being of its attributes amounts to denying the existence of anything pre-eternal at all, and denying the existence of anything necessary in itself, then their position is thereby known to be false.”