The Influence of Socio-Religious Factors on al-Ṣafadī’s Perception of Translation in the Abbasid Era

The Influence of Socio-Religious Factors on al-Șafadī’s Perception of Translation in the Abbasid Era

REEM HAZIM

Translation is more than just a cultural and linguistic mediator; historically, it has also involved the transfer of power and authority between the source culture and the receiving culture. Lefevere, a translation studies historian, describes translation as “a channel opened… through which foreign influences can penetrate the native culture, challenge it, and even contribute to subverting it” (2). The response of the receiving culture to the translation of foreign texts is often influenced by the culture’s social, political, and religious context. For instance, Arab scholars had different responses to the translation of Greek books into Arabic during the reign of the Abbasid Caliphate (7501258 CE), and their attitudes towards translation largely depended on the ruling dynasty and the social and religious atmosphere of their time. This paper explores the socio-religious factors influencing the remarks of an Arab scholar, al-Ṣafadī, on Graeco-Arabic translation in his book, Al-ghayth al-musjam fī sharḥ Lāmīyat al-‘Ajam. al-Ṣafadī’s social status as a member of the ulama and the strong Sunni current fostered by the Mamluk Sultanate influenced his thoughts on the integration of Greek logic philosophy into Islamic culture and the translation methods used by the Abbasid translators.

Khalil Ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī (1297-1363), born in Safad, Palestine, was a calligrapher, poet, and historian who worked as a scribe in the chancery, authored “hundreds of books,” and copied over five hundred more (BehrensAbouseif 90). al-Ṣafadī lived during the reign of the Mamluk Sultanate (12501517 CE), which succeeded the Ayyubid and Abbasid dynasties and ruled over Egypt and Syria. It was characterized by a ruling class of mamluks, or military slaves of “servile origin” (Northrup 244). In the 14th century CE, the Arabs of the Mamluk Sultanate built upon the wealth of literature they inherited from the Abbasids and invented a new genre of literature: the commentary-

anthology. In this genre, the commentary (usually about a poem) serves as a framework for gathering a sequence of texts of various types to give the educated person an overview of subjects relevant to the modern, Mamluk Age (Bauer, “Mamluk Literature” 113). A prominent example of a commentary anthology is al-Ṣafadī’s book, Al-ghayth al-musjam fī sharḥ Lāmīyat al-‘Ajam, or “Flowing Desert Rains in the Commentary upon the L-Poem of the Non-Arabs” (Muhanna 52). In Al-ghayth, al-Ṣafadī provides an extensive commentary on Lāmīyat al-‘Ajam, an Arabic poem by the 12th century Persian poet, Al-Tughrai. In his equally insightful and entertaining digressions on the poem, al-Ṣafadī touches upon the topic of translation in the Abbasid era, making some remarks about the Greek-Arab translation movement sparked by the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun.

al-Ṣafadī’s work was significantly influenced by the social environment of the 13th century, which witnessed an increase in public interest in education and literature. The Mamluk era saw the proliferation of madrasas, library endowments, and the practice of book-copying, which provided scholars with a variety of resources and sparked the middle class’s broad interest in literature. The Mamluks inherited the concept of the madrasa, an academic institution that provides religious education services for the public, from the Ayyubids (Behrens-Abouseif 16). These institutions were mainly established and sponsored by Turkish mamluk rulers and elites in order to legitimize their rule over their Arab subjects (Igarashi 26). Many of the books in these madrasas were supplied by scholars and members of the elite, as it was customary for them to endow large collections of books and private libraries to academic institutions, creating a “substantial resource of books available to scholars and students” (Behrens-Abouseif 34). Not only were books on religious topics mass-produced by mamluk scholars, but copying manuscripts was also common practice among academics because it allowed them to procure materials for their studies and amass their own libraries (BehrensAbouseif 17, 34). Combined, the spread of religious foundations such as madrasas, scholars’ endowments of their private libraries, and the common practice of book-copying adopted by academics, “led to the spread of mass education that brought about a broad, literate and semi-literate middle class that displayed great interest in literature of any kind” (Bauer, “Anthologies”

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2). These circumstances gave rise to the commentary-anthology mentioned earlier, and it was in this context that al-Ṣafadī wrote his books. In Al-ghayth, al-Ṣafadī digresses from his commentary on the poem and narrates the story of how Greek logic and philosophy were introduced to the Arab world (al-Ṣafadī 46). al-Ṣafadī attributes the Greek-Arabic translation movement sparked during the Abbasid era to al-Ma’mun, the Abbasid caliph who, according to al-Ṣafadī, requested Greek books from the king of Cyprus (46). al-Ṣafadī then explains how the Muslims have always split into different groups because of their diverging theological opinions and schools of thought, and how each group needed to prove their arguments using logic and reasoning (46). Finally, he reaches the conclusion that al-Ma’mun aggravated the conflict between Muslims by ordering the translation of Greek books about logic philosophy into Arabic, which supplied those who opposed Sunni Islam, such as the Mu’tazila, a rationalist school of Islamic thought, with the tool of dialectic disputation to strengthen their arguments (al-Ṣafadī 46-47). In order to understand why al-Ṣafadī had a negative perception of the translation of Greek philosophical books, it is important to understand the scholarly group to which he belonged and the type of literature they were writing in the 14th century. al-Ṣafadī was a member of the ulama, religious scholars who partook in ‘ilm, or “religious learning” of the “Ḳu’rān, ḥadīth and fiḳh” (Gabrieli 2). In contrast, the udaba were scholars who studied adab, or “the sum of knowledge which makes a man courteous and “urbane”” (Gabrieli 2). Adab is characterized by its “profane culture… based in the first place on poetry,” oration, and rhetoric (Gabrieli 2). In the Mamluk empire, the line between adab and ‘ilm became blurred, and the ulama also took on the role of udaba and wrote about secular topics in a process Thomas Bauer calls the “ “adabisation” of the ‘ulamāʼ” (Bauer, “Anthologies” 1). As such, while al-Ṣafadī’s commentary-anthology is a work of adab, or of secular nature, the arguments and remarks he makes in the book, specifically, his thoughts on the Greek-Arabic translation movement, are highly influenced by his religious background as a member of the ulama and the religiously-charged context in which he lived.

For instance, it is likely that the strong Sunni currents fostered in the Mamluk era shaped al-Ṣafadī’s perception of the translation of Greek logic books as a threat to Sunni Islam (Rosenthal 1). Prior to the Mamluks, the Ayyubids, specifically Salah al-Din, pursued religious policies that aimed to eradicate competitors to Sunni Islam, mainly Isma’ilism and Christianity (Northtrup 266). The Bahri Mamluks who succeeded the Ayyubids “pursued even more energetically” these religious policies, resulting in “an even more intensely Islamic and Sunni religious environment” (Northrup 266). Writing in such a religiously-charged climate, where “extremism was less tolerated” , it is only natural for al-Ṣafadī to immediately associate the translation movement with its religious implications (Northrup 271). The introduction of foreign concepts such as logic into Islam enabled rationalist, non-mainstream schools of theology such as the Mu’tazila to defend their views.

Additionally, al-Ṣafadī’s writing hints towards another influence on his opinion: his first teacher, Ibn Taymiyya, whom he quotes saying that God will punish al-Ma’mun for introducing these philosophical sciences to the Muslim people (46). Ibn Taymiyya was a highly influential Hanbali theologian who insisted “on an extreme, morally rigorist Sunnism based on a literal interpretation of the Qu’ran and Sunna” (Northrup 267). A controversial figure in Mamluk theological discourse, he was imprisoned at least six times, usually due to his religious beliefs (Northrup 267). Ibn Taymiyya “denounce[d] all the innovations (bid’a) which he regarded as heretical,” which made him inevitably clash with scholars of different schools of thought (Laoust 3). For example, he wrote a long treatise, called Dar’ Ta’arud al-’aql wa’l-naql, denouncing the rationalist methods used by theological schools like the Mu’tazila (Griffel 12). Considering that al-Ṣafadī quoted Ibn Taymiyya at the outset of his discussion, and taking into account the latter’s outspoken antirationalist beliefs, al-Ṣafadī may have inherited his opposition to rationalist schools of thought from his teacher. In turn, this religious bias colored his view of translation in the Abbasid era.

Not only does al-Ṣafadī bring up the Greek-Arabic translation movement as a whole, but he also discusses the translation methods used by translators in

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the Abbasid era. al-Ṣafadī argues that the word-for-word translation method was poor (“radee’a”) because it resulted in the incorporation of Greek words, syntax, and metaphors into the Arabic text (46). Throughout the course of his commentary, he deviates from his discussion on the proliferation of GreekArabic translations and outlines two translation methods adopted during the Abbasid era: the first is when the translator looks at a Greek word, finds an equivalent for it in Arabic, then moves on to the next word (in other words, word-for-word translation), and the second is when the translator reads the Greek sentence, understands it, then expresses its meaning in Arabic (al-Ṣafadī 46). al-Ṣafadī labels the first type of translation as poor for two reasons: first, because there are no Arabic expressions that correspond to every Greek word, so many Greek words were left untranslated, and second, because the syntax in one language does not always match that in another language, and the use of metaphors that are recurrent in each language often leads to more mistakes in translation (46). al-Ṣafadī’s criticism of word-for-word translation can be attributed to his great “concern with linguistic problems,” as is evident in his other book, Taṣḥīḥ al-taṣḥīf wa-taḥrīr al-taḥrīf, which is a long treatise on commonplace Arabic “misspellings and misreadings” (Rosenthal 2).

However, there is more to his interest in Arabic grammar than personal preference. al-Ṣafadī’s criticism of word-for-word translation can also be linked to his social status as a member of the ulama. Because of the aforementioned spread of education and scholarly training in Mamluk society, the ulama sought to differentiate themselves from the rest of the superficiallyeducated public through “linguistic proficiency, especially a flawless mastering of Arabic grammar” (Bauer, “Mamluk Literature” 110). In fact, Bauer indicates that al-Ṣafadī showed restraint every time he quoted passages that exhibit “interference of the spoken language” because he wanted to conform to ulama standards, though he “never denied” that he was entertained by them (“Mamluk Literature” 110). In Al-ghayth, al-Ṣafadī shows how wordfor-word translation interferes with the Arabic language because it results in the existence of untranslated Greek words, Greek syntax, and strange metaphorical expressions in Arabic. The ulama who held high regard for the Arabic language and its grammar would not tolerate the existence of foreign words, syntax, and metaphors in Arabic text. Therefore, it is possible that al-

Ṣafadī was biased against this method of translation because he was “afraid of violating professional ulama standards” (Bauer, “Mamluk Literature” 110).

The Sunni religious environment in which al-Ṣafadī lived and his high regard for the Arabic language and grammar prompted him to view Greek-Arabic translation in the Abbasid era in light of its influence on Islamic theology. It also propelled his fears of promoting and empowering the rationalist schools of thought within Islam. However, the rise of the commentary-anthology in the Mamluk era reveals the existence of a society of eager lifelong learners and their high demand for books that touch on broad fields of knowledge. Studying the factors that brought about such an attitude towards learning is of extraordinary relevance, as education in our modern age is attempting to replicate exactly this attitude in students and create a culture of selfmotivated, lifelong learning.

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