MUCH might be written on the subject of translation, and of its influence upon the progress of knowledge and civilization. The Christian religion, as it has been handed down to us, is more or less based on translations from various languages; while our English Bible has been more translated than any other book extant.
In former times, during the reign of Naushirwan, a Persian monarch of great renown [A.D. 530-578], there was some intercourse between Persian and Byzantine philosophers; several books on logic and medicine were translated from Greek into Persian, and later on these were done into Arabic.
At the commencement of the rule of the Abbasides [A.D. 750], considerable attention was paid to the subject. Eight years before the seventh Khalif Mâmun [A.D. 812-833] ascended the throne, many Greek and Syriac manuscripts had been collected in Baghdad. These were all preserved there in the library which was called ‘The House of Wisdom,’ until Mâmun began to utilize them by means of translations. A great many Oriental manuscripts are now preserved in the British Museum and other institutions in Great Britain, and it is hoped that an attempt will be made some day to get some of them translated for the benefit of the public. The Khalif Mâmun established a regular translation department, and translators were employed in doing works from the Greek, the Syriac, and the Persian into Arabic.
The great Emperor Akbar, who ruled in India from A.D. 1556 to 1605, was also much interested in this matter. Both the ‘Mahabharata’ and the ‘Ramayana,’ the Lilavati, the History of Krishna, and an erotic Kashmiri work, were by his orders translated from Sanscrit into Persian. The Commentaries of Baber from the Chaghtai, or pure Turkish dialect, and the large geographical dictionary ‘Moajum-ul-buldan’ from the Arabic, were both translated into Persian. In addition to the translation work, Akbar, the most enlightened sovereign that India ever possessed, was a patron of every kind of literature and of art.
In England, one of the most valuable translations ever made after that of the Bible was ‘The Qurân,’ by George Sale, in A.D. 1734. This book has always held its own as a standard work, and the preliminary discourse, divided into eight sections, and preceding the translation of the hundred and fourteen chapters of the Qurân, contains most valuable information about the Arabs, Muhammad, and the Muhammadan religion generally. Savary, Rodwell, Palmer, and others have also produced good translations of the same work, and much facilitated its perusal by dividing the various chapters into verses, Sale not having made any such division.
Though a society was established for the encouragement of learning in England in A.D. 1736, in which Sale was interested, and of which he was one of the founders, nothing seems to have been done by this Society in the way of translation, which may, perhaps, be attributed to his death in November of that year. In A.D. 1828, however, the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland was started under very distinguished patronage. This Society worked well for fifty years, publishing translations from fifteen different languages, and then collapsing from apathy, neglect, and want of funds. It is true that some of the translations published by and at the expense of this Society were not, perhaps, all judiciously chosen; still the list of them, given in ‘Arabic Authors’ [Wm. Heinemann, London, 1890], shows that some at least are most valuable, and have been of the greatest assistance to all students of Oriental literature.
The old Fund collapsed. It was proposed to revive it, and to continue the publication of a series of translations of well-selected works. Attempts were first made in the direction of donations and annual subscriptions, but failed. Thinking it a pity that the matter should be allowed to drop, on the 12th June, 1891, I addressed the following letter to the Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society:
‘I have the honour to request that you will kindly lay this letter before the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society on the subject of the old Oriental Translation Fund, and the continuance of the work undertaken by it.
‘The attempt to revive the old Fund by donation and subscription has failed for want of support from the public generally. It is now proposed to endeavour to proceed with the work in the following way:
‘1st. That any member of the Asiatic Society, wishing to print and publish translations of the standard works of Oriental authors, or to edit such translations done by other persons, can do so at his own expense, under the patronage of the Royal Asiatic Society, provided that the name of the author, and of his work, be submitted to the Council of the Society for their previous sanction.
‘2nd. That all such translations be printed and published uniformly [that is, with the same type and bound in the same way], under the denomination of Oriental Translation Fund, New Series, and under the patronage of the Royal Asiatic Society.
‘3rd. That the Translator or Editor can have these books sold or distributed at the rooms of the Asiatic Society in Albemarle Street, on such terms as may be hereafter settled.
‘4th. That the books so published can be advertised in the Society’s Journal free of charge.
‘5th. That as the Translator or Editor both prints and publishes at his own expense, he may therefore retain the copyright of any work brought out under these proposals.
‘The Council will perceive that the above is a rough sketch only of what can be afterwards improved or modified. For the present I would only ask the Council:
‘1st. To sanction generally these proposals.
‘2nd. To appoint a permanent Committee to settle details about the type, size of the volume, nature of the binding, etc., and other matters connected with these proposals, and to whom all proposals connected with publication should be referred.
‘3rd. To sanction my beginning the series at once with the publication of a complete translation by Mr. E. Rehatsek of the first part of Mirkhond’s “Rauzat-us-safa,” generally called “The Garden of Purity,” containing the Histories of Prophets, Kings and Khalifs. This work is now ready for the press, and will fill three volumes of, say, three to four hundred pages each.
‘It is advisable to start the printing and the publishing of these volumes as soon as possible, to show that the members of the Royal Asiatic Society are anxious to give the undertaking at all events a trial. The proposals will cost the Society nothing except the use of their name and patronage, while any expenses incurred by the Society will be defrayed by their deducting a percentage from the receipts of the sale of these works.’
On the 29th of June, 1891, the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society were good enough to sanction the above proposals. A Committee was appointed to settle certain details, and the publication of the present volume is the commencement of the undertaking. It is proposed to publish in six volumes the whole of the two first parts of Mirkhond’s History, details of which will be found both in the Translator’s and Author’s Prefaces.
Of Mirkhond himself it may be briefly stated that he was born in A.D. 1432, and belonged to a family of Sayyids settled for many generations in Bukhara. His father Sayid Burhan-ud-Din Khâvend Shâh, a man of great learning and piety, left that place for Balkh, where he died. Mirkhond himself spent most of his life in Hirat writing his book, and died there A.D. 1498 at the age of sixty-six. His lengthy work is one of the standard Persian histories, and the manuscripts of it, both whole and in part, are numerous in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library at Oxford and elsewhere. Dr. Rieu’s excellent catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the former place, and Professors Sachau and Ethe’s list of Persian and other manuscripts in the latter place, give full information about them.
The present volume, not hitherto translated into any European language, contains the Moslem version of our Bible stories, beginning with the creation of Genii before Adam and ending with the death of Aaron. To prevent the repetition of such phrases as ‘whose name be exalted,’ ‘whose name be praised,’ ‘upon whom blessing,’ ‘benediction and salutation to him,’ ‘may his soul be sanctified,’ ‘the mercy of Allah be on him,’ generally used after names in Moslem literature, the first letters of the words of these sentences only have been inserted, so that these will be easily understood. The chapters and verses of many quotations from the Qurân, and of allusions to many matters in our Bible, will be found in the footnotes.
As regards the Bible and the Qurân, both the Christian and the Muhammadan stand on the same ground. In each religion the really orthodox believer is of opinion (and this opinion does not allow a single matter of doubt) that the Book he believes in is inspired, and contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from beginning to end. While the Bible gives us the Jewish and Christian view of these matters, the Qurân gives us the Muhammadan view; and though some of the stories will be found to be exactly alike, Moslem tradition often enters into far greater details than those given in the Old Testament. It is both possible and probable that when Muhammad first began his career as a reformer, preacher and apostle, he was buoyed up with the hope that he might bring both the Jews and Christians into his fold. On this account he introduced into his Qurân so many of the persons mentioned both in the Old and New Testaments, along with many details obtained from Rabbinical and Christian sources. Later on at Madinah, when he found that he could do nothing with the infidels, as he then called them, he seems to have adapted his religion to the manners and customs of the Arabs. As, however, full details of his life will be given in the fourth and fifth volumes of this series, it is unnecessary to make further allusion to the matter here.
The translator of these volumes, Mr. Edward Rehatsek, of Bombay, is well known for his knowledge of Oriental languages and Oriental literature. A short sketch of his career was given in the preface to ‘Persian Portraits’ (Quaritch, 1887), but this hardly did justice to his general ability and his exceeding great industry. These will, however, be better understood after a perusal of the present work, and of others which will follow to complete his series of translations from the Persian and the Arabic. He is now an old man, but his declining years will be solaced with the thought that his labours have at last been fully recognised and laid before the public in a fitting and becoming manner. It remains, then, for the public to do their duty, which is to purchase, as they come out, the copies of these volumes of translations, and which are to be obtained at the rooms of the Royal Asiatic Society, 22, Albemarle Street.
F. F. ARBUTHNOT.
18, PARK LANE,
LONDON, W.