فِي قُلُوبِهِم مَّرَضٌ A simple sentence usually translated incorrectly.
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A simple sentence usually translated incorrectly.
It is translated as under by majority of English translators
Progressive Muslims 210 In their hearts is a disease,
Rashad Khalifa translated the word "hearts" as "minds"
In their minds is a disease,
All these translators have reversed and almost distorted the intention and the perception conveyed by the Speaker/Book in Arabic sentence.
What they have done is that, they have made the subject of the Arabic sentence as predicate and that which is not the predicate but relating to the elided predicate in the Arabic sentence has been made the subject in the English translation.
The natural ordering in a nominal sentence, in Arabic, is for the topic to be first and the comment to be second. There are a few situations in which inverting the structure is prohibited, and there are others in which inverting the structure actually becomes mandatory.
One such situation is when the topic is purely indefinite and the comment is a prepositional or adverbial phrase. Since psychological diseases and personality disorders are various, which different such people may have nurtured, hence indefinite noun is the fact and ground reality.
While translating inverted sentences, ordinarily care is seldom exercised with the result that in translation the predicate of Arabic sentence is made the subject and the subject is made to seem as predicate., as can be noticed in the above example.
"A disease is implanted/nurtured within their hearts"
Arabs dislike using larger quantity of words and convey voluminous information by employing minimum words which also reflects that the Arabic language regards its listener and reader as a responsible, attentive and intelligent person who focuses his concentration of listening and perception faculties on that which is being stated.
The structuring of sentences of Grand Qur'aan is simply marvellous. The beauty inherent in such structuring is that its meanings and perception remains the same from the perspective of its first listeners and those who read it in written text afterwards.
is /Prepositional + Possessive Phrase- relating to fronted elided predicate, but evidently understandable from the prepositional phrase, of inverted nominal sentence; in nominative state. Any hardened negative feel, passion and emotion, assuming equivalence to a disease not only figuratively but also in effect, gets implanted in the heart only by conscious and willful personal decision of relevant person.
It is Noun Indefinite; Singular; Masculine; Nominative. Subject/Topic.
Because of incorrect translation of the first sentence, the next sentence is then equally translated incorrectly whereby a totally different perception is conveyed than the one contained in Arabic text. We will discuss it later, Allah willing.
Word by Word Analysis 210
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Salaam, Mazhar,
Forgive me for what I am going to tell you. I am very grateful and indebted to your patience in a thread on the 100 stripes of 24, as well as for many other instances in which you have shed light. However, and I don't know whether I am the only one, I seem to find difficult to follow your Arabic analysis to the dot. I follow it and somehow near the end, but before reaching it, I get unhung and fail to get the gist of what you intended to make obvious. It is surely my fault and not yours, and I feel awful to bring this up, but ...
I don't know. Could you may be put your translation step by step of the sentence we are looking at, and explain, also step by step, the foundation of such steps?
Exuse me, and thank you for your patience.
Salaam
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Salam, haruf
I could not understand why a simple thing creates problem for you at the end. Here we were talking about a simple sentence. In speech there are only two things, the subject/topic-something or person about which the speaker intends to talk and the other is topic/predicate-i.e. the information the speaker intends to give about the topic. For the listener it is easy to understand the intention and perception he is conveying only if he can distinguish as to which word is subject/topic and which one is/are the predicate.
When one is reading non native language he has first to distinguish and find out which word is subject and which one is the predicate, otherwise he will not be able to ascertain the intended perception which the writer had conveyed in that text.