Islam's Reformers .pdf

needs with unsuitable rules. The ijtihâd of the four leaders doesnot mean the religion. As these learned and superior menderived religious rules from the Qur’ân and Hadîth, so everyMuslim who has reached the grade of a mujtahid may very wellderive new rules from these two sources.”The reformer starts with the translation of the Qur’ân alkerîm.Today, majority of those who say they are Muslimscomplain that the Qur’ân has not been translated up to now andthat the religious knowledge has remained secret. They blameIslamic scholars as if these scholars have prohibited translatingthe Qur’ân. This complaint is quite wrong. Islamic scholars havenot attempted to translate the Qur’ân into another language, forthey have thought of themselves as incapable of translatingAllâhu ta’âlâ’s Word without spoiling the expression, eloquenceand perfection in its own language. However succesful thetranslation might be, it has been concluded that it is impossibleto reach the deep meanings of Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Word. The Qur’ânhas deep meanings that do not exist in other holy books. Itdescended at a time when contests of eloquence took place inArabia, and it outshone all of them. Translation of such a bookmust have the same quality, which is impossible. Accomplishinga translation worth the Qur’ân, which has an eloquence aboveman’s ability, necessitates having ability above the humanability. This is a matter of ability, that is, it is a matter ofprotecting the superiority of the Qur’ân. Those who want totaste the flavour of eloquence and deep meanings in the Qur’ânhave to learn Arabic literature and many a branch of Islamicknowledge such as tafsîr, usûl al-fiqh, and then they can enterthe holy presence of the Qur’ân. They must not expect theQur’ân to come to them.Writing a Turkish explanation (tafsîr) of the Qur’ân andtranslating it into Turkish are different. Its translation is moredifficult than explanation. It is not true that it has not beentranslated into or explained in Turkish. It has been, but it hasnot been liked by connoisseurs of the subject. Religionreformers are wrong in their claim that the first attempt belongsto Russian reformer. If the conscience of Muslims are supposedto escape slavery with a single translation as they say, theyshould have escaped it with former translations. Moreover,those who accomplished the Turkish explanations such asMawâkib and Tibyân were not utterly ignorant in ethics and- 69 -