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A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick
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English Translations of the Quran by
Women: Different or Derived?
by
Rim Hassen
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Translation Studies
University of Warwick
Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
July 2012
Table of contents
Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................ i
Declaration .................................................................................................................. ii
Abstract ...................................................................................................................... iii
Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1
1. The Quran as a Source Text ................................................................................... 5
2. A Brief History of Quran Translation ................................................................... 10
3. The Quran, Women and Translation ..................................................................... 15
4. Defming Key Terms and Concepts ....................................................................... 21
5. Thesis Structure ................................................................................................... 24
Chapter 1: Women in Islam: Representations and Positions on Gender Roles ...... 30
1. Representations of the Muslim Woman ................................................................ 33
1.1. Images of the Muslim Woman in Western Media ...................................... 36
1.2. Muslim Women in Contemporary Anglo-American Literary Productions .. 40
2. Muslim Women's Readings and Interpretations of the Quran ............................... 48
2.1. The Conservative Perspective .................................................................... 48
2.2. Islamic Feminism and Woman-sensitive Interpretations ofthe Quran ........ 56
Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 64
Chapter 2: Women Quran Translators: Biographies and Selected Works ............. 66
Introduction ............................................................................................................. 66
1. Male-Female Team Translations .......................................................................... 68
2. Individual Translations ........................................................................................ 79
3. Western Women's Conversion to Islam: Social and Personal Challenges ............. 87
3.1. Social and Cultural Challenges .................................................................. 88
3.2. Personal Challenges .................................................................................. 95
4. Conversion, Hybridity and Quran Translation ...................................................... 98
Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 101
Chapter 3: The Paratexts in Women's Translations ofthe Quran: Challenges of
Visibility and Invisibility ......................................................................................... 103
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 103
1. Framing the Text through its Paratexts ............................................................... 106
2. Women's Translations of the Quran and the Online Paratexts ............................ 112
3. Reading Women Quran Translator's Peritexts .................................................... 118
3.1. The Symbolism of Book Covers' Colours ............................................... 118
3.2. Titles and Names of Women Quran Translators ...................................... 122
3.3. Prefaces and Introductions ...................................................................... 126
4. Women Quran Translators' Visibility/Invisibility: Reasons and Implications ..... 133
Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 143
Chapter 4: Translation Strategies in Women's Translations of the Quran .......... 146
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 146
1. French Translations of the Quran by Women ..................................................... 148
1.1. Fatma Zaida: Translating the Quran for Women ...................................... 152
1.2. Denise Masson's French Translation of the Quran ................................... 159
2. Translation Strategies in the English Versions .................................................... 165
3 . Verse versus Prose............................................................................................. 167
Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 174
Chapter 5: The Challenge of "Gender Balance" in and through Language. ......... 176
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 176
1. Woman, Language and Reality .......................................................................... 178
2. Transferring Feminine Imagery from Arabic into English .................................. 182
3. Male-Centred versus Gender-neutral or Inclusive Language .............................. 189
4. Translating the Word 'Allah' and its Pronouns ................................................... 199
4.1. Translating the Word 'Rabb' ................................................................... 204
4.2. Translating Pronouns Referring to Allah ................................................. 208
Chapter 6: Divided Loyalties: Women's Translation of Gender-Related Verses .215
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 215
1. Gender-related Verses: the Struggle for Meaning ............................................... 217
1.1. The Degree Verse (2:228) ....................................................................... 217
1.2. The Creation Verse (4:1) ......................................................................... 223
1.3. The Wife Beating Verse (4:34) ................................................................ 230
2. Women's Quran Translations: Divided Loyalties ............................................... 237
2.1. Women's Conservative Translations of the Quran ................................... 238
2.2. Woman-sensitive Translations of the Quran ............................................ 244
Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 251
Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 254
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Professor Shaheen Ali and
Dr John Gilmore for their valuable comments and feedback. I am also grateful to my
previous supervisors Dr Lynne Long and Dr Manav Ratti who helped and supported
me during the frrst years of this research.
Declaration
This thesis is my own work and has not been submitted for a degree at another
university. All references contained within this thesis have been correctly cited, and
the original authors acknowledged. Some sections contained in chapters 1, 3, and 5
have previously been explored in conferences, published or are in the process of
being published in academic journals. Other sections in other chapters have also
been previously discussed in my MA dissertation, however, for the purpose of this
thesis, that work has been expanded and ideas have been developed further.
Published sections:
Hassen Rim. "English Translations of the Quran by Women: The Challenge of
"Gender Balance" in and through Language." MonTI 3 (Woman and
Translation), 201 I.
Hassen, Rim. "Allah in Translation: The Feminine Perspective." In Other Words 35,
Norwich: British Centre for Literary Translation, 2010.
Hassen, Rim."Translating Women in Assia Djebar's Far From Madina."
Palimpsestes 22, Paris: Presse Sorbonne nouvelle, 2009.
Hassen, Rim. "The Online Paratexts and the Challenges of Translators' Visibility:
The Case of Women Translators of the Quran." New Voices, 2012.
Abstract
The study of gender as analytical tool in Translation Studies has highlighted
women's position as translators and creators of meaning and has opened the way for
questioning established realities, "truths" and norms created by the dominant male
voice. The aim of this research is to study four English translations of the Quran by
women: The Quran, Arabic Text with Corresponding English Meaning (1995) by
Umm Muhammad, The Light of Dawn (1999) by Camille Adams Helminski, The
Holy Quran: Translation with Commentary (2006) by Taheereh Saffarzadeh and The
Sublime Quran (2007) by Laleh Bakhtiar, in order to determine whether these
women translators are challenging or reproducing patriarchal gender hierarchies
through their renditions of the Sacred Text ofIslam. An important second thread is
to investigate the assumption that a translator's feminine gender automatically results
or leads inlto a woman-centred or feminist reading ofthe source text.
Considering that scholars working on gender and translation have focused on
various elements of the translation process, in this study, my research questions
revolve around four main areas, namely (1) the role of paratexts, (2) the extent of
interventions in the Sacred Text (3) linguistic choices, and fmally (4) interpretation
of gender-related terms. In order to address these questions, I will adopt a critical and
comparative analysis between the four individual English translations of the Quran
by women, the original Arabic text and, occasionally, other English versions
translated by men. The main fmdings reveal that there is a deep divide between
translations produced by women translators living in Muslim majority countries and
those living in the United States. Finally, this research suggests that the study of
women's role as translators of religious texts in different cultural, social and
religious settings could help produce a more nuanced and critical view of the impact
of the translator's gender on his/her work.
1
Introduction
In the last few decades there has been a considerable volume of academic research
focusing on the concept of gender in translation (Chamberlain 1988, von Flotow 1997
and Simon 1996). Even though gender remains a complex term, it has been mostly
viewed as a social and cultural construct shaped by various factors including class, race,
dominant discourses and power structures (while 'sex' is biologically determined).
Deborah Cameron for instance explains that "sex is a word used in connection with
biological characteristics that mark humans and other animals as either male or female,
whereas gender refers to the cultural traits and behaviors deemed appropriate for men or
women by a particular society" (2006: 724). Ruth Wodak also describes gender as a
multiple, fluctuating variable shaped in part by language. She adds that:
Gender is continually realized in interactional form. Gender is created not only in
the everyday activities which characterize 'doing gender,' but also in the asymmetry
of the relationship between the sexes, the dominance of the 'male' and its
normativeness (1997: 13).
Among the key implications of the consideration of gender as analytical tool in
Translation Studies have been the re-examination and the re-investigation of the ways
translators have approached women's writing in the past. One of the most quoted
examples is Howard Parshley's translation of Simone de Beauvoir's Le deuxieme sexe
(The Second Sex). Luise von Flotow (1997) for instance, discusses how the translator
deliberately left out entire sections dealing with influential women and omitted
discussions regarding women's daily lives and realities. As a result of Parshley's
mistranslation or manipulation, de Beauvoir's multiple layers of feminist meaning were
erased, which in turn affected her book's reception among the Anglo-American readers.
2
The exposure of male bias in the translation of women's writings highlighted the role of
gender in the translation process. It also forced women translators to reconsider their
gendered position and their role as creators of meaning. For instance, in her book
Gender in Translation: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission (1996) Sherry
Simon provides an extensive study of translations by women and explores the ways in
which women translators have contributed in creating new meanings and "new lines of
cultural communication" (Simon, 1996: viii). She underlines the importance of the
cultural turn in translation by stating that:
Cultural studies bring to translation an understanding of the complexities of gender
and culture. It allows us to situate linguistic transfer with the 'post' realities of
today: poststructuralim, postcolonialism and postmodernism (1996: 136).
In the case studies discussed in her book, Simon revalues women's contribution In
various fields of translations ranging from Constance Garnett's rendition of classical
texts from Russian literature, to Susanne Levine's feminist translation of Guillermo
Cabrera Infante's Tres tristes tigres. Simon also devotes a chapter to Bible translation
and discusses how women translators such as Mary Phil Korsak are exploring new
gender-egalitarian meanings of key religious terms such' Adam' and 'Rib,' in order to
challenge the notions of women's intrinsic inferiority.
The focus on women's position as translators and creators of meaning has, thus,
opened the way for questioning established realities, ''truths'' and norms created by the
dominant male voice. It has also highlighted the importance of "gender awareness" in
translation practice (von Flotow, 1997:14), which not only poses questions about male
bias in translation, but also raises questions about the links between social stereotypes
and language, about the politics of translation and the needs of contemporary readers. It
3
also underlines the importance of the socio-cultural contexts in which translations are
produced.
Taking this into consideration, the aim of this study is to test the extent of gender
awareness in translation by analysing women's English translations of the Quran. I seek
to investigate whether these translations are different or derived from the conservative
Islamic discourse, which promotes 'patriarchy' and unequal gender relations. Patriarchy
as defined by Carol Gilligan is a "hierarchy" that elevates men and places both children
and women under a father's authority (2003: 16). She also asserts that, in patriarchy,
fathers who stand at the top of the hierarchy, not only have direct access to power, but
also serve as the mediators and the interpreters of ''truth'' for those below (2003: 156).
Since translation plays a key role in the transmission of this ''truth,'' and since male
translators have historically positioned themselves as "guardians" of the "purity" of the
text (Chamberlain, 1988), this study aims to determine whether women Quran
translators are challenging or reproducing patriarchal gender hierarchies through their
renditions of the Sacred Text of Islam. An important second thread is to investigate the
assumption that a translator's feminine gender automaticaIly results or leads in/to a
woman-centered or feminist reading of the source text.
Given that scholars working on gender and translation have focused on various
elements of the translation process, in this study, my research questions revolve around
four main areas, namely (1) the role given to the paratexts, (2) the extent of interventions
in the Sacred Text (3) linguistic choices, and finally (4) women translators' readings of
gender-related terms. In order to address these questions, I will adopt a critical and
comparative analysis between the four individual English translations of the Quran by
