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Hello and welcome to your favorite podcast, new books in Islamic studies which operates online through the new books network. This is your host, Shail Alit Dereen. For each new episode, which was an important book in the broader field of Islamic studies and we chat with its author. Nha Jil Bala'da is among the most powerful, consequential, and linguistically brilliant masterpieces of Arabic and of Islamic thought and literature.
Based on the orations, letters, and sayings of wisdom, or for Ali ibn Ali Talib died 661, the first kamam or successor to Prophet Muhammad in Qiyi Islam and the 4th kalif in Sunni Islam. This oral treasure was compiled and brought together as a text by the late 10th or early 11th century scholar and poet Asharith Arathi died in 2015. In this episode, I speak with Professor Taha'i Rapot-Buddin, who has provided a majestic and brilliant complete English translation of Nha Jil Bala'da, title Nha Jil Bala'da, the Visiting and Eliquance of Ali, a parallel English Arabic text published open access by Bill Publishing. The publication of this volume is an event of seismic importance in the study of Islam, religion, and Arabic.
What would the instance translation is animated with the purpose of rendering the Arabic text of Nha Jil Bala'da in English in a fashion that amplifies its literary and philosophical potency. It asks at which she excels throughout the translation. The experience of reading this translation is nothing short of a deeply moving, philosophically enriching, and linguistically powerful, rap city. In addition to an eminently user-friendly translation with the particular sections in Women's of Nha Jil Bala'da clearly marked out, Puddin also presents an erudite account of the text's reception, reception history.
And archival density. This outstanding volume will also be a joy to teach and be used as a primary source material in the range of courses of Islam, religion, Arabic, and the humanities more broadly. Here now is my conversation with Professor Taha'i Rapot-Buddin. Welcome, Taha'i Rapot-Buddin.
At the New Books Network, New Books and Islamic Studies, I am so honored and privileged to be talking to you about this incredible work, which is a work, obviously anyone who goes through this, even a quarter of it, will realize the extensive time and research and just the painstaking effort. The efforts that have gone into this majestic book, which will be not only of use and a part of conversation in the study of Islam and the academy, but really for both Muslims and non-Muslims alike for that matter, it really has a piece of translation and analysis is something quite remarkable and landmark. So we have a tradition on the New Books Network, I think this is your first time being on the New Books Network. So we have a tradition that our first question is always biographical and we will ask you that question is a two-part question, which is if you could share a bit with our listeners about how you became a scholar of Islam first and then a little bit about how did you come to doing this project.
Good afternoon, Janelli and good afternoon to everyone who's listening. Thank you so much for inviting me to this podcast. I'm really, really pleased to be to have the opportunity to share my work and my thoughts with you and with all your listeners and to be part of this lovely project that has so many other incredible works that you have highlighted on them. So you asked about my biography and how I got to this project and you know I first encountered Imam Ali's wisdom and eloquence in classes.
I took as a child in India with my Lord and Father Sayyidna, because I'm not a good dean and my siblings and I would memorize a saying and he would explain his life lessons. So Allahi Muirah, Satunkari, Mahatma Alvinah, Alakalah, Muhan, Beshtron, Beshtronah, Phanak, Dumayyad, Laiyan Phaitan. Knowledge is the best legacy, the best wealth is intelligence, a believer is always cheerful, contentment is a treasure that never ends up and so on and so on and so on. And this lesson sparked for me and enduring passion and I began academic work with Nashubalah, Ainshab Siyur, where I wrote my master's thesis on its ethical and historical themes.
Then in my first year in Harvard's PhD program, Professor Roemothahai they showed me a facsimile edition of an 11th century AD manuscript that was owned by the Mahatmaashir Library in form. And I wrote to them the very generously Sakhmyakapi and that was actually the beginning of my Nashubalah manuscript collection. And then, you know, I can't, I thought about writing my PhD dissertation itself on Iman Ali's life and teachings before I realized that I, it was, you know, what was I thinking, I needed to go slowly in approaching such a complex topic. And then over the years I published studies and critical editions and translations of Ali's words including, for example, a treasure of virtues and 100 proverbs and I continued to gather manuscripts.
And finally, in the past decade, I focused on editing and translating Nashubalah and the result is the volume we're discussing right now in Hungary and I feel very blessed. Wonderful. So I thought it was the first question, you know, although Nashubalah of course is a very well-known name for both students and scholars of Islam, Muslims more widely. But I still think that it would be really useful for our listeners to learn a bit about the, what I might call the basics of the text, what is it, what kind of components does it have in terms of the forms of discourse.
And I learned a lot from your introduction and just the way you present the text and lay out its architecture a bit. So maybe we can begin with a broad question of could you share a bit with our listeners in introduction to the text itself, what is it, what components does it have, how is it compiled and how does it reach us. Thank you, Sherri leaders. Several important questions here and I'll answer them one by one.
So first, what is Nashubalah? Nashubalah is a celebrated medieval compilation of the words of Ali Mabit-Alib, first Jewry Imam and fourth Sunni Caleb, and one of the most revered leaders in Islam. And it's one of the most influential texts of the Arabic Islamic literary heritage. It's widely acclaimed as a masterpiece of Arabic literature and as a font of Islamic wisdom and it's been avidly cited, studied, commented on and memorized across the Islamic world, continually for more than a thousand years.
Accolates for Ali's with words would fill volumes, but you know, it's enough to say that friend and four light have paid homage. So Ali's follower, there are a nationally, for example, declared that wisdom spoke upon his tongue, Canada, think much, or tongue, and the chance re-head of the intensely anti-ali to my yads, who's venerated as a father of Arabic prose, abil hamidah, katip, credited his training and eloquence to memorizing the orations of Ali. And finally, the ultimate tribute is paid in the lines of several Najab-al-Aghar commentators, Sonia and Shiri-alayk, in which Ali's words are extol, as being quote, below the words of the creator, and above the words of this creature, Duna Kalamikhelik, Mafoh R ala Miklupin. Mohammad Apto, which is well known to many of us, Graham of Jesus of Egypt, died in 1905, wrote a commentary on the Najab-al-Aghar, and he said in his introduction, and I quote, I was, I felt this Muhammad Apto.
and studying Najubalaara, the Sizmhamadatta again, are essential to those who seek the precious gems of Arabic and wish to rise in its ranks. All right, so that's generally a quick encapsulation of what's the Najubalaara next. I want to address your question about the book's discursive components. So Najubalaara is a collection of texts, mostly excerpts ranging roughly from a few lines to a page or two, and it's divided into three genre-based chapters of orations, letters, and sayings.
And into these three chapters are integrated texts from subsidiary genres, testaments, supplications, questions and answers and counsel to individuals. A sub-chapter contains nine lines with rare words, khalib. And the compilation is prefaced with Rati's introduction, explaining the prompt for his undertaking, his method of compiling, and the immense value of the contents. Now, Ali's words, including force and foremost, is dazzling orations, as well as its bithi sayings and magisterium letters, span a wide spectrum of preaching, philosophy, and government.
They offer profound refictions on the majesty of the creator, fervent warnings on the transience of the world, and urgent exhortations to prepare for the imminent hereafter. They encompass pious sermons, counseling virtue, honest directives to cultivate the intellect and reverent praise for the graphic Muhammad. The animated rousing battle and political speeches in which they passionately maintained righteousness, they instructed strict dispatches to tax collectors in which they urge compassion, they inscribed erudite letters to governors in which they demand justice, and they contain a host of timeless maxims offering religious pragmatic and character building wisdom. And if you permit to run again, because it's important, I think to get across a wide range of Najubala's contents, I'll just say a little bit more about the diversity of the contents.
Before I go on to the next bit. So, I'm sure absolutely. Yeah. Thank you.
So Najubala's themes fall into two intertwining areas, history and teachings. Historical material is grounded in the last four years of Ali's life, when he ruled as Caleb of the Muslim Empire. And these decks depict the ethos of Ali's time. They contain subtleties of event trajectories, particularly Ali's accession to the caliphate and his battles.
And they offer nuanced portraits of historical personalities above all of Ali himself, but also of influential individuals not from his caliphate. They present contextual shades in political and of final positions, including pro-Rashil and pro-Suni stances, as well as the evolution of the pharygites and several texts from Ali's caliphate refer to all your events. And they include copious praise for the prof. Mohammed tribute to Mohammed's first supporters and a eulogy to Ali's wife, Fatimah.
And in addition to actual data, the texts portray, and this is, I think, really important. It was important for me in kind of getting a window into Ali's world, that the texts portray the personal struggle, and they bring to relieve the human aspect of Ali's history and his impression of events and people. And that's the first, so that's the first kind of the thematic area of history. The second large content area comprises Ali's teachings, and it includes facets of doctrine, philosophy, ethics, counsel, and practical wisdom.
Growing up, Ali grew up under Mohammed's care, and he was continuously exposed to the Qur'anic revelation. So his words are permeated by its vocabulary and themes, and they urge worship of the creator, they promote awareness of the transience of human life, and they highlight the urgent need to prepare for the imminent. Hereafter, they combine piety with virtue, they exhort truth, gratitude, and patience, and they extol the benefits of living a modest and temperate life. They take the middle ground between secular humanism and insular faith, and advocate an inseparable blend of individual devotion and dynamic social engagement.
I've written some articles on several of these aspects in much more detail, but I'd like to, I'm just trying to give you, if I may, a kind of broad sketch of the various thematic ideas that you encounter as you can go through the text. So, additionally, and consistently, these texts that Najobala Ha-had-x highlight the eminence of reason and learning. Many texts feature a detailed parsing of God's transcendent oneness. Many describe the marvels of God's creation, mostly the heavens, the earth, and the human being, but also in a couple of texts, the peacock, the bat, the ant, and several texts laud the stature of the prophet's family.
Some contain acute observations of human behavior. Many portray the art of just leadership, and they predicate true justice on compassion, wisdom, integrity, pluralism, and most of all, accountability to God. They advocate for the socially disadvantaged, they preach kindness to animals, of few contain legal rulings, judgments pronounced by Ali for actual cases, yet others are supplications, and they implore God's forgiveness and aid, one race for rain, one at the start of battle, be sieges God's protection and victory, and one a daily morning prayer contains thanks and entreaties, and three texts expound specific for onverses. And in some, the teachings of Ali, I learned philosopher, a pious ascetic, a just leader, a governing caliph, a brave warrior, and an astute commander bring together disparate elements of the human experience.
So, that's, I said a lot about the contents, and I can, you know, I like to move on, if I may, to, you know, you asked about the compiler, Shailani. Absolutely, Shaili for the other. So, the compiler of the Neshwalaqah is a distinguished, Dvashilih Thincar. His name is Shaili Falaqah, he died in 1015 AD, and Shaili Falaqah was, you know, in addition to being a scholar, he was also prominent political personation, the Abbasi poet, Ral.
He was appointed chief of the Brafum-Mahamas descendants, Nasnath and he also served as director of the annual Hachpil Grimage and as chief judge over the Madalim or petitioner appeal court. And as a scholar, there are 16 substantial works that he produced, and they include a poetry, Dvun, Bel-Lakris anthologies, and works of his features, food, its grammar, and literary studies of the Islamic scriptures. Most of these are very literary in major, especially famous are among his prose works, or the man in Quran, the Majazet, Quran, and Majazet, and Bawiya that talk about the creative language in the holy scriptures. Radi is, as many of you may know, he's best known for his compilation of Najabalaq, but High praise is also recorded for his poetry and his wide ranging books, the eminent Liskatoh, Thalibi, for example, cause him the most brilliant poet of his age, and the famous historian Rati Babakhtadi describes Radi's book on Quranic themes as one whose beer is difficult to find, and both by the way are Sunni scholars, and in fact Ibn Halika, who's ironically otherwise one of Radi's main detractors writes that the Quranic themes book demonstrates Radi's vast knowledge of grammar and phenomenology.
And moving on, if I may finally to the last part of your question, which is a really important question, how do Arni's words reach us? So if I missed a powerful moment and kind of start out by saying that Ali lived in a predominantly oral society, where writing, though known, was rare, and it was reserved for important documents. So most materials from his time were transmitted orally over a few generations until they were systematically recorded in the late 8th century AD. So the question before us is were the contents of Najabalaq actually spoken by Arni?
The issue is complicated, but my short answer to the question is that yes, many of its texts have a high probability of being genuine remnants. Although some texts are likely of later provenance, several are almost certainly authentic, some with interpolations and some even verbatim. I think I've made a strong case for the historicity of early oration, the Hothwa, which is the major genre in Najabalaq in my previous monograph Arabic oration art and function. And the evidence for my position includes in summary early and wide provenance of the materials or robust system of oral transmission, aided by built-in mnemonic or memory aid devices, subsidiary channel of written notation.
And especially it's important to know that by the time of Ali's game of it, which is two decades after the era of conquest, writing had increased significantly in Iraq and Syria. And therefore, there's much more writing than we see, even just 20 years earlier. And there's also, therefore, a swift and quite serendipitous transition from a predominantly oral culture to a highly literate one. I think I also want to make it a point to point out that the authenticity question applies almost equally to all artistic work materials from the oral period of pre- and sporli's law.
So to poetry, Hothwa's, Hadi's history, even the Quran, not just to Ali's vote and not just to Najabalaq. And to determine probable authenticity, we need to assess individual texts rather than the compilation as a whole, based on early and wide provenance and compatibility with the literary and historical milieu of Ali's time. In my introduction to Najabalaq, I've discussed the widespread recording of Ali's words in the earliest works of historians, literatures, and compilers, such as Minharii, Misha, Madhya, Niwakadi, Aqobiyam, Pabari, and many others. And it's important to note that Radi compiled Najabalaq in 1010, so 80 over three centuries after Ali.
But he's coming from written texts, not from oral reports. So most Najtecs are found in audi books of disparate disciplines and denominations. And I've built in this module on the works of scholars such as Aqobiyam, because I need to provide an updated 50 page list of sources for its texts. And you know, at the end of the day, whether you agree with me or not that much of the books, the contents are genuine, what everyone can agree on is that in the view of the earliest Muslim authors, Najabalaqan captures the unparalleled wisdom and eloquence of Ali.
So I like to see the class as half-form. Yeah, and I've been with the non-word, answer to a very rich question, Shailani. Thank you so much. That was such a wonderful and comprehensive account.
I have a couple more questions I want to ask before we get to the translation itself. I'm sure listeners are really eager to get to that section. I just want to ask a couple more questions before we get there. I was really, really fascinated and not only fascinated, but thoroughly impressed and overall, I guess, is the right word here by the degree of research that has gone into the making of this translation.
It's an obvious point that a translation is not just a translation from one language to another, but it requires a lot of archival work. So I just want to ask you a question with which listeners might learn a bit more about the archival work and the kind of painstaking research that went into this translation. And you focus on five different manuscripts in different parts of the world, different libraries that then become the main kind of discursive fodder for your own translation. Maybe briefly, could you speak a bit about these five manuscripts?
And I guess even more so, I'm interested in having you talk a little more to our listeners about the kind of back process that went into the stipulation of the text on which then you produced the translation. And thank you, my gosh. And this was such a joy to work with these manuscripts. And every time I found a few manuscripts, I'm like, wow, that's wonderful.
That's such such a lovely gift to receive. But it was also one of the most challenging parts of this work. I mean, the edition was just, it was a joy to do what was a huge challenge. So because Neshibh, I like such a famous text, there are over 500 manuscripts in world libraries or the manuscripts.
And as you know, and as artists know, the most manuscript, more manuscripts are of a text, the more complex the task of editing. So I, you know, initially focused on identifying which manuscripts I wanted to use. Obviously, it's not, sometimes when you have just for the still line of a hiccup, I had just three manuscripts that I found anywhere. And you know, that was good, but it was also not good.
Right? So the more manuscripts that you have, and the earlier the better manuscripts you have, the better edition, the more accurate edition you can produce, but it's also just challenging to first of all, just to identify the best ones. So I collected around 25 very early manuscripts, and I chose the earliest 14. And these manuscripts are valuable not only because of their early provenance, but also because of their eminent genealogies.
And I took the most important five as my primary manuscripts. So I want you to keep in mind that roughly finished compiling Neshibhala in 1010 AD. And my first primary manuscript, which is located in the Shahastani library in Baghdad, is probably to be dated 1015 or 1016. So just a few years after roughly, in fact, roughly died in 1016 at that time.
And this is perhaps the earliest manuscript of the dating is correct. And next, the Marashi Library manuscript in Rome is dated 1077 AD. And that has been checked against the manuscript that had been read out to the compiler of Turati. The third Naseidh library manuscript in Tehran is dated 1101 AD, and it's also a very early manuscript.
The Rampur Resilai pre- manuscript in India was copied from the famous scholar Fadalalalal Arawendiz 1158 AD manuscript. And that was checked. The Arawendi manuscript was checked against also against Nadi's autograph copy. And the fifth primary manuscript, the final primary manuscript, which is in Tehran University library, as dated 1212.
It was copied from the Reynolds scholar Ayakobis 1018 manuscript. And this too was checked against Radi's autograph copy. So three of them were checked against Radi's autograph copy. And there are several of them which were kind of written and copied by very important scholars.
Another one, I mean, also to point out that these manuscripts are all over the world. So these five are from the places that I mentioned. You have lots of manuscripts, more manuscripts in India, Iran, and Iraq, but also lots of manuscripts, important manuscripts, beautiful manuscripts in Turkey. And many in the world, you know, European libraries, one of my secondary manuscripts is from the Justrabiri, like in Ireland, for example, in Dublin.
And in terms of the process, so as you all know very well, an editor chooses between textual variants and the manuscript history of the Najj is very complicated. Each of the manuscripts passed through numerous hands. So despite best efforts to untangle, studied notices and call for this really difficult to tease out what corrections were made, when they were made, by whom they were made, and what other manuscripts were used to make them. It's also difficult to ascertain the original transcription from a later correction.
Another layer of complexity is added by, you know, rather himself. So we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we were grateful to him for combining this one for work, but you know, he could have made our job so much simpler. So what he did did was he left spaces at the end of each of his three chapters for himself or for others to transcribe additional texts. And scholars appear to have done so, and so we've thus mixed up these texts with later ones.
And most of, you know, previous great editions and even the view of recent editions that have come out that are critical, have not identified the additional texts. And my, my edition is, I think, is the first to identify the, the, the donations and the ledger. So again, in, in, in, in detailing my process a little bit, I've identified four matrices with which to categorize the manuscripts, including particularly the various and the sequence of operations which are different in two groups of manuscripts. And I've constructed a family tree to show the relationships between my 14 manuscripts and the relative chronology in the stem suggests possible parentage.
I mean, the thing is from the late 1800s. So mine is not the first printing, nor even the first critical edition. From the late 1800s, Nashubala has been printed many times, mostly in trade editions, which don't mention manuscripts at all. And their texts contain unflagged insertions of headings and phrases, as well as numerous errors, mostly these mistakes are banal, but a couple are quite egregious.
And, you know, I've detailed them if you're interested in it, and you can look at that in my volume. In the past decade, critical editions have been published by a thought in Rome and Hashemi Lani in Najaf. And these are, you know, welcome and very accurately quite accurate, but they've not consulted several of my early manuscripts, nor do they construct a semi or layout methodology. And so I believe I've constructed the cross to best version of Nashubala Khah, or we can hope to attend.
If you can, you know, I should have mentioned earlier, but for listeners, let's report to emphasize that this book is open access from real and good host to real for making that available. One final question before we get to the translation itself, which is, I really wanted to ask you about the sort of translation, one could call it theory or the translation, the thought process and method that went into this translation. You know, one thing I was really, really impressed by is the way in which the Arabic clearly has this kind of a ferocity, combined with very advanced use of language, individual words, oftentimes being quite complex and rare. But, you know, the kind of the flow, the discursive flow and ferocity, the discursive flow and ferocity of the Arabic really comes across really brilliantly in the English.
So clearly, there is a lot of thoughts that has gone into how you would go about doing this translation. I was wondering if you could share a bit with our listeners briefly your own thought process, what kind of priorities did you have in mind when you went about this translation? Yeah, thank you, Sharon. That's very kind.
And that is very interesting the way you describe the translation as, you know, as having ferocity. It is, in fact, also most, according to oral theory scholars, speeches or theory of materials are what they call, I mean, the technical term is agonistic and they're producing a particular context where an orator is trying to persuade his audience, usually it's his audience to a certain mode of action and process of thought and so on. So there is that, you know, if you, there is that sense, I mean, the Arabic is that part with words like Allah, like, like, like, Harakharken, and then it's very intense in a way. And so the challenge was really, you know, immense before me.
And I know, I don't think anyone can really do justice to this, just absolutely beautiful text, the Arabic text of the name of Ali's words. But, you know, I get my best job, I hope I've done a little bit to bring it to, you know, bring the brilliance of the text of it to life in the translation. So I also want to say that, you know, I, you know, I, in my overall, in my academic journey, I have learned so much from so many people. And my first book on my other, she does, I translate a lot of his poems, and I go back and look at them.
This is from 2005, I think, you know, I'm happy that it seems mostly accurate translation, but it's quite pedantic. And it's, if I could go back and redo them, I would really, you know, kind of bring to bear all the things that I've learned across this journey. And from so many, you know, importantly, you know, translators and people who have shared their wisdom with me. And it's, you know, in the volumes that I did with the Library of Early Literature, also Shokatunawa was my volume editor there.
James Montgomery has been really helpful, Devin Stewart for this, and he read the entire project and gave me really excellent feedback. And the word Hark is his suggestion. I went through several iterations for Allah, like I said, no, no, no, that doesn't work. And listen, exclamation point, that also doesn't work so well.
And then Devin came up with this brilliant idea. Anyway, so coming to now, you know, I want to say a little bit about my own kind of journey in translating this and what is what is my methodology, what kind of tools that I bring to are the ones that I thought were important. I think it's when you translate something, obviously, you know, all of us do it, whether or not we translate a book, we always translate materials that we incorporate into our articles and our monographs and so on. So we do it all the time.
But very few people, I think, really think about the process of translation and what we're trying to achieve and who our audience is. So if your audience is not our audience, if you're not trying to produce a crib for the Arabic, which I was not, I was trying to produce, you know, a readable English text prose that spoke to, you know, folks who knew English in the same way that the Arabic would have spoken to the original audience. And the goal was to kind of keep the force of the original and also the lucidity and the directors of the original. So the way I did this was, first of all, you know, I spent many, many years just taking a long and deep dive into the text itself.
The first thing is to understand the text. And this is not by any means an easy text. And that way, maybe we don't we don't. So I want to take a quick assignment say we don't necessarily understand of the Arabic immediately.
I think most of us would have to call the commentaries or lexicons to kind of look up words. But for the original audience, and this was a public audience, the point was that they should understand it. So it should be lucid and kind of directly accessible to everybody in the audience. And that's when I strove to replicate in the English as well.
So I took it back to kind of the point about understanding the text. I, you know, carefully read all of the major commentaries. I collated the vast history and literature of the early Islamic period as much as I could. And there are two hiding principles that drove my methodology.
I outlined them in the introduction to the volume as well in more detail. But let me summarize that here. So first to quote Aristotle, the whole is always greater or should be greater than the sum of its parts. And I think that word by word translation fails to capture the clear simplicity of any sex positions.
And it can lead to a meaningless conglomeration of high sounding words. And this has happened in several prior editions, which incidentally were all produced via previous version translation, so not directly from the Arabic. And it's important instead for a translator to read each Arabic sentence as a single unit, to try and understand Ali's deep concepts with all their rich nuances, and then render them forcefully into court and English. At the same time, it's also important to bear in mind the context.
So the historical political, religious, literary, cultural, and literary context, which is crucial for accurate translation. That's my first principle is, you know, sentence by sentence translation rather than word by word. My second principle is to maintain as far as possible the aesthetic spirit of the original. So this is I think a desert item for literary texts, particularly, because there, you know, it's the content, the meaning, but you can't really divorce the content and the meaning from the language, the words, the sound, the song explain.
So I tried to preserve the rhythm of in the transition, especially the parallelism and the basic agencies of the Arabic words. And by the way, you know, so here's a very small, a very specific graphic point that I'd like to pernation share with you. So, you know, it's really tempting to add words in the translation for one every word you want to add, you know, do you want to get three or four words to kind of get all of the, to bring out all the associations of the Arabic work, right, in the social language? So, because it has many associations that the English word doesn't necessarily capture.
But you know, I realized that if you do that, you lose the bitiness. So there's a given take here, you have to make choices, you have to win, you know, be willing to, as some wise translator once told me, you can be willing to lose many battles in order to win the war. So in my final revisions, I just went through my translations and slashed most, most adjectives and qualifiers, the purpose being to maintain the trust, bitiness of these utterances, and we have to choose which goals to prioritize. And in terms of their preserving the aesthetic spirit of the original, I was also keen to keep the culture specific imagery intact and not substitute it with foreign or anachronistic renderings.
I wanted to bring out the desert and camel metaphors that underpinned the vocabulary, especially the verbs, which I think most prior translators have the rest of or flattened. So, you know, keep the camel's humb, keep the camel inside and the desert inside of the translation as much as possible. If it works in the English, sometimes it just doesn't, then you have to let go. But I think that the end of it is that to preserve the granular kind of feel and rhythm of the original Arabic.
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Now let's get to the translation itself. And just for the benefit of listeners, the Arabic English, you know, both side by side and it's around 800 page in Hong translation divided into these three sections that you spoke about, the orations, the letters and then the sayings. So, what we will do now is actually look at some specific extracts and moments from this translation so that listeners can get a good feel for the text itself in translation mostly. And before we get to any specific parts that I wanted you to maybe start with, this is a very interesting category of orations that you talk about, that you translate also, these are category of a Shepherd Pia that you very nicely translate as the role of the camel's scallion.
Could you briefly talk a little bit about this category? What is it and what is it's significance and why is it sometimes seen as controversial? Maybe that's could be a point of departure and then we'll look at other possible moments. Yeah sure, no thank you.
It's good to be planted I guess. So, let me clarify though, what do you mean by this category of research? Do you want me to kind of talk about the Shepherd Pia or about the Shepherd Pia and some others? The Shepherd Pia, the first one is the Shepherd Pia for now.
Yes, right. All right. So, first of all, what is the Shepherd Pia oration? Right, it's the name, it's some of the orations some of the footbuds in Najabala are given names and the names are obviously given by later folk at some point.
So, this particular one and some of it, so, and these are like five maybe I can't remember exactly how many that have names that are somewhat lengthier than the others. So, the Shepherd Pia footbae is named as such as as such, it's named the roar of the Kamestalian because at the end of the report Ali uses the word shikshikah, he himself uses the word shikshikah to characterize his footbae. So, the report goes that Ali delivered to the Sermon on the member of Gofa toward the end of his state of it and while he was speaking, a visitor from the countryside handed him a petition and Ali passed to look at it and when he'd finished reading Abba Labna Bess was Ali's cousin and governor whose present there, asked him to continue where he had left off and Ali replied and I quote, that was the roar of a Kamestalian that pushed and subsided he had, he had not best tikshikah shikah toun hadaat sumah karat and I interpreted this statement to me that Ali said what he said in the heat of the moment but overall in public he has chosen to be circumspect, so this is an unusual way in which he you know said some of the things that he said here. But at the same time, I mean and I want to go to to now the content and the controversy.
So, the original is controversial because of its political content and because Ali is reported to have claimed in it his right to Muhammad succession and it's the footbae starts by saying I am the pivot to its grinding stone. But you know what I want to I always like to point out is that Ibn Yisham, al-Brahi ibn al-Brahi ibn al-Brahi ibn al-Brahi ibn al-Brahi, so for example and these are five famous and respected Ali Sunni scholars also cite sermons, conversations and letters by Ali from scale of it and from earlier also during the Surah Council deliberations that in all of these other authors works also contain very similar themes and very similar language and also large parts of the shikshikah itself are recorded much before Ali by the only Sunni Mahatazari author Abu Qasim al-Balki who died in 931 AD and by the Shafi Ali Ashawi scholar Mamma Tiri who died in 971. The thing is you know with as in this particular Hupa as in several other Hupas, the texts are agreed upon by you know most people Sunni Anshia and there are many many Sunni Anshia commentators who don't question the attribution to Ali but their interpretation differs. So the shi al-Nashawalaka commentators read this Hupa as proof of Ali Simehamit while the Sunni commentators including for example Ibn ibn Abil Hadid and Sheikh Muhammad Apto they read it as an articulation of Ali's superiority or the deal over the other companions of the Prophet.
I think you know it appears that it was almost three centuries after Ali when the Syrian historian Ibn Khaliqah forced to raise doubts about the complacent's authenticity and at that time it began to be viewed in some quarters as a shi quote unquote a quote for Cidicist text and several pro-Nashawalaka Damascus authors including Nautib Ali, Nithaimiya followed Ibn Khaliqah's lead but this limited group of detractors notwithstanding Anshawalaka continues to be memorized, studied and cited across wide reaches of the Islamic world and I have a forthcoming article titled, it's sort of, it's maybe it's a controversial title also, the title is Nhatib Ali's text, in situas labels and academia's myths of objectivity and I argue there that Nance Malaraha is a text for everybody and anyways I invite you to read details of my argumentation there. Wonderful one thing that was really fascinating for me in reading the orations and something you've already mentioned here is how they combine some very specific details in terms of particular moments, battles, people, events and then these very broad macro philosophical reflections and how it goes back and forth between this micro and the macro. So what I want to do now is maybe read aloud from a few extracts, give you a short break dialogue and from the orations and of course as I said these are around 430 pages so we of course will choose some very specific ones that I found particularly captivating and use them as case studies to give our listeners a sense of the translation itself and I will keep on giving the page number and the number of the orations. Another thing I should mention here is this book is so reader-friendly I mean it's so nicely marked so in each section has one, two, three the orations, the letters, the sayings and then which number it comes corresponds to is also marked so listeners will I think be facilitated in terms of finding it in the text if they wish to pursue that.
So the first two orations that I want to read out are concerned with Usman the third caliph in Sunnislam and both are very interesting orations. The first one is on page 153 and this is oration number 1.30 and it goes as follows this is from Dyera's translation from words Ali spoke about with Marn's assassination if I had commanded it I would be a killer if I had forbidden it I would be a supporter in truth the supporter cannot claim that he's more righteous than the detractor while the detractor would not be correct in saying that the supporter is more righteous than he is let me summarize the situation for you. Usman misappropriated and that was wrong you responded with violence and that was also wrong both the one who misappropriated and the one who responded with violence will face God's judgment. The next oration also concerning Usman comes on page 197 and this is oration number 1.71 and this again is Naira's translation.
The context is of this oration from Ali's address to the Shura council when they resolved to pledge allegiance to Usman as the next caliph and now this is the translation. You know full well that I have more right to the caliphate than anyone else I will concede but by God I will continue to do so only for as long as the concerns of the Muslims remain unharmed. As long as the injustice is directed solely at me I do so in the hope of God's reward and recompense and in disnast for the endonments and splendor for which you are. And the last example I want to read aloud is a really interesting example because it not only talks about a very important historical moment in the Battle of the camel but there is a very interesting edition by the compiler Ashari Faradhi which shows the way in which the historical analysis the philosophical reflection but also the linguistic interventions of this text how they come together.
So this is from page 153 again and oration number 1.31 and this is from Ali from words Ali spoke just before the fighting began at the Battle of the camel when he sent up the line of Abbas to urge Zoubair to return to the fold of obedience Ali said don't speak with al-ha for you will find him a bull with twisted horns a man who rides a refractory beast and swears it is docile speak instead with Zoubair whose hump is softer and say to him your cousin Ali says to you you acknowledged me in Madina and rejected me in Iraq what turn you from what you deemed good and then Aradhi adds the the edition Ali was the first to use the expression Mahada min Mahada what turn you from what you deemed good so I'm not asking a specific question but just have you reflect a bit on these three example orations maybe the process of your translation if you could speak a bit about the significance of these insertions by Aradhi on the question of al-havic and a certain kind of canonization of a notion of you know high al-havic is also at work and just whatever you might find striking in these examples if you could just share your thoughts a bit with our listeners from these three examples yeah sure thank you thank you for reading them out and and it's it's you know it as you say that there is so much history in there but there's also the very very important literary aspect and that you know the in his introduction tells us that he when this is what he says I've decided to name this book Nashu Balaar which translates literally as the way of eloquence and he says for it opens doors of eloquence for its readers and helps them acquire its tools in it both scholar and student can find something that speaks to them and through it both or later and renunciate can fulfill their desires so he may he causes for much balaar particular because that is the kind of the main lens in addition to the wisdom aspect that he also talks about in his intro you know he's bringing the lens of eloquence and that's why he's choosing particular particular excerpts particular pieces particular book buzz and within book buzz particular lines from them to inscribe in his book and the last one that you read out for example you know is a perfect example of you know a set of lines that is really filled with just such strong imagery right so in the way Ali characterizes the ha a bull with twisted horns a man who rides a refractory beast of squares it is dossar and then zubai and characterizing him as a butterna's hump is softer and so I mean just connecting this with you know what I was saying earlier about the the keeping intact the imagery that is present in the the Arabic or trying to preserve it as much as possible in a way that makes sense in in English and to English readers as well but what's also I think what just struck me as you were reading it out here Ali is that you know Radi when he comments on this passage doesn't comment on the bull with twisted horns and the soft hump and whatnot yeah he only chooses for him maybe I don't know I don't know if that's you know what he's thinking you know but maybe he finds those kinds of literary expressions just very common throughout the entirety of the entire event balaaha it's just filled with these beautiful images so the only thing he comments on here particularly is this mahadami mabada which he says you know it's the first time anyone said this so this is a kind of he's presenting and perhaps a proverb does something that becomes a proverb and the etiology of that proverb is how it was initially first said and then people started using it afterward going you know very quickly to the other two let's see so 130 if I commanded it I would be a killer and so again you know very precise language uh lo amato be la conto patil and unhaetou anhu la conto nase ran and paralen in its in its structure formation so you start with the lo and then in the second phrase oh like both uh or you know sounds they have the same verbal kind of sound uh there's a sorry at the same um um you know lo and out ending and then you have amato and hato so two kind of uh past tense verbs in the same structure position and then be he and anhu and then la conto is repeated in each and then you have cottil and nase ran and they don't try with such a but and there are other places where there is an a line but in this particular place there isn't but there's still kind of morphologically equivalent in in the formation with cottil and nosin in the faerian form and then so that's one one aspect of the parallelism and I try to maintain that parallelism in the translation so I say if I commanded it I would be a killer if I had forbidden it I would be a supporter and in this particular line is a great I'm so glad you chose it shirally because it really it really you you here I was really able to do a almost exact rendering of the arabic into the english and to keep the parallelism and the patina center force you know from kind of take one from and then transpose it to to the other and last thing that I want to maybe maybe mention here is that there's very much you know in Annie's words here and many places elsewhere there's kind of very you know logical almost or syllogistic almost like if this then that you know and he kind of breaks it up into various uh uh logical components it's like if you did this then you dislike and if then kind of sentences that kind of logically lead you to the conclusion which in this case is that you know whoever did wrong both this and that this version and that was anyone who did wrong will face uh god's judgment I just want to make a very brief comment about what you said before we go to the next example I think you know the larger point that you make I guess more directly in the forthcoming article that you talk about why this text should not just be seen as specifically a showy text you know is you know nothing else the difference of the text we are with language and whether these insertion they really shows ways in which the sort of even the non-itive horizons of a text like this is not just limited to these questions like they're in questions of you know how we interpret the battle of camel and so on but the the the horizons of this text extend much further that should be of great interest to any student of Islam not limited to any particular group the next example I want to focus on and this really beautifully I think conveys one aspect of your translation that I think perhaps was the most repetitively punctuated for me as a reader of which your English translation is not literal but it is idiomatic and it carries the power of the Arabic foreign English reader so as an example of that I want to read aloud this is page 175 and this is oration number 1.51 and this concerns Wawia another figure who's shadow is quite predominant throughout the text but that's not the reason I've picked this one I will come back to the question from Wawia later but this is from Ali's address and Wawia's army prevailed over his by the Euphrates and blocked their access to water and this is the text by this act they beg to be fed the rituals of war you can either accept defeat and retreat or quench your swords as thirst for blood and your thirst for water death to a life that accepts defeat exclamation mark life in reality is in a fighter's death exclamation mark heart my words exclamation mark Wawia leads a band of fools and end-seals by muddying reports of what happened he has received them into exposing their throats to fates arrows now the part of this translation that really struck me especially when you sort of read it parallel with the with the Arabic is this wonderful translation you have this very powerful sentence death to a life that accepts defeat life in reality is in a fighter's death Falmouth of the Hayatekum bakurin well Hayatekum pahiri and clearly you see you know your translation of this phrase as death to a life that accepts defeat life in reality is in a fighter's death of how the power of that statement is captured precisely by not doing a you know exactly literal translation in terms of you know the pronouns Hayatekum etc. I just want to take this example for you to maybe comment a bit more about this aspect of the translation of how these powerful moments in the text are carried through this kind of a translation and how you made this a possible what challenges did you face in doing that and this your commentary on this on this translation yeah thank you Shirelle for picking this out it's a lovely example to pick out of just Ali's very powerful language right so in Arabic if you say from Moto the Hayatekum makurin and so what is there certain aspects of the of the Arabic that I have maintained and other aspects you know grammatically and so on that I've changed so in terms of maintaining what I have maintained is the kind of emphasis on the main two words here which is death and life and starting with from Moto the Hayatekum so death to a life that accepts it and then life in reality is in fighter's death so you kind of entered you know alternate started death and with life I started life and with death and that's kind of sort of maintaining the the dichotomy that is presented very starkly in the Arabic what I have done here is you know I've added the word for example that accepts defeat so makurin is there saying I don't know what what could I have said like I probably had something else that I changed it here so initially when I transferred Moto the Hayatekum makurin and if you were to do a very literature translation you would say something like you know death is in your living in a defeated manner or something like that but the point is not you know the point is in kind of accepting that to me it was the challenge that Ali is putting forward to them is like why are you accepting this and so I need to use that actually or even though the word accept you know is Arabic if you back trust it will be coming out or something it's not in the Arabic text but the Arabic text has that sense that I think the English attempts to to to address by and by you know by so both are different languages and there are different ways in which a sense is captured in a language it's not necessarily it again goes back to my point about never ever doing word by word to word translation or never trying to maintain that which is to kind of try to understand the moment and the inset intensity of the moment the context of the moment and bring for bring bring out the urgency in an English diction that that works so I'm sure there are other ways of saying it shall be that could be you know also very urgent and emotive but to me this this kind of you know it and then coming this kind of rendering word seemed to work quite quite well and then coming to the exclamation point which you also pointed out because that's so that the Arabic text obviously does not have punctuation of this nature in its exclamation points or any of that kind of stuff and in fact this is an or a you know transcription or an orally pronounced or a text but the exclamation point in English kind of gives the reader because that's what we are right now we're looking at it as a written text it gives you a sense of the ads to the sense of the urgency which is absolutely required here the next final example from the orations section that I want to talk about you know is one of those places that perhaps was one of the most moving moments from here's a reader and it's just philosophically cutting as well as deep and and just a very very moving moment at this moment actually still the listeners of page number so it's on page 523 and this is oration number 1.232 and this is a moment when Ali is preparing for Prophet Muhammad please be upon him's funeral ablutions of washing of the body and preparing for his burial so a really powerful moment it can put dramatic then this and this is how this oration goes so from an address Ali delivered as he conducted the messengers funeral ablutions and prepared his body for burial may my father and mother give their lives for you your death has cut short what the death of no one other of no other it has your death has cut short what the death of no other has prophecy divine records and accounts of the heavens you brought some of us so close that you comforted us against the loss of anyone else yet you were there for all all people were equal in your eyes if you had not demanded us to be patient in adversity or forbidden outpourings of grief we would have used up all the peers in our eyes beeping over you and our ailment would be chronic our grief would endow and yet both would be sorely inadequate but enough that cannot be fended off or rebuffed may my father and mother be your ransom or messenger remember us to your lord and keep us in your thoughts now the part of this of this oration that I found really moving and worthy of mention is the contrast between the sentence that comes towards the end which says but enough death cannot be fended off or rebuffed so before all this of course it's talking about the most exceptional of all that's that closes of revelation closes of the connection with god and his words is the most difficult of all forms of grief that cannot be captured in any tears or any words but then it switches to this moment but enough that cannot be fended off or rebuffed so could you dare speak a bit about this kind of an interplay between the most exceptional of all debts and yet that's being something which cannot be rebuffed cannot be fended off and something that you know every soul will taste so this kind of interplay between the prophets death and the question of death that this oration talks about in this very dramatic setting of highly preparing for the prophets burial could you speak a bit about this both linguistically and philosophically? No and that's such an insightful commentary and that's so interesting right and this is a very I mean it really the text this text conjures up that moment I think you know when that the moment of the prophets loss of his passing and the shock that Annie must have felt at that time so and in terms of that that shock and that almost unacceptable you know not accepting versus accepting right and that's kind of the struggle that's going on there like it's in front of you you have to accept it but at the same time he initially starts out by saying you know your death is different than any other death and even there you have two kinds of things going on so you have you know first of all he starts with an expression of reverence and of love and and he says addresses the prophet and preffices it by saying you know I would give everything for you I would if I could I would give my parents lives to to bring back your to bring you back and then he goes on to say your death has cut short what the death of no other has la cada de mote comalam yan cada de and then he goes on to describe those things that are very special to the prophet and go and but somehow out of these things which you or prophet you know brought to us and brought to humankind and now you are gone so prophecy is is no more the divine revelation has ended accounts of the heavens have ended and so on with your passing and then you have this so that's and that's in a very large you know existential and and purpose of life kind of framework that you see the first that that line there but it kind of goes back and forth right so on the first in the first line where baby and told me and then this very this line about the prophets the the prophets immense stature you know in your god and his role in bringing some patience to humankind is then juxtaposed with a very very personal kind of set of lines where you say hear him say you brought some of the so close that you comforted us against the loss of anyone else yet you were there for all and so on and then he goes on to talk about you know we would have used up all the tears in our eyes sweeping over you are not grief with and you are so and that they would still not be enough and then he sort of when you see this moment when he's kind of giving into the immense grief that he's feeling and expressing that and then he stops himself and says that enough you know not to bear what you have to bear I mean here he kind of the underlying what I like worse here is in my life where I know you know it's this is inevitable it has to happen everyone dies and says death cannot be fended off or above and then he ends again with the line that he started off with the abi and told me and asks him to you know keep him at the school nine and then and and it kind of brings together both parts of the of the general and the dispassionate and the passionate in a very beautiful way next I want to turn to the letters the section letters and of course there are many themes which are discussed in the letters as well or they come up rather than the letters but I was really struck by the recurrent um a sector of moawia and again in these letters also even when something very specific is being talked about there is always a larger philosophical message being communicated and being done so in a very powerful language as well so as an example I want to read out on page 541 this is now the second section of the translation the letters so section 2 so 541 and then 2.10 this is a letter by Ali to moawia and I think one of the most powerful letters to moawia it's slightly long but I'll read it out I think it would best be for listeners to actually read the whole to listen to the whole thing as they're connected to the different parts of it it says how will you fail when the robes with which this world endorns herself with whose beauty she has ensnared you are stripped off this is Ali to moawia she called and you answered she led and you followed she commanded and you obeyed very soon you will face something no shield can protect you from stand down from this path gather provisions for the final reckoning roll up your sleeves to prepare for life's imminent end and do not give ear to the wicked desist or let me inform you about your own situation a situation that you appeared not to know you live a life of excess satan has had his way with you he has achieved his fullest hopes of you and he now moves inside you as your own blood and spirit when were your family ever rulers of or guardians of the community's affairs you can claim no high honor there no winning horse you should all seek refuge in god from clinging to the stakes of wretchedness I give you warning cease to be deceived by false hopes cease to hide intentions that differ from your speech you call me to warn you leave the people out of this and take the field meet me yourself and spare your armies the killing let it be known to all which of us possesses a blinded heart and blindfolded eyes I am Abu Hassan who killed your grandfather your uncle and your brother in the battle of mother with the cutting blow of my sword that same sword is with me today and so too that same heart with which I shall meet by enemy I have not changed my religion or adopted a new prophet I walk the path that you abandoned so willingly and that you had joined only under compulsion you claim to seek vengeance for othman you know well who was responsible for shedding othman's blood so seek vengeance there if you wish I can see you now mauled by a battle screaming like a camel grumbling under a heavy load and I can see your faction panicked by unrelenting sword strikes by the descent of fate by death after death inviting me ironically to follow the Quran's judgment why you yourselves are unbelieving deniers or men whose soul allegiance then broke the pledge now this is so much happening here in this letter this you know contrast between this world and its illusions and the final reckoning you know a doubt over the the faith of mawavi and his you know lineage and his family in terms of their sincerity to Islam the very specific you know daring on the battlefield and so much so much could you speak a bit about this as an example of the letter genre that we see in a novel other how it connects these very micro details with some very macro philosophical theological and other lessons yeah thank you that was a beautiful reading and as you say I mean there's so much there's so much in the letter um you know I'll try to address the main point that you raised which is Ali's letters as a genre and his combining of the larger picture or larger philosophy with very specific contextual details so you know what I would like but what I think would be appropriate to characterize Ali's letters as is that they're all so Ali's letters as well as all of his other his his whole past as well as all of his other all the other material that we see that is in the natural balaqah is really underpinned by a very specific philosophy of life which is you know for anti-Islamic hadith based you know idea of of while you're here what we're doing here where are we going what should be important what should be really not important aren't these things so when you see some major kind of dichotomies that are constantly underlined throughout and that you see here in this particular letter as well so that the kind of contrast between this world and the hereafter the contrast between right and wrong the contrast between himself and his right-hand his right-hand his sincerity in the service of Islam and in love for the and in marvias being the opposite in him and his family is kind of fighting against the bruff mhamad from the earliest times and continuing now in the present so you have this economy that is kind of brought forth through the details of the present moment and coming back to maybe say a couple of things here on the specifics so he starts out here by saying you know so he's addressing marvia and this is he's warning him not to fight but not to bring a battle against him not to this is from you know the false accusations that he's been making and to them not lead everyone with him into the fire basically of fire war and the the fire that is worse the war the fire that is forever so you see kind of that the the immediate historical moment of you know the you know what Ali is seeing as the battle of sifin going to happen soon and you also have the larger moment of you know the the the the the purpose of being of of marvias life and and him having the chance to redeem himself and achieve the purpose of life versus kind of the the conundrum that he's brought himself to and for four worldly queen so start out by saying that how will you fair when the rose with which the sword adorns herself with those beauties she's instilled in stardio or stripped off what gave an dap said he brings you and that how will you fair marvias fate into the picture they find the sina one of the kashir that the kashir that the that the world being presented as marvias as what marvia wants this is the reason why he's doing this he's not right he's not you know correct in in claiming that he is marvias well he and therefore has the right to fight Ali because Ali's you know complicit in marvias killing in osmosis killing but it's it's he kind of brings the the the marvias view reason as he sees it to the fore where he says you know this is you're doing it you're doing it for via so so stand back it's you still have time you know you should take take take take a good look at where you're going and step back so you have a couple of things before before i i stop here very quickly one just in terms of the personification of this war right and this is something that you see in the center and that's where where the world is personified as a woman obviously the world and this is now you know with regard to eric the eric language and the way certain words leads lead them to lead kind of lead into certain kinds of personification so adunya in eric is from in gender and so you think my translations in many places where it's really clearly playing to the world as tepris and even drawing on you know the the pre-Islamic poetic tradition in this regard as well i translated adunya as that's as she she called and you asked her she let her you found out and so on and then you have you know at the sink and you have kind of this awareness of the poetic tradition but you also have an awareness of you know hadis tradition so in the the bit that you find it very quickly eric he says satan now moves inside you as your own blood and spirits this like five lines down from the bit from the top right and there's a hadis of jibit is the prophet Muhammad that says in shaytana yeti minan in sainimachata the satan runs you know in the blood of humans so and the idea is that the potential to to to evil is present in humans as is the other potential to do good and that you should be always very conscious so it's far a few then of samadabisu is in your blood and here he kind of brings out that particular source of of his themes and imagery as well i could say much more but i think i should stop you that is the last theme i you know one theme that we already have talked about but it's such a dominant theme but i think it deserves a separate comment and discussion is this theme about the interplay between this world and the afterworld and in relation to this to the steeq i just wanted to take two brief selections one comes again from the orations section this is on page 203 this is oration number 1.79 from an address by ali describing the world and this is the oration how do i describe a world that begins in weariness and ends in death where you're held accountable for approaching what is lawful and punished for consuming what is unlawful where the wealthiest is used and the poor grieve the world eludes those who try to catch her while she comes willingly to those who pay her no heed she instructs those who view her discernment and blinds those who look at her with longing in this in this oration i'm really really struck by this sentence in the middle the world eludes those who try to catch her while she comes willingly to those who pay her no heed so we come to this moment in a second but another place that i wanted to read out and this actually comes from the third section of the book which is sayings and usually they're very pithy sayings and again this whole relationship between the world and the hereafter is something which is repeatedly mentioned in these sayings and the example i want to read out comes on page 705 and this is saying number 3.94 it says this world and the hereafter are mutual enemies and divergent paths to love and follow this world is to hate and reject the hereafter the two are like east and west for the person who walks between them the nearer he draws to one the further he moves from the other they are like two wives married to one man so one day i was very struck in these in these sayings section the hero was just the way in which you see humor and irony and these very pithy at cutting sort of set of contrasts like the contrast of the east and west you know mutual enemies and divergent paths how they become key rhetorical tools to communicate the message behind the sayings so i was wondering if you combine these two moments one from the orations and then this one from the sayings maybe say a bit more about this 119 we see constantly constantly repeated about the relationship between this world and the afterworld yeah thank you for that again that's a very rich question i'll try to kind of just pick out a couple of things to speak to here but before i do you know the thing is that you know so the sayings it's an interesting category right because they could be i mean many of the sayings and they are the Arabic word is haikma haikama is the plural are actually i mean they could be single lines that i need may have said at any given moment or in reply to a question or in response to a situation but also you know it's very possible and many of these are actually pull out of hot buzz or from from the side from letters so they're lying single lines that are were originally spoken in a particular play so for example the mādāmima badāmī that we talked about earlier that becomes that line becomes proverbial and that potentially could be it's not cited in this particular you know that in the nāhāhāh haikama section but many of the haikmas haikmas sayings in the nāhāhah haikma section are actually you could see them in the hot up section as well within a hot buzz it would be really interesting to have you know have a study kind of it's try analyzing that and kind of begin to how that you know the the two are connected in this way and so for this particular one that you read out which is 394 this word and the hereafter i'm usually an enemy centred word in the past to me i mean to my ear it just sounds very much like a hot bar piece or part of a hot bar and you have so much like this exact so one could chase it down and see if it indeed comes from a hot bar but all right so so coming now and and and that's not to detract from the fact that you know many of the lines are much shorter bit here and they are actually much more proverbial or sound like a proverb like a maxim like an apparism this one is is is is more akin to you know a section a little bit of an ex or even though it's in the haikma section all right so now the question about this one and the hereafter and you know you know this is kind of the main theme i think in the the nāhāh bānāhāh so out in all of the three sections in the kotab in the tārāhāh in the haikam section the message is you know lead a pious life prepare prepare for the imminent hereafter be aware that the world is transient you're here for only a short period of time and prioritize the hereafter so that's kind of the message that one gets from everywhere from you know kotabas and pieces that are that only have this kind of pious comes to content or wath content or from kotabas that are or the the the legend that was addressed tomorrow for example that we just read so that but this is the underlying underpinning then substrate of every single piece of text that we have here the other thing that i want to quickly burn out if i may is that you know i actually wrote an article on that that's titled something like uh all these contemplation on this world and the hereafter in the context of his life and times so i pulled out this theme and as i was kind of reading in different parts of the nāhjubala i'm trying to figure out you know how what what is aliz lense on this world and the after and what what what are the the tools that he uses to kind of put forward this idea and and his his the kind of the the gist and the whole aspect of his teachings and i found that in you know most most most parts of the nāhjubala the world is censured, blamed it's characterized as you know as as as this loyal as something that's impure that is going to end that's deceptive all of these you know very negative you have here in the 1.79 a world that begins at bearing us and ends in death your head accountable for approaching was not for punishment so on so on so wealthier city sports it's characterized as a very very negative light and in fact and if i may use this moment just to also kind of throw in some very startling and very amazing i think imagery that Ali uses to characterize this world so he in you know in various letters he talks about the world as so listen to this the sneeze or fart forgot sneeze or fart of a goat after glance as where he calls it a leaf being chunked in the mouth of a locust what happened before my jalādātā in takdumuha and yet as far so the cps this is now listen to this and this is you're not gonna be able to ever forget this kirani the bones of a pig in the hand of a leper so the world is the bones of a pig in the hand of a and he doesn't say it's also a monic device with the graphic imagery you're never going to be able to forget you know the sketch characterization but so coming back now to the point of the characterization of the world as blam worthy and censoring the world and the world being at fault so you have that but on the other hand you also have you know certain pieces a few pieces in which he praises the world and says you know it's must be divided by ela it's mahabatul malaika and so on and this is the place where you can earn the hereafter and i've in the article i've kind of analyzed the contexts the larger historical and literary context for each of these these these expressions and these lines to show that in fact the message is the same so when ali is blaming the world and saying it's really a bad thing don't run after the world he's talking to people who or in a context where you know most people are really immune to to or immune to this kind of preaching where and there's a sense of complacency and most of us where we don't really think that anything bad is going to happen to us right as well so in one one text ali is you know here's someone laughing as they're following a genas a funeral beer and he says kind of mouth of yhala right in our but good as so death is written for everybody other than ourselves and so that's the context in which he's saying the world is the fort of a cult it's worth nothing it's it has no value but then on the other hand when he's saying you know the world is this and that and you know this he says the world is musty god but you know and so on he's doing it in different contexts when he's actually that that particular book is when you know he finds some of his companions after the battle of the camel blaming the world and they're saying this is such a bad world you know these otherwise very good people and he's talking about the sabajama they're talking about the sabajama were caught up in the world and the world did this to them and so ali's saying you know people we should take responsibility for what we do with the choice is clear and the world teaches you lessons that you shouldn't you should take it on for so as a final question that you've been so generous with your time and is really excellent and wonderful answers so the last thing i want to ask you if you if you wish is i was wondering if you could perhaps pick a couple of your you know i shouldn't say favorites but a couple of same you know examples from the same section and maybe that for you were particularly powerful or fascinating or challenging to translate whatever metric you want to perhaps use to maybe share with the listeners a bit about how they combine eloquence, potency, humor you want to maybe share a couple of examples from the same section yes absolutely thank you um and you know actually one which is a little bit slightly longer and a couple which are very short and then if i may i just ask your permission to say a couple of things before we end very quickly but so two short ones and again you know you asked me to pick out some of my favorites it's hard to pick out favorites because they're all really really powerful in their own way i don't know how i really did it right he picked out his favorites all right so here's one that you know it's it's it's powerful in its meaning and it's also very pity in its Arabic so sehatul jasad min kilatil hasad this is on page 749 health increases when envy decreases so you have you know the the the contrast between sehat and kilat and jasad and hasad kind of brought out by the form of the words and the sound of the words and the rhyme between jasad and hasad and the tat at the end of sehatul kilat and it's it's short it's just four words but it's very profound so like the idea is you know i mean we want to go on and on and say you know don't envy others it's not good for you it's not good for you i mean you're only harming yourself right those are all things that he's trying to say here but the way he says it is is is by saying sehatul jasad you know your own health is is is is kind of maintained by not envying others by being content and that's why you have a lot of things about content as well so that's why i'm moving to page 723 hala kambro un lam yarif kadraho so here now this is something that is not rhymed but it's also really bitty and very also you know packs a lot of punch into just a few of your words hala kambro un lam yarif kadraho the man who does not recognize his own words with perish can lot of you know important life lessons here um and and the thing is you know you could go on and let me make a picture for say if someone wants to write a commentary on this on the sayings each of the sayings you know really you could write so much about just in terms of that that what the meaning uh that there is meaning set that the the lessons that they put forward and also during the secretions of these lines and then the last but slightly longer one that i'm gonna because we're not a little bit but not the entire one so this is page 721 it's 3.133 and these are alis words to komayl abdiziad and hari was one of alis uh close companions and he said you know hari took me i mean what meaning took my hand let me toward the cemetery when he reached the desert he became out of the city of bofani site bp and septomian this is a very very famous passage uh that is within the hemat section but it's also a little bit of a longer passage not an aphorism and he says komayl these hearts are like vessels and the best are those that best receive and store um and you know he goes on to say that he goes on to talk about the three types of of people um and they're all based on knowledge and and and so if you kind of go forward a little bit in the passage he says komayl knowledge is better than wealth knowledge protects you whereas you must protect wealth wealth increases with spending whereas knowledge increases when you're distributed and the benefits of wealth sees with its ceasing komayl knowledge is a faith to be followed it earns a man obedience during his lifetime and leaves a beautiful legacy of remembrance after his death and knowledge rules whereas through wealth is ruled over komayl those who hold wealth are dead even as they live whereas the knowledge remained for as long as the world remains the person's may be lost but they're teaching slivon in the hearts of men arianoma foda who aren't very unful fit who will be more juda it goes on but you know i want to live with that passage uh leave you with that passage and uh if i may just have um a kind of a nasty last moment generally to say something as well about uh the text you know i like to so i've been speaking about the nich of all for any interest in literature nach of all offers an unparalyque master piece of every kind of quince and for those who seek wisdom the collection offers enough lessons to last a lifetime in this sense this is a universal book yet also a very intimate book that speaks directly and personally to each and every individual so i'll go out on limpier to say that i also hope that those who read nach of all are implement its wisdom at his wise teachings have resonated with muslims throughout the past 14 centuries and they continue to hold immense consequence today as a system of values they promote a just and compassionate vision of his law in strive to own muslim majority lands they could unify chiais and sonis in their common faith the divide between chiais and sonism to put the issue in very simplistic terms is largely based on the perception of alis role as first imam versus fort kelif his old words and his example can and should be used not to create divisions between groups but to bring people together as universal teachings of ethics more over hani's words transcend time place and affiliation they embody the best values we all possess they teach harmonious relations with on humans for as alis reminds us all people are and i quote here either our brothers invades or our peers in creation in mahrun nakavit dain oh nadir un nakavit dain kar your brothers in faith or your peers in creation and this brilliant thank you manikah text rightly belongs to the collective heritage of slum to the commune legacy of eribic and to the shared inheritance of humanity thank you thank you so much thayra and i will just add to what you said not only endorsing all that you said but the significance and the utility of this text in the classroom in terms of the primary text in undergraduate or graduate courses on different levels and themes in islam i think this really will serve as a tremendous teaching text as well and again it's fantastic that this book is open access which will also facilitate so thank you so much thayra for your time for this majestic text and for sharing so much of your insights on it and your translation process is really has been a tremendous uh comprehensive conversation and i really thank you thank you sherry this was a very it was a i enjoyed very much and thank you very much for the invitation to the interview and thank you to everyone who's listening to the podcast so this was my conversation with professor thayra hududdin about the majestic translation of najin balar i hope you enjoyed this conversation i hope you will also join us next by for another fresh episode of your favorite podcast new books in the sonic studies which operates online through the new books network this also marks my hundredth and last episode with new books in the sonic studies after 12 years and hundred episodes uh focused on books authored by hundred wonderful authors from which i have learned so much i want to thank all my audience members for listening for their time uh and to marshal co at the new books network and christian peterson at new books in the sonic studies who brought me into this business in the first place uh and uh just very thankful to all of you so take care stay well and keep listening to new books that is love it's studying fanduos casino is the home of puff and puffs lots online and we've just launched our newest exclusive game puff and puff money mansion stack up houses and spin for massive bonuses for those big bad wins exclusively on fanduos casino download the app today please play responsible 19 plus and physically located in on stereo if you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to please contact connect centario.ca