You may have heard about the Koran's idea of paradise being 72 virgins, and I promise I will come back to those virgins. But in fact, here in the Northwest, we're living very close to the real Koranic idea of paradise, defined 36 times as "gardens watered by running streams." Since I live on a houseboat on the running stream of Lake Union, this makes perfect sense to me. But the thing is, how come it's news to most people? I know many well-intentioned non-Muslims who've begun reading the Koran, but given up, disconcerted by its "otherness." The historian Thomas Carlyle considered Muhammad one of the world's greatest heroes, yet even he called the Koran "as toilsome reading as I ever undertook; a wearisome, confused jumble."
Možda ste čuli o Kuranovoj ideji raja sa 72 djevice. Obećavam vam da ću se vratiti na te djevice. Ustvari, ovdje na sjeverozapadu, živimo vrlo blizu pravoj Kuranovoj ideji raja, definiranoj 36 puta kao "vrtovi zaliveni vodopadima". Budući da živim na kuća-brodu na izvorištu jezera Union, ovo mi ima potpunog smisla. No stvar je u tome, kako to da su to novosti većini ljudi? Poznajem mnoge dobromisleće ne-muslimane koji su započeli čitati Kuran da bi odustali, uzdrmani njegovom posebnošću. Povjesničar Thomas Carlyle je smatrao Muhameda jednim od najvećih svjetskih heroja, no i on je nazvao Kuran, "Zamornije štivo koje sam ikada uzeo, dosadna, zbunjujuća hrpa".
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Part of the problem, I think, is that we imagine that the Koran can be read as we usually read a book -- as though we can curl up with it on a rainy afternoon with a bowl of popcorn within reach, as though God -- and the Koran is entirely in the voice of God speaking to Muhammad -- were just another author on the best-seller list. Yet, the fact that so few people do actually read the Koran is precisely why it's so easy to quote -- that is, to misquote.
Dio problema, mislim, je da smo zamislili da Kuran može biti čitan poput uobičajenog štiva -- kao da se možemo s njime zavuči u krevet na kišno poslijepodne sa zdjelom kokica pri ruci, kao da Bog -- i Kuran je u potpunosti u glasu Boga koji govori Muhamedu -- je samo još jedan autor na listi najprodavanijih knjiga. No činjenica da tako malo ljudi stvarno čita Kuran je precizan razlog zašto ga je tako lako citirati -- to jest, pogrešno citirati.
(Laughter)
Fraze i odlomci uzeti iz konteksta
Phrases and snippets taken out of context in what I call the "highlighter version," which is the one favored by both Muslim fundamentalists and anti-Muslim Islamophobes.
u onome što zovem visoko-laganoj verziji, koja je favorizirana od strane muslimanskih fundamentalista i anti-muslimanskih islamofoba. Stoga, prošlog proljeća,
So this past spring, as I was gearing up to begin writing a biography of Muhammad, I realized I needed to read the Koran properly -- as properly as I could, that is. My Arabic is reduced by now to wielding a dictionary, so I took four well-known translations and decided to read them side by side, verse by verse, along with a transliteration and the original seventh-century Arabic. Now, I did have an advantage. My last book was about the story behind the Shi'a-Sunni split, and for that, I'd worked closely with the earliest Islamic histories, so I knew the events to which the Koran constantly refers, its frame of reference. I knew enough, that is, to know that I'd be a tourist in the Koran -- an informed one, an experienced one, even, but still an outsider, an agnostic Jew reading someone else's holy book.
dok sam se pripremala započeti pisati biografiju o Muhamedu, shvatila sam da mi je potrebno pročitati Kuran propisno -- što propisnije u mojoj mogućnosti. Moj arapski je bio reduciran dotad na korištenje rječnika, stoga sam uzela četiri poznata prijevoda i odlučila čitati ih usporedno, stih po stih uz transliteraciju i originalan arapski iz sedmoga stoljeća. Imala sam prednost. Moja zadnja knjiga je bila o priči iza Shia-Sunni razdora, i za nju sam radila blizu najranijih islamskh povijesti, tako da sam znala događaje koje Kuran stalno navodi, svoj okvir navoda. Znala sam dosta, to jest, znati da ću biti turist u Kuranu -- informiran, iskusan štoviše, ali još uvijek outsajder, agnostički Židov čitajući tuđu svetu knjigu.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So I read slowly.
Stoga sporo čitam.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I'd set aside three weeks for this project, and that, I think, is what is meant by "hubris" --
Ostavila sam si sa strane tri tjedna za ovaj projekt, i to je ono, što mislim da se podrazumijeva pod oholost.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
because it turned out to be three months.
Jer je na kraju ispalo tri mjeseca.
(Laughter)
Otrgla sam se iskušenju da preskočim na kraj
I did resist the temptation to skip to the back, where the shorter and more clearly mystical chapters are. But every time I thought I was beginning to get a handle on the Koran -- that feeling of "I get it now" -- it would slip away overnight, and I'd come back in the morning, wondering if I wasn't lost in a strange land. And yet, the terrain was very familiar. The Koran declares that it comes to renew the message of the Torah and the Gospels. So one-third of it reprises the stories of Biblical figures like Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Mary, Jesus. God himself was utterly familiar from his earlier manifestation as Yahweh, jealously insisting on no other gods. The presence of camels, mountains, desert wells and springs took me back to the year I spent wandering the Sinai Desert. And then there was the language, the rhythmic cadence of it, reminding me of evenings spent listening to Bedouin elders recite hours-long narrative poems entirely from memory. And I began to grasp why it's said that the Koran is really the Koran only in Arabic.
gdje se nalaze kraća i jasnije mistična poglavlja. Ali svaki put kad sam pomislila da sam započela uhvatiti Kuran za rep -- onaj osjećaj "Sad shvaćam" -- bi otišao preko noći. I onda bih se vratila ujutro razmišljajući da li sam se izgubila u nepoznatoj zemlji. Usprkos, teren je bio vrlo familijaran. Kuran izjavljuje da dolazi obnoviti poruku Tore i evanđelja. Dakle trećina toga ponavlja priče biblijskih figura poput Abrahama, Mojsija, Josipa, Marije, Isusa. Sam Bog je bio u potpunosti poznat po svojoj ranijoj manifestaciji kao Jahve -- ljubomorno inzistirajući na monoteizmu. Prisustvo deva, planina, pustinjskih bunara i izvora me odvelo unatrag godinama koje sam provela lutajući pustinjom Sinaj. Zatim, tu je bio i jezik, njegova ritmička kadenca, podsječajući me na večeri provedene slušajući beduinske starješine kako recitiraju satima duge epove u potpunosti napamet. Započela sam hvatati što je rečeno time da je Kuran pravi Kuran jedino na arapskom.
Take the Fatihah, the seven-verse opening chapter that is the Lord's Prayer and the Shema Yisrael of Islam combined. It's just 29 words in Arabic, but anywhere from 65 to 72 in translation. And yet the more you add, the more seems to go missing. The Arabic has an incantatory, almost hypnotic quality that begs to be heard rather than read, felt more than analyzed. It wants to be chanted out loud, to sound its music in the ear and on the tongue. So the Koran in English is a kind of shadow of itself, or as Arthur Arberry called his version, "an interpretation." But all is not lost in translation.
Uzmite Faatihah, prvo poglavlje od sedam stihova je Božja molitva i Shema Izrael od Islama zajedno. To je samo 29 arapskih riječi, ali sa 65 do 72 prijevoda. Što više dodajete, više se i čini da nedostaje. Arapski ima ritualno recitiranje, gotovo hipnotizirajuće, kvaliteta koja moli da bude saslušana umjesto pročitana, osjećana više nego analizirana. Želi biti ispjevana naglas, da odzvanja svoju glazbu u uhu i na jeziku. Dakle Kuran na engleskom je jedna vrsta vlastite sjene, ili kao što je Arthur Arberry nazvao svoju verziju, "interpretacijom". Ali nije sve izgubljeno u prijevodu.
As the Koran promises, patience is rewarded, and there are many surprises -- a degree of environmental awareness, for instance, and of humans as mere stewards of God's creation, unmatched in the Bible. And where the Bible is addressed exclusively to men, using the second- and third-person masculine, the Koran includes women -- talking, for instance, of believing men and believing women, honorable men and honorable women. Or take the infamous verse about killing the unbelievers. Yes, it does say that, but in a very specific context: the anticipated conquest of the sanctuary city of Mecca, where fighting was usually forbidden. And the permission comes hedged about with qualifiers. Not "You must kill unbelievers in Mecca," but you can, you are allowed to, but only after a grace period is over, and only if there's no other pact in place, and only if they try to stop you getting to the Kaaba, and only if they attack you first. And even then -- God is merciful; forgiveness is supreme -- and so, essentially, better if you don't.
Kao što Kuran obećava, strpljenje je nagrađeno, i postoje mnoga iznenađenja -- stupanj svijesnosti okoliša na primjer i ljudi kao podvornici Božje kreacije, nepodudarnost s Biblijom. I dok se Biblija ekskluzivno obraća muškarcima, koristeći drugo i treće lice muškog roda, Kuran uključuje žene -- govoreći, primjerice, o vjernicima i vjernicama -- časnim muškarcima i časnim ženama. Ili uzmite ozloglašen stih o ubijanju nevjernika. Da, to govori, ali u vrlo specifičnom kontekstu: očekivan poraz grada utočišta Meke gdje je borba bila uobičajeno zabranjena. Dozvola dolazi pokrivena s kvalificiranima. Nije, morate ubiti nevjernike u Meki, ali možete, dopušteno vam je, ali tek nakon perioda milosti i samo ako nema drugog dogovora i samo ako vas zaustave na putu do Kaabe, i samo ako vas oni prvi napadnu. I čak tada -- Bog je milostiv, oproštenje je vrhovno -- i stoga, zapravo, bolje ako ne ubijete.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
This was perhaps the biggest surprise -- how flexible the Koran is, at least in minds that are not fundamentally inflexible.
Ovo je najvjerovatnije najveće iznenađenje -- koliko je Kuran fleksibilan, barem u umovima koji nisu fundamentalno nefleskibilni.
"Some of these verses are definite in meaning," it says, "and others are ambiguous." The perverse at heart will seek out the ambiguities, trying to create discord by pinning down meanings of their own. Only God knows the true meaning. The phrase "God is subtle" appears again and again, and indeed, the whole of the Koran is far more subtle than most of us have been led to believe. As in, for instance, that little matter of virgins and paradise. Old-fashioned orientalism comes into play here. The word used four times is "houris," rendered as dark-eyed maidens with swelling breasts, or as fair, high-bosomed virgins. Yet all there is in the original Arabic is that one word: houris. Not a swelling breast or high bosom in sight.
"Neki od ovih stihova su konačni u značenju", Kuran govori, "a drugi su dvosmisleni. Izopačeni u srcu će tražiti dvosmislenosti pokušavajući stvoriti neslogu pripisivajući značenja na vlastitu ruku. Samo Bog zna pravo značenje". Fraza "Bog je suptilan" se ponavlja. Uistinu, cijeli Kuran je daleko više suptilan nego što su mnogi spremni vjerovati. Poput u, na primjer, toj maloj stvari o djevicama i raju. Staromodan orijentalizam dolazi do izražaja ovdje. Riječ upotrebljena četiri puta je Houris, predočena kao tamnooke djeve s nabreklim grudima, ili kao svijetlopute djevice podignutih grudi. Ipak, sve što se nalazi na originalnom arapskom je ta jedna riječ: Houris. Nema nabrekle grudi niti podignutih grudi na vidiku.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Now this may be a way of saying "pure beings," like in angels, or it may be like the Greek "kouros" or "kore," an eternal youth.
Ovo bi mogao biti jedan način prijevoda čista bića -- poput u anđela -- ili bi moglo biti poput grčkog Kourosa ili Kore, vječna mladost.
But the truth is, nobody really knows. And that's the point. Because the Koran is quite clear when it says that you'll be "a new creation in paradise," and that you will be "recreated in a form unknown to you," which seems to me a far more appealing prospect than a virgin.
Ali istina je da nitko ne zna, i to je taj smisao. Jer Kuran je dosta jasan kad kaže da ćete biti "nova kreacija u raju" i da ćete biti "ponovno stvoreni u vama nepoznat oblik", što mi se čini kao daleko primamljivo očekivanje od djevice.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And that number 72 never appears. There are no 72 virgins in the Koran. That idea only came into being 300 years later, and most Islamic scholars see it as the equivalent of people with wings sitting on clouds and strumming harps. Paradise is quite the opposite. It's not virginity; it's fecundity; it's plenty. It's gardens watered by running streams.
Taj broj 72 se nikada ne pojavljuje. Nema 72 djevice u Kuranu. Ta je ideja rođena 300 godina poslije, i većina islamskih akademika je vide istoznačnu ljudima s krilima koji sjede na oblacima svirajući harfe. Raj je nešto sasvim drugo. Nije djevičanstvo, ono je plodnost, ono je izobilje, ono je zaliven vrt vodopadima.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)