Page 159 - Demo

Chapter II155 “EUDOKIA” MEANS“AHMADIYEH”[LUKE ii. 14]To retranslate a masterpiece of an eminent author from a foreign version if he left other writings in his own language would not be very difficult. For thus the translator could study the mind, the technicalities, and the expressions in his works, and do his best to retranslate the book into its original language. However, how far he would be successful is a question that only able translators can decide and determine. Similarly, if there were at least a couple of epistles or writings of St. Luke in the Hebrew, his Gospel could, with comparatively less difficulty, be translated into that tongue than it can now be done. Unfortunately, even such is not the case. For nothing is extant of the ancient writingsin the language of Jesus(pbuh) from which St. Luke translated the angelic hymn; nor has he himself left us another book in a Semiticdialect.To make myself better understood, and in order to make the English readers better appreciate the extreme importance of this point, I venture to challenge the bestscholar in English and French literature to retranslate from a French edition the dramatic work of Shakespeare into English without seeing the original English text,and to show the grace and the elegance of the original as well.The great Muslim philosopher Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) wrote in the Arabic, and some of his workswere afterwards retranslated from the Latin into the Arabic because the originals were lost. Are this reproduction the exact texts of that Muslim Aristotle? Certainly not!In the previous article in this series [1] on “Eiriny,” we discussed this translational point to a certain extent; and we had no difficulty in finding its equivalent Hebrew[1] Vide Islamic Review for November, 1929.