Translation Of Quran Page1
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFULGLORIOUS QURAN /
TRANSLATED BY: A. SALEHGHAFFARI /
AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE LATE AYATULLAH SALEHGHAFFARI'S FREE TRANSLATION/ INTERPRETAION OF THE KORANIC VERSES INTO PERSIAN LANGUAGE /
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFUL.
PREFACE
This is an English translation of the late ayatullah Salehghaffari’s free translation/interpretation of the Koranic verses into the Persian language. It has to be pointed out that it is by no means possible to convey the miraculous majesty, beauty, glamour and magnificence of Koran and its multilayer meanings through translation.
The author, a well versed scholar in Islamic studies, was born in 1926 in one of the villages of Sabzevar, province of Khorasan. He initially started his carrier as a teacher, but, after the demise of his brother who was an ayatollah [Shi’ite clergymen who are authorized to issue edicts (fatwa)], he decided to follow his late brother’s footsteps. He entered a seminary in the holy city of Mashhad, and once he had learned the best of what was being offered there, immigrated to the holy city of Najaf in Iraq that was an important center for the higher levels of religious education. Through hard work and by the blessings of Allah, he managed to earn several licenses from several grand masters [ayatollahs] who confirmed him as an ayatollah. Feeling that his fellow countrymen needed him, he returned to Iran and while doing his job as a clergy man in Tehran where he found loyal disciples, he started several development projects in his birth place where, while preaching Islam, he would work like a manual laborer himself together with the villagers and that led to the implementation of all of them at a minimum cost and without having to apply to the Shah’s regime for the unlikely help and assistance.
His thoughts and teachings are solely based on Koran, the words of the prophet (Salawatullah wa Salamuhu Alaihi- God’s blessings and greetings be upon him) and the infallible household of the prophet who were the prophet’s true successors.
To him, the glorious Koran is in fact a combination of three infinite books. The first book is the book of nature -whatever detectable by the five senses and includes the human beings’ body as a part of the nature. The second book is the book of humanity and its constitution that includes man’s soul, wisdom, knowledge and common sense, and also the angels and other metaphysical facts and God’s throne and the book and the pen of destiny and all the unseen realities that are not detectable by the five senses, but, rather can be detected through wisdom and the words of the infallible household of prophet Muhammad (SAWA) only. The third book is related to the essence of the High exalted being of God, His essential and existential purity and non-resemblance to His creatures in terms of existence, characteristics and attributes. These three books and the whole human history have been incorporated into this single scripture. Therefore, our Imam has described this book as a book that has a beautiful appearance and a profound core.
He would also heavily rely on the supplications and the most well-known texts of paying tribute to the infallible household of the prophet and his true successors (the twelve Imams) authored by themselves that the Shiites are recommended to read or chant in person or in groups in their gatherings and while going to their shrines as pilgrims. He believed that such texts contained valuable pieces of knowledge on the Islamic theology.
He led a Spartan life, was a staunch supporter of the Islamic revolution and its leadership, went to the war fronts as a preacher, used to encourage everybody to participate in the war and lost his beloved son there. He died in his ancestral village where he was rendering his usual services in 2008.
To be more precise, we hereby quote part of his comments on the deeper layer interpretation of Koranic terms:
1-The world has been created by Allah and not exuded or projected from Him as the mystical theology philosophers (pantheists?) assert. The theory of existential unity theorizes that God is like a fountain and whatever exists literally flows out of Him or like a sun that projects the beings. As per ayatollah Salehghaffari, the creatures existentially have nothing in common with God. They are existentially distinct and are simply dependent on the God’s word of command. (Koran, XXXVI – 82: “But His command, when He intended a thing, is only that He said unto it: Be! And it is”). There are three powers that are exclusive to God and cannot be transferred to anyone no matter how close he or she comes to Him, namely: bringing into existence in an absolute void from the naught, creating quiddity in them and finally turning the beings into naught.
2-In Koran, Allah declares Himself as the creator of darkness and light (i.e. Dark matter and light), so in the dawn of creation, Allah created two basic elements; matter and light; the former consisting of dark, unbound unattached, inactive, lifeless and powder like particles. The limits of each particle equal its volume; something like the geometrical dot that is described as something that lacks any dimensions.
Contrarily, light is uniform, abstract, and omnipresent, without any limits or divisions. It encompasses the whole universe and has no fabric. Allah combines the two and brings as we observe them into existence. Without such a combination none of the two are effective or observable. To him, luminescence, spirit, energy, gravity, etc. are all different demonstrations of light and it is the source of movement and life. Different levels of the concentration of light and its intensity in the matter (incremental charging), create a range of beings that begin with the simple particles and atoms and culminates in the creation of the exalted human being who represents God in the world. Binding together of the black matter and forming particles, atoms, molecules, etc. is the first stage (in this stage that force in the matter is called the spirit of attachment), then, a higher charge leads to the creation of vegetation (vegetative spirit), after that, the charge is elevated and animals are created (animate spirit) and lastly, the human beings come into being (human spirit). The ultimate concentration of light in the human beings leads to one’s heart brimming with the faith (the faith spirit). This augmentation of charge and creation of quiddity is exclusive to Allah. The combination of atoms in different formations within the same category just creates new creatures within the same type and is caused by quantitative alterations, while sprinting from one stage of creation to the higher one like turning the non-animate state of matter into animate one that is called creation of quiddity is solely a divine task. Nobody has a distinct spirit for himself or herself; what distinguishes people from each other is their self or soul (ego?), which is an ultra-delicate particle that is the center of one’s personality and source of feelings, logics, thoughts and memories. (The brain is only a tool for the soul and a conduit for what one’s senses perceive). Once somebody dies, it is this particle that survives and maintains his or her existence and not the spirit. The spirit is step by step de charged in the corps and the corps takes the reverse course by going into animate, vegetative and inanimate matter states. (It never completely leaves the matter.)
3-Unlike human beings, angels are not distinct personalities. They are the agents of creation and sometimes Allah creates temporary figures to appear like human beings and talk to the prophets (Like a radio or a television set or a hologram). They are not real personalities and once their task is fulfilled, become void. The only being that has personality and has the power to decide which direction to take (due to the simultaneous presence of evil and virtue in him or her), is the human being and that it what makes his or her actions valuable to God and makes him or her accountable for what is done. For a being to have personality, the three elements of a real and suitable corps, spirit and soul is needed.
Likewise, devils or Satan too, are not extra ordinary beings that have a supernatural existence. The author interprets that there are two types of devil; one that is part of one’s self or soul or ego and feeds on the one’s internal evil tree and the external one that is one’s fellow human beings who tempt, seduce and mislead him or her.
The word Jinni in Arabic means concealed or hidden or covered, so the Jinni are certain human beings who are living outside the sphere of societies and have a secluded type of living. They too are not supernatural creatures.
4-Allah created the world in six stages and once it was ready to support the human life, Adam and Eve were created. God’s original plan for them was to deliver them to the infallible household of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) in the paradise and let them move towards perfection, assimilate themselves with their masters and finally be a suitable subject for being His representative in the paradise and then train their descendants and make them suitable for the celestial life. For this to materialize, the two were required to be totally obedient to their infallible masters and acquire from them their knowledge. But, being a creature of two contradicting characters of virtue and vice, which would give them the power to choose, they decided to take their fate into their own hands and be self-reliant (Eating the forbidden fruit). Hence they were expelled from the paradise and descended to the earth that is the place of the eternal battle between right and wrong and where everybody has to side with one of them. Man’s life became a life of struggles, sufferings, tyranny and finally happiness for those who take the right path. This will continue till when all the human efforts take him into an impasse when they will see that only a divine personality (Imam Mahdi PBUH) can save them and so enthusiastically will welcome him.
5-His holiness’s rise will be the resurrection day and though the majority of human beings will instantly welcome him, the tyrants and cruel people who have imposed such a misery on the mankind will mentally or physically resist him, but his miraculous powers will instantly subdue them and they are relegated to the hell that they have themselves created. All the fires that have been ignited against human being from the dawn of history will be concentrated in their own bodies and will inevitably constitute their hell. Although they proclaim repentance, but it not a true one, but it is being subdued by a superior power and so they will suffer till when the good traits of their souls –if any, overtakes them and they make a true penitence. However, having been devoid of a true religious training, they will have to strive years and years in order to elevate themselves to the position of a celestial human being. The total duration of this procedure as per Koran, will be fifty thousand years. A small party of the hellish people are so metamorphosed that they cannot be rescued and they will dwell in that condition for ever.
In other words:
AA-The third world war in which nuclear devices will be vastly applied is inevitable. In this war, based on the narrations of our infallible Imams, more than two thirds of the world populace will be killed or will die and the rest will live in such a despicable condition that they will sincerely beg for the divine salvation. The rise of Imam Mahdi [the 12th Imam and successor of prophet Muhammad (SAWA) who is alive and lives incognito amongst the people] and the joining him of all the past prophets will lead to the willful embracing of his rule by all of the righteous people instantly. The wrong doers will be helpless and will be instantly subdued. All wars will end. All the dead will be resurrected to be brought into account.
BB-The world will turn into a paradise for the righteous who will enjoy his miraculous powers while at the same time the wrong doers who have had a share in igniting the fires of wars will become totally powerless and while being deprived of all of the benefits of the nature, the heat of the wars they have ignited will be concentrated in their bodies and they will suffer the same torments that they have inflicted on humanity.
CC-Imam Mahdi (PBUH), enjoying the blessings of Allah and having been bestowed the divine power and authority, will order the dead to rise and share the same fate with their likes.
DD-The world will turn into a huge university where everybody’s task will be to shed impurities, atone for mistakes, purify himself, attain the divine knowledge, and earn the highest possible qualifications.
EE-Earth and heaven will be under the reigns of the people of paradise that wherever they go, turn them into a rose garden. First they are bestowed with the cosmos of divine knowledge and power and then they use that realm of power over countless of back warded human beings who have to be trained.
EE-Amongst the people of hell, those who have any possibilities for salvation will be relieved from their torments once they have been purified and will join the righteous. Only a small fraction of them who are the most stubborn will dwell in their inferno forever.
It is noteworthy that the author disagrees with the mainstream school that maintains: Imam Mahdi (PBUH) will also be martyred after a few years of ruling and then the Imams who have preceded him will take his position one by one, and then everybody, including the angels and Satan will die, and finally the big siren will be blown and all the dead will go back to life [the author interprets this blowing of the siren as blowing into the corpses and to the ears of Imam Mahdi (PBUH)] and will be tried to settle in the large garden of paradise or the great crater of hell in accordance with their deeds. They also maintain that after the rise of Imam Mahdi (PBUH), bloody wars between the armies of good and evil will ensue and the final triumph will be that of the good.
6-To the ayatollah, Koran has three layers; one that is superficial and can be translated by a translator, another that is deeper and takes into consideration the historical conditions in which the verse has been revealed and its relationship with other verses and s called the explanation. The third layer is too deep to be understood by such methods and needs the grace of Allah and a profound insight and introspection and a thorough knowledge of what the infallible members of the prophet’s household who are his successors have taught. For instance, objects mentioned in Koran do not represent the actual thing only, but they allude to some superior concepts that are contained in the narrations of the infallible Imams and the supplications and texts of paying tribute to them that Shi’ites have been recommended to recite in their gatherings.
A-Accordingly, Words like “the seas” have been interpreted to mean scientists or educated people while “land” refers to uneducated and ordinary people. “Mountains” mean religious and non-religious superpowers. Likewise “Sun” means the God’s messenger and his successors and “stars” mean the scientists. “Piercing meteor” and “stoning away of the intruders” are interpreted as the activities of the stars of guidance against the Satan; the hypocrites pick up the religious tenets and teachings and abuse them for their devilish goals but the scientists shoot them away by their teachings. “Night and day” mean the era of the non-observable life of Imam Mahdi (PBUH), and the era of his appearance and rule respectively.
B-The intersected letters in Koran (some surahs begin with alphabetical letters put together without any obvious meaning, and the readers of Koran read them letter by letter and not combined) represent the basics of creation, events, and training. The saying from the Imam that Allah has created the world from consonant letters -as narrated in the book “Usool e Kafi”, refers to such an interpretation.
C-The objects to which Allah swears in Koran mostly represents persons; as such the Tree of Tuba means God’s disciples and the Tree of Zakkum represents Allah’s enemies.
D-The Gardens of Eden underneath which rivers flow means the people of paradise’s spiritual prowess, since they are equipped with God’s will that once He utters: “Be thou!” It comes into existence. (The saying by the Imam narrating Allah as declaring: “My creatures are eternally approaching me by their voluntary prayers” is a testament to this).