Translation Activities in Islamic Thought: A Hermeneutic and Bibliographic Contribution
Mehmet ULUKÜTÜK.
Abstract- In this article, the historical and socio-cultural context of translation activities, which has a very important place in the formation of Islamic thought, has been put into consideration and some aspects of the issue that have not been directly addressed until now are emphasized. In particular, a number of analyzes were made in a hermeneutical context regarding the relations between language-thought / language-world view regarding translation activities. The purpose of these analyzes is to contribute to developing healthier imaginations about the intellectual sources of Islamic thought. Finally, as far as we can reach, a bibliography of Turkish, Arabic and English has been given to show many aspects of the subject. Keywords- Translation movements, Cultural interactions, Language-thought relationship, Language-worldview relationship, Hermeneutic approach.
Do we need others to be the historicity of human beings or to be ourselves?
Brian Fay, in his book Contemporary Social Sciences Philosophy, calls his thesis that the basic units of social life are closed-circuit essentially independent and separate entities. Accordingly, each of us – we can understand this as every society, culture, civilization, worldview – experience unique states of consciousness that are only open to ourselves. That’s why a privacy wall separates us from each other. Moreover, each of us are unique personalities who hold the power to direct their actions based on their beliefs and desires. Because every person is a self separate from other selves. As a natural consequence of this understanding, the source of all social phenomena and especially the functioning of all institutions is always considered to be the decisions, actions, attitudes, etc. of individuals. One is never satisfied with explaining these in the context of so-called “communities.” As a result of this approach of celibacy, the following question arises; “Do we depend on others to be ourselves?”
Although the divine aspect of Islamic thought is given an indispensable importance by many classical and contemporary Islamic thinkers and researchers, it should not be forgotten that it is the product of a culture and civilization that flows from the historical experiences of Islamic societies, and that it is the dialectic of historical facts with normative revelation, and therefore, it has built a privacy wall around it. It should also be noted that there cannot be a closed circuit.
When we look at the historical experience of humanity, it is seen that man tries to establish the mentioned relationship between the past, present and future through science, philosophy and cultures. Today, the network of mutual relationships and interactions can ensure the collection of all kinds of information. As it is known, civilization is the accumulated and inherited wisdom; it incorporates both the constant and the variable; it can export and import cultural assets at the same time. One of the important ways to do this is through translation movements.
If we are not looking from an atomistic / cellular perspective, we can easily understand that there have been relationships between cultures and civilizations in the form of mutual influence, influence and interaction throughout history. For the Islamic civilization, the situation is not different from other civilizations.
Throughout human history, we encounter three great cultural transitions. The first of these, BC. VI-IV. took place on the coast of West Asia and the Aegean islands between centuries. Many Greek thinkers, from Pythogores to Plato, had the opportunity to get to know the thoughts of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hindus and Iran closely, and by carrying them to their own countries, they formed a new and original Greek thought. Second, VIII. It is a transition that has been realized by the translation of almost all of the materials remaining from the ancient ideas mentioned since the beginning of the century and the main products of the Greek thought into Arabic. Third great cultural transition XI. century and XIII. It was realized with translations from Arabic to Latin and Hebrew, which continued until the end of the century, into a number of other local languages.
Extending their borders with conquests, Muslims had the opportunity to encounter other civilizations. They met the nations here and their intellectual and scientific worlds. Some of the madrasahs existed before the conquest and continued to exist. Some madrasahs were also born after the conquests. These madrasas are Urfa and Nusaybin madrasas, Cündişapur, Alexandria, Antakya, Harran and Baghdad.
With the conquest of India and the Maveraunnehir region, Muslims began to translate ancient Hindu scholarly works into Arabic, and not only did they recognize the products of ancient thought through Greek texts.
Through Syriac, Coptic, Persian, and Hindi, they recognized different versions of this culture and transferred them into Arabic, the common language of science and culture.
Syriacs played an important role in this cultural transfer. Spreading the Greek culture they received from Alexandria and Antakya in the eastern regions and this culture, Urfa, Nusaybin, Harran
Assyrians are also brought to their dreses Arab scholars consider Syriac to be the oldest language. The translation activities of the Syriacs have benefited the Arab-Persian science. VIII. From the century to the 10th century, it was Syriacs who transferred Greek works from ancient Syriac texts, as well as the copies they corrected and partially rearranged themselves, into Arabic.
When the religion of Islam was born in West Asia, it was considered a culture devoid of architecture and science, with no specific schools and institutions, except for its superiority in literature, with an intellectual awakening. The Arabian peninsula, where the Islamic revelation was sent down, was a relatively self-contained and closed society, both in terms of culture and civilization, like many other societies. Their lives of thought consisted of personal observations and magistrates, and the life of science was not more than simple experiences. For this reason, it was not mentioned that there was a worldwide thought movement in the Arabian Peninsula before Islam. No profound perspective has been found in terms of Babylonian mythology, Greek theology, and Egyptian cosmogony. On the other hand, most of the time Arabs learned the cultural knowledge they obtained from other Arabs themselves.
At that time, there were two powerful states in West Asia, the Sassanid state and Byzantium. These became the examples of organizing the Islamic state. In the eighth century state organization, the Iranians were so influential that it is said that the Iranians played a large part in the emergence of the Abbasid administration. Jewish and Christian theology are also among the resources used by Islamic culture. Apart from these, there were schools led by Assyrians in the Hellenism climate, which was a common culture in West Asia. Syrians were very influential in the Umayyad period; In Damascus, the capital of the time, most of the state’s high-level bureaucrats were either Greek-speaking Syrians or Greek-speaking Arabs. Before the birth of Islam, Ancient Greek culture was kept alive as various schools scattered in the eastern Mediterranean basin under the leadership of the Syrians. These schools were gathered in the regions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. However, Mesopotamia region includes not only Greek culture but also Sumerian culture. Also BC. Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, dating back to the 1500s, and even the Chinese genius, which was even remotely contacted, are among the powerful cultures that influenced the Islamic world.
With Islam, the thought life of Arabs changed and the rhythm of life suddenly accelerated. For, in the sense of revelation, a moral and social principle, Islam not only preached a religion, but also changed a large part of the world and the minds of those living in this segment. Therefore, the emergence of Islamic sciences and subsequent developments are subjects that cannot be understood without understanding the spirit of Islamic revelation and its behavior of molding the minds, actions and environment of people, as well as the civilization that enables the formation and development of sciences. Indeed, what happened to the people of a cultural basin that was originally “ummî” in the lexical sense, but rather relying on oral tradition, has managed to achieve a cultural and institutional dynamism based on the written tradition in two or three centuries, and in a short time philosophy and therefore “science” are the teachers of humanity. If the subject is Islamic philosophy or the philosophical tradition that developed in Dâru’l-Islam, it should be said that the primary factor in this development is the Qur’an as “al-Kitâb”. For, the Quran is a book that has placed the concept of “al-‘ilm” in the heart of Islamic civilization, as Rosenthal clearly states.
What kind of need did translation activities arise and in which environment? Or the hermeneutical dimensions of the historical environment of translation activities
In this context, the curious and investigative person who grew up in the culture of revelation and the teachings in the hadith has an important role in the social basis of translation activities. In the Islamic world, culture means “addab”; Whereas, âdâb is a learning and behavior teacher settled within the culture’s values and beliefs that enable education to grow. Thus, edib is a person who understands all the cultures from the past ages from the Greek Antiquity to China in a unity. Unlike Europe, culture in the Islamic world is a product of religion. It is the principles of Islamic culture that bring the Muslim thinker to the maturity to comprehend the differences in values and beliefs. However, this is not the case between culture and religion in every civilization. While religion has shaped culture in Islamic civilization;
In the Christian West, culture has shaped religion. Translation in Europe, XII. century started with the leadership of the bourgeois class; The translation movement in the Islamic world was supported by the caliphs as well as civil and military officials, merchants and various schools. This is not an activity carried out by the initiative of a certain group, it is based on the political, scientific and social segments of the Abbasid era society.
occurred as. This is one of the reasons why it has a wide range of influence. In this context, early Muslims met the cradles of ancient civilizations from the Atlantic to the Great Wall, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greek, Persian and Indian, in a very short period of time, thanks to the dynamism that Islam gave them. This acquaintance brought along a situation such that they faced the problems of the civilizations they met.
In the period of Hulafa-i Rashid (632-660), it is not possible to say that Muslims had a significant exchange of ideas and intellectual interaction with foreign cultures, since social and political problems had to be solved first, in the face of the situation that emerged as a result of the conquests. Even Hz. It is also noteworthy that they acted very delicately to preserve the structure of the Prophet’s time. For this reason, they have been cautious in their relations with foreign cultures.23
At first, Muslims did not want to be in touch with these cultures and civilizations, based on the self-sufficiency of Islam. However, after a short hesitation, he had to come into contact with those cultures and civilizations. Because such a situation was inevitable in social terms.
As a result of this obligation, Muslims who expanded their borders with conquests found the opportunity to encounter other civilizations. They met the nations here and their intellectual and scientific worlds. Madrasahs played an important role in this connection of ideas. Some of the madrasahs existed before the conquest and continued to exist. Some madrasahs were also born after the conquests. These madrasas are Urfa and Nusaybin madrasas, Cündişapur, Alexandria, Antakya, Harran and Baghdad. The works belonging to the cultures kept alive here started to be translated. Muslims also sought to translate ancient Hindu scholarship into Arabic with the conquest of India and the Maveraun-rivers area. Muslims not only got to know the products of Ancient thought through the Greek texts, but also through Syriac, Coptic, Persian and Hindi, and transmitted different versions of this culture to Arabic, the common language of science and culture.
Syriacs played an important role in this cultural transfer. Assyrians are also the ones who brought the Greek culture they received from Alexandria and Antakya to madrasas such as Urfa, Nusaybin and Harran, who spread the Greek culture in the eastern regions. Arab scholars accepted Syriac as the oldest language. The translation activities of the Syriacs have benefited the Arab-Persian science. VIII. From the century to the 10th century, it was Syriacs who transferred Greek works to Arabic, either from ancient Syriac texts or from the copies they corrected and partially rearranged themselves.
The Umayyad period (660-750), on the other hand, is the period in which there were theological discussions between Muslims and clergy of various faiths who talk about Greek philosophies, Aristotle logic and humanities in important cities such as Damascus, Basra and Kufa. The first oral interaction started in this period, and the effects of this soon showed itself with the neonatal kalam schools. The most important development in this period is the young prince Halid b. It is the translation studies initiated by Yazid. In this translation act, Halid b. Yazid had some people coming from Egypt who had knowledge of Greek translated books on medicine, chemistry and astrology. Again during this period, Abdulmelik b. The translation of some Persian and Greek poetry books into Arabic by Mervan (685-705) and Velid B. Abdulmelik (705-715) is also an important development. The translations made during the Umayyad period were more directed towards meeting practical needs rather than philosophical concerns. Therefore, texts on medicine, astronomy and chemistry were dominant in this period. On the one hand, the ruler invited foreign scientists to the palace, on the other hand, the curiosity of Muslims to learn these sciences and the translation of the works of these sciences in Syriac, Greek, even Coptic and other languages into Arabic, a scientific activity that will accelerate in the Islamic world began.
While translation issues were limited in the past, especially during the period of Mansur (753-775), the scientific, literary, philosophical, metaphysics, astrology, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music theory, ethics, physics, zoology, botany, Many works on almost every subject, from pharmacology, veterinary medicine, the art of military service, words of wisdom, even to hawk training, have been put at the service of Islamic intellectual circles. It was inevitable that the experience gained through translation, which had the opportunity to spread to wider circles through Urfa, Nusaybin, Harran and Cündişapur Madrasas, would bring about great changes in the Islamic world. In fact, this accumulation over time, through Southern Europe and Spain, served Europe.
nor will it be presented and will significantly influence the birth of the Renaissance. However, as the Umayyad rulers’ policies revolving around Arab nationalism naturally prevented the power of foreign elements, the necessary cultural interaction and rapprochement were insufficient. However, this period will be a period in which the scientific and philosophical movement that will develop later will gain momentum. In this context, it can be said that the ongoing discussions on theological issues and socio-cultural convergence between Muslims and other faith groups created a preparation environment for the translation scientific / philosophical movement, which would later be institutionalized in Beytü’l-Hikme. It is for this reason that the translation activity here is in the same category as the Athens of Pericles, the Italian Renaissance, or the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, is equally important for human history, so it should be accepted as such and recorded in our historical consciousness as such. needs to be considered.
With the coming to power of the Abbasids, Muslims tended to benefit from the intellectual and scientific products of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Assyria-Babylon, Greek and Indian civilizations. It was unthinkable for Muslims to remain indifferent to the intellectual, scientific and cultural accumulations of other civilizations while creating their own civilization. Established in the Abbasid period, Beyt’ül-Hikme is a place where translation activities between civilizations have been institutionalized, and high-level scientific and intellectual research has been carried out. As a result of these, Beyt’ül-Hikme emerged as the institutionalized aspect of the idea of benefiting from the historical process and the existing accumulations of humanity. However, the importance of Beyt’ül-Hikme was not limited to this, on the contrary, the activities here had great repercussions in the following centuries. As a result of the conversion of deep-rooted scientific and cultural traditions such as Greek philosophy, Iran, Indian, Mesopotamia and Egypt to Islamic thought, a brand new era has opened in the intellectual environment of Muslims. This institution is an important place where events believed to have played a central role in the changes that occurred in the early cultural history took place. When the development line of Islamic culture and civilization is examined carefully, the first and original studies in the field of Islamic philosophy and science are put forward in this period.
The fact that the term science became a systematic scientific discipline was accompanied by the need to make a division of “sciences” in the Islamic world. The reason for this need was the realization of Muslim intellectuals that there were other “scholars” apart from religious knowledge. This accumulation, which did not show any sign of dynamism towards re-development before the arrival of Islam, was transferred to Arabic shortly after the advent of Islam, with the political authority and the aristocratic interest, financing and patronage. All works of Aristotle except Politics, some theological texts belonging to Plotinus and Proclus, histories of philosophy Ptolemy in medicine, astronomy and geography, Archimedes and Heron’s works in physics and mechanics, Siddhantas, which are the classics of Indian mathematics, Pançatantra Tales (Kelile and Dimme) with works such as Hüdâyname, Ayinnâme, Câvidân Hired. r in Arabic and in the library of the Muslims. Established by Caliph Me’mun, Beyt’ül-Hikme worked not only as a translation office, but also as an academy and a library, while on the one hand, this knowledge was transferred to Arabic, on the other hand, scientific research was carried out. This translation activity is thought to be of unprecedented quality and quantity, not only until then, but until modern times.
What did the Muslims do in Beit al-Hikme? The hermeneutical dimensions of the translation activity In the early Hermeneutics, whether classical philosophical hermeneutic or sacred text hermeneutics, he always dealt with linguistic translations. Translation phenomenon is the heart of hermeneutics. During translation, the person is faced with the use of grammar, history, and other tools to bring together the meaning of the text and to decipher an ancient text. However, as we said before, these tools are the same as formulating the factors used in any linguistic text or even when encountering a text written in our own language. There are always two worlds, the world of the text, and therefore Hermes is needed to ‘translate’ one into the other. For this reason, translation activities must be subjected to a hermeneutic critique / analysis.
In this context, it will be useful to start with the findings of Toshihiko Izutsu, who emphasizes the feature of translation activities as an interaction between the two worlds and which we see important in terms of drawing our attention to the hermeneutic aspect of translation activities. Izutsu, İ
He makes an important determination by stating that the current schools of thought in Islamic thought have their vocabulary centered on the Qur’an, and that only Islamic philosophy constitutes an exception to this: does it show that mentality is also translatable? It is possible to extend this list of questions even further. However, if we talk about the spiritual and dynamism given to Muslims by the Qur’an as the intellectual sources of Islamic thought, especially Beyt al-Hikme and the philosophical books translated there, it is necessary to come to terms with these questions.
The claim that the concepts of a language will be translated from another language to another language with a technical / grammatical process means stripping languages and concepts from their historical and sociality. Because “People think within a web of words and concepts created by them. It is understood from the examples in psychology books that perception is not a simple event. Even the simplest perception is not a simple event. Understanding and expressing the events that occur in the world is within conceptual structures shaped by words. means different languages from each other in general terms. The way people perceive the events and their measures will also differ from each other. ”
When we compare the above questions with Izutsu’s findings, Izutsu is indeed in great contradiction. Because you will find that both Greek and Arabic have completely different worldviews and parallel vocabulary, so even a single philosophical concept in Greek cannot find its exact equivalent in Arabic, and that they can get rid of this problem with a simple linguistic technique and methods. you will claim. This is a complete contradiction wherever you look at it. Because “language is the guide of social reality. In reality, people do not live only in an objective world; people rather live in language, which is the expressive medium of societies. Man can fully adapt to reality without using a language, language is only a tool used in solving specific communication and thinking problems.” One of the most basic facts of the real world is that a group, albeit largely unconsciously, is built on the language habits of the community. two languages that are sufficiently similar to each other cannot be shown that
Accordingly, translation activities should be seen as the meeting ground of two language worlds that have a world within them. For translation is “an activity of creation, the resurrection of thought born in another climate, in another age, on our own land.” There are major translation movements in the background of the great historical transformation processes. Translation frees us from our relatively homogeneous intellectual world and opens up to cosmopolitanism in thought. Opening up to cosmopolitan, different thoughts and perspectives, needless to say, is opening up to other languages and worldviews. Because language also carries a worldview within it for those who use it. At the moments when major translation activities take place, there is a challenge-response process in Tonybeeci sense among the translated languages. In this context, did Arabic culture and language respond to the challenge of Greek thought and science? Could the translators who grew up in the sociocultural world of that period really express in their own language the subjects that were never seen as a problem in their minds?
When we see language as a simple / mathematical tool in communication and communication, there is no such problem at all. The fact that it has not been seen as a problem until now can be regarded as an indication that language has been seen as a simple tool / tool. However, language is a structure that cannot be paradoxically expressed and contains much more than the meanings of grammar and individual words. Just as society is sociologically different from the numerical sum of individual people, language is something other than the lexical meanings of the words it contains. According to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, the language of a society or a culture is It has a direct and determining effect on the way individuals perceive reality and behave. Again, the ‘Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis’ argues that the conceptualizations and categorizations about the world are determined by the structure of one’s mother tongue, and that different native languages or grammars lead to different world views.
Language-thought and culture
While defining logic as the grammar of thought and grammar as the logic of language, the famous Islamic philosopher Fârâbî actually wanted to emphasize the universality of reason-based thought on the one hand, and to draw attention to the cultural originality of the language on the other. Thought could be regarded as the minimum or maximum common of the human species as an inner speech; however, language as external speech had to be conceived in every nation as a different grammatical construct. Therefore, no matter how our intuition leaps towards universal concepts, these concepts would ultimately be expressed in words in the language of a certain culture, would be linked to each other in the syntax of a certain language, and the concepts would have gained their meaning within the connotation possibilities and semantic structures specific to that language. Accordingly, everything, from the simplest emotional reactions to our most abstract concepts, takes on sound, words and expressions in the culture-specific language forms shaped in our world of belief and mentality. Therefore, all our perception experiences in the sense, emotion, intuition, belief or mind plan we experience in the face of being and being can be transferred in forms specific to this language. As a result, we will encounter any truth and meaning or communication and transfer problem in the context of belief-culture, speech-thought and language-culture.
On the other hand, people understand and make sense of their lives within a historicity and tradition. The most important concrete indicator on which historical and traditionalism can be seen is language. Known as the founders of philosophical hermeneutics in modern thought, Gadamer and Heidegger persistently advise us that language is a resource for tradition and a medium of communication / agreement / dialogue.
According to Gadamer, tradition hides itself in language, language is an environment like “water”. According to Heidegger and Gadamer, language, history, and being are not only interrelated but also fused with each other. So much so that the linguistics of being is also its ontology – its coming into being – and the medium of its historicity. Being is a message that comes to us from tradition and is a past that needs to be constantly reinterpreted. Coming into existence is a phenomenon belonging to history and history and is governed by the dynamics of historicity. For this reason, it is not possible to see language as a simple tool / tool, and to understand the phenomenon called translation as pouring an expression into another expression, as if pouring liquid from one bowl to another bowl. For “language is not one of the means by which consciousness interacts with the world. It does not represent a third instrument alongside the sign / sign, which is both distinctively human at the same time. Language is by no means just a tool. It is a fact that in the instrument. This is not the case when it comes to the words of a language.The uses of a language are not things that are ready in our mouth and that we put back into the stock of general words that we keep ready for use following their use. We do not find ourselves as consciousness in the face of the world and do not perceive ourselves in a state of wordlessness by following a means of understanding, as it is thought. On the contrary, we are already pre-contained-surrounded by the language of ourselves within the whole of our knowledge about ourselves and the world. We become equipped with the knowledge and, in the last analysis, with the knowledge of ourselves. Learning to speak is not about learning to use a pre-existing tool necessary to design a world with which we are somehow already familiar, but to become familiar with the world itself, and to be equipped with the knowledge of the world and the way we face it ”.
Although language is created by individuals, it is superpersonal, before us, it shapes us and offers us a way of thinking. A person who speaks a language gets used to the way of thinking of that language. The most successful and consistent way of thinking is the way of thinking offered by the native language. In this respect, “language appears before us as a thought achieved for us” If language offers us a way of thinking, this way of thinking also expresses a world view. Because language, like a work of art, has a physical aspect, a spiritual aspect, and a meaning aspect. Sounds are the physical aspect of the language, the perception of the sounds, the spiritual aspect of their life, and the direction that transcends time and space depending on the spiritual direction is the meaning aspect of language.
The worldview of language emerges in the direction of its meaning. In fact, the words used by an individual and the meanings that these words signify reveal the mood, personality and worldview of that individual. Language allows the subject to express their mood by vividly fusing the subject and object. Since “the world view of a language is the world interpretation of that language”, the world was a form that was formed, organized in that language, embodying the language of the speakers of that language.
r also. Since the world is spoken and established in different styles in every language, since each language organizes the world in its own way, it is generally “language, world conception”.
For this, every translator prioritizes the world understanding of his native language between the two languages’ world comprehension. If we want to say with Gadamer expressions; “The translator has a linguistic text that precedes him, that is, he has something spoken verbally or in writing, and that is what he must translate into his own language. It is limited to what stands in between, and what has been said in a foreign language, without making himself a person who speaks it again.” But this means that it has to open itself up to an unlimited space of said things that corresponds to what is said in a foreign language. Everyone knows how difficult it is. He knows how translation can surface what is said in a foreign language. What is said in a language, at one level, is reflected in such a way that the meaning of the word and the sentence form of the translation match the original taken from that language, but the translation has no place, so to speak. It lacks a third dimension in which the original (that is, what was said in the original language) is built in its own sphere of meaning. This is an irreversible obstacle to every translation. it cannot replace rigid one. It can be argued that the superficially projected original claim should be much easier to understand in translation, since most of the meaningful backyard or ‘line breaks’ (world conceptions / worldviews) in the original cannot be carried away. A reduction to literal meaning accomplished by translation is therefore considered to be facilitated. But this thesis (maybe this is Izutsu’s thesis) is wrong. No translation can be as clear as the original. The comprehensive meaning of what is said is always in the direction of a meaning, it is expressed only in the original utterance and evaporates in all subsequent utterances and utterances. Therefore, the task of the translator should never be to copy what is said, but to place himself in the direction of the spoken thing (i.e. within its meaning) so that it can drag what is said in the direction of his own utterance. ”Gadamer explains this situation in a different way elsewhere: To put it literally, this is not a question of making use of the words we speak. No matter how many words we use, this use is not in the sense that we use a particular tool whenever we want. The words themselves prescribe the only way we can put them into use. Man refers to it as correct use – something that is not dependent on use, but on which we depend, because we are not allowed to violate it.
Is there a way out of translation from history to present?
Translating the works of foreign cultures into Arabic, which is the language of the Quran, spontaneously resulted in the establishment of a bridge of meaning between philosophical and religious terminology. With the translation process, the terms that express the intellectual activity itself and the possible efficiency of the intellectual activity such as science, wisdom, reasoning and contemplation, especially in the terminology of the Quran, have expanded in meaning in a way that preserves their root meanings and gradually led to philosophical connotations. The term “el-ilm”, which means Qur’anic revelation, knowledge of the interpretation of revelation, knowledge of fiqh and hadith, in short, religious knowledge, started to be used for sciences based on human mind after reaching a certain awareness about the existence and systematic integrity of different philosophical disciplines. The term “scholar”, which is the plural of the term science, began to be used in a way to show the systematic integrity in question. The term “scholar”, which was previously used in the meaning of religious knowledge and information, was used to express the classification of scientific disciplines and sciences one by one after the philosophical perspective was acquired. has been used. The fact that the famous intellectual sciences (el-ulûmu’l-akliyya) term has been widely used in the Muslim world since Ibn Sina to express the philosophical discipline system is only a continuous reflection of this development. Likewise, the use of the term “phila-sophia”, which means love of wisdom in Greek (Hubbu’l-hikme, mahabbetü’l-hikma) in Arabic, means that a synonym has arisen between the terms philosophy and wisdom, philosopher and ruler (plural rulership). In many texts that have resulted in, “government” is usually meant “philosophers”. The prevalence of these terms in all literature and their new meanings even in the texts of religious scholars reflect the astonishing influence of philosophical activity in the classical age of Islam. The term philosophy, which we use in Turkish today and is more commonly preferred in classical works, consists of the Greek phila-sophia adapted to the Arabic dagger. Therefore, the term philosopher also comes from the Greek phila-sophia, and the word turned into feylesû (plural felâsife) in Arabic.
Moon
Thus, Muslim philosophers see their philosophical activities as an uninterrupted effort from the beginning of humanity throughout generations to investigate the truth of mankind and its true knowledge, the ultimate goal of which is marifetullah. This worldly and immortal dimension of philosophical knowledge and truth was the most attractive aspect for Muslim philosophers. For, they saw themselves as the representatives of this honorable tradition in their time and thought that their activities in this litany were within the concept of wisdom in the Quran. Moreover, the activity of reaching this wisdom is Hz. They said that it was described by the Prophet as an effort to find “a loss of the believer” and encouraged the attempt of every possible and legitimate way to obtain it. Otherwise, they did not see philosophy as a stray mind effort or just a dry thought gymnastics. On the contrary, for early Muslim philosophers like Al-Kami, philosophy was an activity that corresponded to the wisdom of the Qur’an and required a union of knowledge and deeds, which was to “reach the truth” as far as knowledge is concerned, and to act properly as far as deeds are concerned. “he was describing as
Once again, translation studies were carried out under the auspices of the political regime of the period, and then institutionalized under the roof of Beytü’l-Hikme, which enabled the development of various methods as a secondary product of translation studies. On the other hand, translation studies have an important share in the development of the scientific terminology problem. Because it was a new work in the Islamic world to welcome a word from another language with Arabic, both in terms of lexicon and technical meaning. Making translations based on meaning or word-word methods and repeating previous translations in order to express the meanings in the original works better has made the problem of terminology widespread. Logic has a special place among the disciplines that profoundly influenced Islamic thought among the works translated from antiquity. So much so that logic was seen as separate from philosophy as a method of correct thinking and precise knowledge. The studies of logic that emerged in Islamic thought with translations at the beginning of the eighth century developed until the end of Ottoman thought and a logic tradition was formed and a logic literature that could be expressed by thousands was formed. One of the main reasons for this is that Fârâbî and the members of the Islamic school of logic shaped by him dealt with Aristotelian logic together with the problems of Arabic linguistics and fiqh. Language and method problems constitute one of the most specific areas of Islamic thought. The search for a common method that started as an opposition to logic brought about a methodology literature that developed from the ninth century to the eighteenth century.
It is known that philosophy is mostly formed as a ‘cumulative’ science. In this science, even if they do not accept their views, every philosophy and philosopher owes its existence to the philosophies and philosophers before it. In any case, Islamic philosophers had no reservations about this issue. “We should not be ashamed of embracing the beauty of truth and owning it, wherever it comes from, or from distant and opposing nations to us. Because there is nothing more precious to the seeker of the truth. Therefore, it is inappropriate to underestimate the truth and to belittle those who say it and bring it. He clearly stated how prejudiced and self-confident he is in the face of other cultures. Moreover, philosophy as a form of action is continuous, as well as philosophy as a product that emerges as a result of philosophizing. This continuity does not manifest itself only by introducing new philosophies; it also manifests itself in reproducing and even repeating previously produced philosophies. However, in this context, it is necessary to distinguish repetition from imitation. For here again, it means that the road that was walked by a certain philosopher is being walked again by another philosopher himself. Therefore, even if a philosopher has the same or similar to that put forward by another philosopher, there is nothing that prevents the product from being a true philosophical product, since those products themselves come about as a result of his own philosophical action. On the contrary, imitation, on the contrary, means that another person becomes a partner in the products of a philosopher without personally traveling the path between the beginning of philosophy and the philosophical product, in which case one can speak of a situation outside of this continuity, not a continuity of philosophy. That is to say, the main feature that ensures the continuity of the philosophy is the way this product is obtained rather than the product itself.
For example, in this context, the ancient Greek philosophy
It is of utmost importance to how the inheritance and imagination of the world by early Muslim philosophers. For many historical figures of this intellectual tradition and their teachings have been linked with the prophetic tradition. Islamic sources containing information on the history of philosophy call Empedocles, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as “the five pillars of wisdom” (esâtînu’l-hikmeti’l-hamse) and their teachings are ultimately of nebevî origin (mishkâtu’n-nubuvve). They say that it is. In this context, among their historical reference figures, Hz. Lokman and Hz. David emerges. For example, these sources use the adjective “judge” for the above-mentioned five important personalities in the history of philosophy; They describe Socrates as “witness” and Plato as “divine”. Likewise, they report that Plato and Aristotle constantly talked about God and talked about the necessity of worshiping and worshiping Him. In parallel with this, Islamic sources state that the philosophical purposes of the ancient Greek philosophers are religion-centered, and in fact they state that these philosophers have no other purpose than to reach the knowledge of the truth of existence and its basic elements (mebde ‘/ mebâdi’l-mevcûdât elletî halekahâ’llâh). The fact that the history of philosophy – be it real or later fabricated – contains such a religious historical background has made it very easy for philosophy to find a place in Muslim minds and circles. Because, according to them, a proper philosophical activity was nothing but the interpretation of the prophetic tradition in these worldly conditions and in this context corresponded to the wisdom in the Quran.
As every healthy civilization develops, it comes into contact with other civilizations. It takes what needs to be taken from them, reproduces it and appropriates it with new original forms. The health condition in such an assimilation process is that an investigation phase that does not allow the transition and imitation phase to become absolutized can be initiated within a reasonable time. After a period of transition and imitation, which the tradition of Islamic philosophy never needed to conceal, it reached a stage of investigation towards authenticity. The claim that Islamic philosophy is an Arabic version of Hellenistic philosophy now sees more controversy. It should be noted that the tradition of Islamic philosophy, in addition to preserving the idea of continuity and authority, which should be considered very natural in inter-civilizations, is also a clear example of achieving authenticity in a manner that represents the dynamism and self-confidence of the Islamic civilization and satisfying the idea of transcending authority. We think that this “example” sheds light on the extent to which the Muslim countries, which have come into contact with the Western civilization scientifically and intellectually (and naturally, politically-culturally), experience this adventure in the direction of well-being or with what spiritual and mental attitudes a relationship that leads to well-being is possible. With the expansion of the cultural geography of a Qur’an-centered and therefore “science-centered” civilization, how it interacted with the Greek, Hellenistic, Byzantine, Persian, Sabian, Babylonian, Christian, Jewish and even Indian cultural basins, how it responded to possible challenges, in these basins. Learning how he collected the accumulated scientific and intellectual heritage with the logic of ‘discovery’ and ‘formation’ and how he did not lose his self-identity and self-confidence in all these complex processes, probably has a meaning in terms of shedding light on today’s issues regarding “cultural changes”.
Since translation, as we see it in Islamic thought, is formed in the triangle of “metaphysical fabric of culture”, “institutions” and “expressions”, we can easily understand that what is conveyed through translation is more than a statement, but some parts and forms of the metaphysical fabric to which it belongs. These are not simply expressed in the sentences of the text; first in the Ancient Age, later in the Islamic world, and finally by the New Age Europe, they are the elements that make them part of a single historical process. What started this historical process is an intellectual awakening, or at least a demand for awakening. Translation is an event managed to serve this awakening and is not the product of a simple curiosity to know and learn. The demand in question is not more than a will that directs an extremely complex but complementary set of activities. It is not possible to understand this social spirit without understanding it.
As a result, as stated by the Moroccan philosopher Mohammed Abid al-Jabiri, the importance of Islamic philosophy in universal culture must be acknowledged as an integral part of Islamic civilization and an important step in the development of Western philosophy. If we believe in the unity of human thought and the general laws of formation, it is imperative that Islamic thought be linked to the general thought of humanity with its various stages and sources. Linking Islamic philosophical thought with Greek or other philosophical thought, explaining the places where it intersects or falls in parallel.
All of these efforts are useful and necessary. Greek philosophy is indispensable to understanding Islamic philosophy, but no aspect of Islamic philosophy will certainly be understandable unless it is dealt with also within the framework of the general problematic of thought in which philosophers are concerned. The inability to adequately analyze and criticize the important intellectual experiences / periods / turning points we have experienced in history is largely underlying our many intellectual and scientific problems.
TURKISH-ARABIC-ENGLISH BIBLIOGRAPHY ON TRANSLATION ACTIVITIES IN ISLAMIC THOUGHT AND RELATED PERSON, PLACE AND PROBLEMS
In this part of our article, we tried to make an inventory of Turkish, Arabic and English encyclopedia articles, articles, papers, books and theses on translation activities in Islamic thought. Our aim in doing this is to try to show many aspects of the subject to researchers who want to do advanced and deep studies on translation activities, which we find very important in terms of the history of world science, not only with its effects on Islamic thought. In this way, if translation activities, which have an important place in the history of world science in general and in the formation of Islamic thought in particular, can be understood and interpreted better, this article will achieve its purpose.
