British Society for Middle Eastern Studies

Two Decades of Translation into Arabic

Author(s): R. Y. Ebied and M. J. L. Young
Source: Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies), Vol. 2, No. 1 (1975), pp. 40-46
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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 BIBLIOGRAPHICALSECTION

As indicated in the BRISMES Buttetin, I, ii (1975), suggestions and

comments on this section, together with contributions for inclusion,
will be welcomed by the bibliographical sub-editor, Miss L.E. Forbes,
University Library, Oriental Section, Elvet Hill, Durham DH1 3TH.
For this current number the following scheme has been adopted:
A. ARTICLES
B. REVIEWS AND NOTES OF RECENT BIBLIOGRAPHIES
C. MISCELLANY

A. ARTICLES
TWODECADES OF TRANSLATIONINTO ARABIC
R. Y. Ebied and M.J.L. Young
Since 1949 UNESCO has published an annual volume entitled Index
Translationuml which sets out to list the titles of all the
translations which have been made into any language in any part of
the world during the previous twelve months. These titles are listed
not according to language, but according to the country where the
translation was made, from returns made to UNESCO by the Ministries
of Education of the different countries concerned.2 The entries under
each country are arranged according to the Dewey Decimal System, and
the original language from which each translation was made is given
with each title. The interest for cultural history of such currents
of influence thus exhibited hardly needs to be stressed, as has been
shown by Ibrahim Abu Lughod in his study of translations into Arabic
during the nineteenth century.4
By examining all the entries for the Arab countries given in the
twenty-four volumes of the Index it is possible to produce totals
of the number of works translated into Arabic in the last twenty-
four years, of works falling into particular categories, the most
frequent original languages, and so on.
I
The volumes of the Index show that only four Arab countries are
of any importance in the production of translations into Arabic--
Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, in that order. Of these four, Egypt
is by far the most important.
The figures given in the Index show that 5,015 books translated
from foreign languages into Arabic were published between 1948 and
1971.5 Totals for each year are shown in the following table.6
Year No. of Translations Contributory Countries
1948 66 Egypt
1949 36 Syria
1950 39 Lebanon
1951 100 Egypt (42); Iraq (34); Lebanon (24)
1952 39 Lebanon
1953 2 Egypt
1954 32 Egypt (2); Iraq (27); Lebanon (3)
1955 3 Egypt
1956 97 Egypt (82); Iraq (14); Lebanon (1)
1957 189 Egypt (164); Iraq (20); Morocco (5)
1958 221 Egypt (220); Lebanon (1)
1959 272 Egypt (264); Syria (8)

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Year No. of Translations Contributory Countries
1960 306 Egypt
1961 368 Egypt (367); Syria (1)
1962 404 Egypt (386); Jordan (17); Syria (1)
1963 249 Egypt (248); Jordan (1)
1964 236 Egypt (234); Lebanon (1); Syria (1)
1965 297 Egypt (249); Iraq (14); Syria (34)
1966 321 Egypt (292); Lebanon (3); Syria (26)
1967 623 Egypt (455); Lebanon (156); Syria (12)
1968 289 Egypt (218); Iraq (13); Lebanon (32);
Syria (26)
1969 270 Egypt (197); Jordan (4); Lebanon (52);
Syria (27)
1970 275 Egypt (160); Iraq (7); Lebanon (82);
Syria (26)
1971 281 Egypt (190); Iraq (7); Jordan (3);
Lebanon (42); Sudan (2); Syria (37)
As a yardstick for comparison with these returns we may take the
most recent annual returns for two other Islamic languages:
Turkish (1971): 799
Persian (1970): 213
It is also of interest to compare the most recent figures for
translations into Arabic (281 in 1971) with those for German, a
language with about the same number of speakers as Arabic, for the
same year; these numbered well over 5,000.7 Thus, as many books
were translated into German in the one year 1971 as into Arabic in
the twenty-four years from 1948 to 1971.
II
The total of 5,015 is distributed among the following subjects
according to the Dewey Decimal System8:
0 General: 60
1 Philosophy: 416
2 Religion and Theology: 192
3 Law, Social Sciences, Education: 1,184
4 Philology and Linguistics: 6
5 Natural and Exact Sciences: 339
6 Applied Sciences: 300
7 Arts, Games, Sports: 115
8 Literature: 1,739
9 History, Geography, Biography: 664
III
The original language from which these books were translated
was English in the great majority of cases. The list below shows
the numbers of works translated from particular languages in the
period 1948-1971.
English: 3,331 Spanish: 24
French: 775 Latin: 13
Russian: 168 Persian: 13
German: 111 Turkish: 6
Italian: 42 Serbo-Croat: 5
Greek: 31 Hungarian: 4

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Bengali: 3 Rumanian: 3
Chinese: 3 Danish: 2
Dutch: 3 Norwegian: 2
Polish: 3 Sanskrit: 2

Just one work in each case was translated from Coptic, Czech,
Finnish, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Portuguese, Syriac,
Thai and Uzbek.
In 145 cases the Index gives no indication of the original
language from which a book was translated.
The above list only takes into consideration books directly
translated from the original. The Index also notes books which
are translations of translations, that is, books which, in the great
majority of cases, have been put into Arabic on the basis of an
English, French, or German version.9 The totals of such indirect
translations over our period are shown in the following table:
Russian: 78 Danish: 3
German: 59 Hungarian: 3
French: 43 Rumanian: 3
Greek: 28 Sanskrit: 3
Italian: 13 Polish: 2
Spanish: 11 Portuguese: 2
English: 10 Turkish: 2
Norwegian: 10 Bulgarian: 1
Bengali: 9 Byelorussian: 1
Chinese: 9 Dutch: 1
Japanese: 5 Hindi: 1
Latin: 4 Persian: 1
Serbo-Croat: 4 Syriac: 1
Swedish: 4 Tibetan: 1
Czech: 3
It will be noticed from the above list that only indirect
translations have been made from Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Hindi,
Swedish and Tibetan. It is perhaps surprising to note the complete
absence in the above lists of any translations from Urdu, Indonesian
or Ethiopic.
IV
In examining the particular titles which appear in the ten
Dewey categories, we find that in philosophy two of the most
frequently translated authors are Sigmund Freud and Bertrand Russell.
Examples are Al-Dhat wa-l-ghara'iz (Freud's Das Ich und das Es) 10 and
Tartkh al-falsafa al-gharbiyya (Russell's History of Western Philos-
ophy.) 11
The works in the field of religion and theology are mainly books
of Christian interest, with works of Protestant churchmen well
represented, including those of C.H. Spurgeonl2 and Billy Graham13.
Roman Catholic works in translation tend to appear more frequently
in Lebanon, as one would expect.
Under the heading of 'Law, Social Sciences and Education' we
find a predominance of English and Russian political books; the gen-
eral character of the latter is indicated by titles such as AZ-Duwal
al-ishtirakiyya taqif ma man didd aZ-'udwtnl4 and Khamnsna ' m Zi-
injazat al-ishttirakiyya al- uzma. 15

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 In the natural and exact sciences most of the works translated are
popular or semi-popular presentations of scientific subjects, the spec-
ialist text-books of which in Western languages remain for the most part
untranslated into Arabic. Such a translation as Al-Knmiya ghayr aZ-
'udwiyya16 (Lehrbuch der anorganischen Chemie) by Heinrich Remy is a
rare exception to this statement.
Those books entered under 'Applied Science' include a large number
of English popular works dealing with health, for example, Kayfa ta'$sh
bi-qaZb 'aZll (How to live with Heart Trouble)17 by A.L. Blakeslee,
and AZ- AmaZiyyat aZ-jirz.iyya (Your Operation)18 by R.M. Cunningham.
Only a small number of specialist technical works occur, such as E.J.
Kates' Muharrikkt al-d&ziZ wa-muharrikat al-ghIz19 (Diesel and High
Compression Gas Engines: Fundamentals).
The category 'Arts, Games, Sports' perhaps surprisingly shows a
predomihance of works dealing with the theatre in its many aspects.20
In literature there is a very wide coverage of English and French
works, from Shakespeare to Agatha Christie, from Moliere to Georges
Simenon. In the other European languages only the major classics have
as a rule been translated, books such as Cervantes' Don Quixote21,
Goethe's Faust22, Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks23, Clausewitz' Vom
Kriege24, Pushkin's Kapitanskaya Dochka25 and so on. Occasionally the
award of the Nobel Prize leads to somg of a writer's work being trans-
lated, such as Ivo Andric's Na Drini Cuprija.26
In the field of history and biography the predominance of English
works among those selected for translation must tend strongly towards
making Arab readers see the history of the world through Anglo-
American eyes. From a wealth of examples we may select the following
as typical: 'Sir J.A. Hammerton's and H.E. Barnes' New IZZustrated
WorZdHistory27, H.A.L. Fisher's History of Europe28, the two-volume
edition of Arnold Toynbee's Study of History29, Lord Avon's Memoirs30,
John Gunther's Inside Africa31, Will Durant's Story of CiviZisation32,
W.L. Langer's Encyclopaedia of World History33, etc.
As against this both Lenin34 and Hitler have found translators
into Arabic, as also has Marx, no less than four translations having
been made into Arabic of Das Kapital, twice from French, once from
English and once from German.36 This latter example illustrates the
fact that there is considerable wastage of effort in making transla-
tions into Arabic.
Finally, in regard to history and biography we may note the large
numbers of works by Western orientalists into Arabic, including the
following:
Asin Palacios, M., Ibn 'ArabT, hayStuh wa-madhhabuh, tr. by Abd al-
Rabmin Badawl (Cairo, 1965).
Arnold, Sir T.W., AZ-Da'wFaila al-Isnim (The Preaching of Islam), tr.
by Hasan Ibrahim.Hasan, 'Abd al-Majid 'Abidin and Isma'6l al-
Nabarwil (Cairo, 1958).
Bartold, V.V., l-azrkh al-h.dara aZ-IslZmiyya (Kultura Musulmanstva),
tr. by Hamzah Tahir (Cairo, n.d.).
Brockelmann, C., Tor*ZkhaZ-shu'i2b al-IsZiTmiyya (History of the Islamic
Peoples), tr. by Nabih Faris and Munir Ba' labakki from the
English version (Beirut, 1949-51).
Gibb, H.A.R., Dir8sat fT hadirat aZ-IsZlm (Studies on the Civilization
of Islam), tr. by Ihsan 'Abbas, MuhammadNajm and Mahm~dZlyid
(Beirut, 1964).
Krachkovsky, I.J., Hqayt aZ-Shaykh Muhammad'Ayyad al-TantZwaT (Shikh
Tantawi), tr. by Kulth~m. 'Uda (Calro, 1964).

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 Le Bon, G., Hadzrat al-'Arab (La Civilisation des Arabes), tr. by
Adil Zu'aytir (Cairo, 1956).
Nicholson, R.A., Fi aZ-tasauwwuf al-IslFZmT wa-tor*khuh (The Mystics
of Islam), tr. by Abu al-'Ala' 'Alflf (Cairo, 1956).
O'Leary, De Lacy, UZlm al-Yiunan wa-subul intiqaliha iZa al- Arab
(How Greek Science passed to the Arabs), tr. by Wahlb Kamil
(Cairo, 1962).
Smith, W.C., AZ-IsZim ft al-tar*kh al-hadath (Islam in Modern
History), Cairo, n.d.
Wellhausen, J., AZ-Dawla aZ-'Arabiyya wa-suqutuha (Das Arabische
Reich und sein Sturz), tr. by Yusuf al-'Ashsh (Damascus, 1956).
V
It would, of course, be impossible to generalize about the
quality of such a large body of translations, but a number of
examples taken at random may help to show the extremes between
which the mass of translated works lie. Ernst Kuhnel's Die
IsZamische Kunst appeared in an Arabic version in Beirut in 1966
with the title Al-Fann aZ-IsZimi (tr. Ahmad Msas). This is an
example of a translation which adheres so closely to its original
as to become frequently unintelligible. One reader at least had to
refer to the original German to understand many passages.
A translation of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe was published by
Dar al-Hilal in 1959.37 This book is in an agreeable style and
reads at all times intelligibly, but a comparison with the original
shows that something like two thirds has been omitted, although
nothing is said anywhere in the Arabic version to warn the reader
of this. One suspects that this kind of drastic abridgement is
frequently visited upon other foreign works.
Lastly we may cite the Arabic version of William Howell's
Back of History (Ma Wara' al-Tarikh),38 a work dealing with a tech-
nical subject of some complexity--anthropology. Here we have a
translation which omits nothing, which reads smoothly and intelli-
gibly, and which only gives up the attempt to find Arabic equivalents
when faced with such problems as the Arabic for 'Neanderthal'. It
fulfils in every way the criterion that it should be read with
pleasure and understanding by a reader unacquainted with the orig-
inal.
It is hoped that the foregoing survey will help to give an
impression of the general nature and volume of translations into
Arabic since the Second World War, and to illustrate the cultural
currents which they exemplify.
NOTES
(1) Paris, 1949- . Twenty-four volumes have appeared so far.
(2) In the more recent volumes the returns for Egypt have been
provided by the National Committee for Bibliographical Service.
It is possible that the returns have missed some titles,
particularly in the earlier volumes. However, one finds that
titles are sometimes inadvertently repeated in succeeding years,
and thus tend to cancel out any deficiency in the total numbers.
(3) In the earlier volumes the arrangement is somewhat erratic, the
titles of translated works often being omitted. In a few cases
the original languages are not indicated, and these are consid-
ered separately below.
(4) I. Abu Lughod, Arab Rediscovery of Europe: A Study in Cultural
Encounters (Princeton, 1963).

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 (5) Vol. 24 lists the returns for 1971, although it was published
in 1973.
(6) These figures cannot be obtained by adding up the totals of
translations made in each country each year given at the end of
every volume of the Index , since these include all translations
made in that particular country during the year, irrespective of
the language concerned. It should also be noted that we have not
included translations of books of the Bible into Arabic in this
and the following lists. Each Biblical book is listed as a
separate work in the returns from the Arab countries, and their
inclusion would give some misleading results.
(7) See the entries in Index Translationun, vol. 24, under 'Allemagne',
'Autriche' and 'Suisse'. It may be noted that the Index shows
that normally more books are translated every year into German
than any other language in the world. In this respect Russian
usually comes second and English third.
(8) It may be noted that the handbook of this important library
classification system, M. Dewey's Decimal Classification was
translated into Arabic as al-TansTq aZ- 'ashrT by J.A. Dagher
and published in Beirut in 1950.
(9) Only four translations were made from versions in languages other
than English, French or German, viz. one from Italian,
one from Latin, one from Russian and one from Persian from French
from Russian (sic).
(10) Translated from the English version by Muhammad 'Uthman Najati
(Cairo, n.d.).
(11) Translated by Zakl Najib Mahmud (Cairo, n.d.).
(12) E.g. Al-Kull bi-l-niima (Grace Triumphant), tr. by Mahir Fahmi
(Cairo, n.d.).
(13) E.g. Sab 'at khataya mnumta (Seven Deadly Sins), tr. by Nablh
Fgris (Cairo, 1?68).
(14) Cairo, n.d. No translator's name is given.
(15) Cairo, n.d. No translator's name is given.
(16) Translated by Ahmad Riyad Turki, Mahmid ' Umar and 'Isa Mustafa
Ibrahlm (Cairo, n.d.).
(17) Translated by Ahmad Badran (Cairo, n.d.).
(18) Translated by Kamil Mahmid Sa'ld (Cairo, n.d.).
(19) Translated by Hasan Muhammad al-SibiljI (Cairo, n.d.).
(20) E.g. M. Gallaway, Dawr al-mukhrij f& al-masrah (The Director
in the Theatre), tr. by Liuws Buqtur (Cairo, n.d.).
(21) Dun KTsh-t, tr. by 'Adil al-Ghadban from the English version
(Cairo, n.d.).
(22) Ma'sat Fawst (Alexandria, n.d.).
(23) Al Buddenbrooks, tr. by Mahmud Ibrahim al-DusuqI (Cairo, n.d.).
(24) Fr at-harb, tr. by Akram DIrl and al-Haytham al-AyyubI (Cairo,
n.d.).
(25) Ibnat aZ-Qa'id (Cairo, n.d.).
(26) Jisr 'aZa Nahr Drnar, pub. by Dar al-Udaba' li-l-Tiba 'a wa-l-
Nashr (Cairo, n.d.).
(27) Tazrkh al-'lam (Cairo, n.d.).
(28) Tartkh Urubba, tr. by Muhammad Mustafa Ziyada and others (Cairo,
1957).
(29) Mukhtasar dirasa li-Z-tartkh, a translation by Fu'ad Muhammad
Shibl from the two-volume abridgement of the original (Cairo,
n.d.).
(30) Mudhakkirat Eden, pub. by al-Dar al-Qawmiyya li-l-Tib aa wa-l-
Nashr (Cairo, n.d.).

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 (31) DakhiZ Ifriqiya,.tr. by Hasan Jalal al-'Arius (Cairo, n.d.).
(32) Qissat al-hadara, tr. by Muhammad Badran (Cairo, n.d.).
(33) Mawsiu'at tirtkh al-'akam, tr. by Muhammad Mustafa Ziyada
(Cairo, n.d.).
(34) E.g. V.I. Lenin, Al-Dawla wa-l-thawra, tr. by Lutfi FatIm
(Cairo, n.d.).
(35) Kifah.? (Mein Kampf), tr. by Liuws al-Hajj (Beirut, 1952).
(36) For 'Das Kapital' in Arabic dress see S. Wild, '"Das Kapital"
in arabischen Ubersetzung' in Festgabe fur Hans Wehr (Wiesbaden,
1969), pp. 97-111. The Arabic version from the German was
made by R5shid al-BarawI; see Index Tratslationwn, vol. 23
(1970), p. 635, col. 1.
(37) Ifanhu aw al-FaYris aZ-Aswad CRiwayat al-Hilal, No. 131 (Cairo,
1959)J. No translator's name is given.
(38) Translated by A4mad Abu Zayd (Cairo, 1965).

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MIDDLE EAST
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