The daily, Kannada Prabha carried an article titled ‘Purda hai Purda’ in its magazine section on 28th February 2010. It was an article originally authored by Tasleema Nasreen and translated to Kannada by Sindhu. The article was full of provocative element and derogatory remarks against many Muslim beliefs, practices and their noble personalities.
Naturally it lead to wide spread protests in the state which took a violent turn in certain parts of the state and caused the death of at least 2 persons. The newspaper on 2nd March did publish an apology but the tone was more of justification and sermon rather than being a regret or apology. The publisher said, the article should have been a matter of intellectual debate. It is in this context that a few notes of purely ‘intellectual nature’ are being presented below.
The original writing of Tasleema Nasreen is full of distorted facts and blunt lies. Sindhu, the translator has only added further venom in the guise of translating it. The process of adding venomous lies begins from the very first paragraph of the Kannada article. This paragraph ends thus; “My grandfather was a totally ignorant person. He used to threaten my mother of dire consequences if she did not wear Purda”.
Tasleema Nasreen would be shocked at this information. Because, her original article does not contain such a sentence at all. She would wonder whose grandfather is Sindhu talking about?
If this is the plight of the first paragraph, the last paragraph of the article is not more fortunate; “Otherwise there is no way of survival for Muslim women” are the words Sindhu concludes the article with. That is again Sindu’s gift to Tasleema. Because, Tasleema has not written any such thing.
Such blunt lies both at the beginning and end of the article obviously indicate to the huge amount of lies found between them. Here is an interesting clue to the amount of distortions committed by the translator;
Tasleema in her article refers to “the Anglo-Saxon women of the middle ages”. In Sindhu’s translation this takes the form of “middle aged Anglo-Saxon women”!
Does anybody need more examples to measure the quality of translation?
Tasleema has quoted the translation of verse 31 of the 24th chapter of Quran;
“Tell the faithful women that they must keep their gaze focused below…….”.
Here, the translator adds “Women should keep their necks bowed down and should lower their gaze”. That means, the words “keep their necks bowed down” are the generous contributions of the militant translator!
Tasleema mentions Safiya, one of the wives of the Prophet. The translator (translaughteror?) improves it by calling her Sofiya.
There is a paragraph in Tasleema’s writing starting with these words: “there are many views on why and how the Islamic Purda started”.
In the Kannada translation of this paragraph, we find views such as “this is the cruel reality of the Muslim world”. But the terrifying reality is that this sentence cannot be traced in the entire article of Tasleema!
In the last paragraph of the translator mentions “Muslim women” twice. Whereas, Tasleema has not mentioned them in that paragraph even once.
The word “hundreds” in the text gets translated as “thousands” and “millions” as “crores”. Thus, the over enthusiasm of the translator is evident at every step.
All this is only the ‘story’ of the translation. Now get ready to encounter some horrific realities in the original writing of Tasleema Nasreen!
Tasleema refers to a chapter in Quran called Al-Hijab. But search through all the 114 chapters of Quran. You will not find any chapter by that name. However the verse quoted by her is partly found in chapter 33. But real the title of that chapter is Al-Ahzab.
If a person cannot properly name a chapter of a book available anytime, all over the world and almost in any language, can any view or opinion of such a person be taken seriously?
Tasleema names one ‘Uman’ as a disciple of the Prophet. But any person by that name is not found either among the disciples of the Prophet or in the camp of his enemies.
The worst case of distortion of facts by Tasleema is her quotation of 59th verse of the 33rd chapter of Quran. According to her, the verse reads thus:
“……..then nobody can recognize them and harass them….”
Now, compare these words with any translation of Quran and you will find her words representing exactly the opposite of what is said in the original Quranic text and in all its authentic translations.
In the authentic translations the words found are: “…….so that they may be recognized and are not harassed”.
Tasleema resorts even to create her own verses and attributes them to Quran in her zeal to substantiate her irrational arguments.
For instance, according to her, the Quran says: “O friends of the Prophet, or holy men, never go to your friends’ house without an invitation. And if you do go, don’t go and ask anything of their wives”.
Now search through the entire Quran and you won’t be able to trace such a verse there! Of course, there are verses in Quran, such as follows:
“O believers, enter not houses other than your own until you have permission and you have saluted those in them……….” (24:27)
“O believers, enter not the Prophet’s house until leave is given to you for a meal…..”(33:53)
The difference between these verses and the one fabricated by Tasleema is quite obvious. Should we call it great courage of the writer that she feels she can repeatedly deceive the readers by such fabrications and get away with it?
Discussing the context of verse 59 of the 33rd chapter of Quran, Tasleema quotes a few words and cites the reference as Bukhari Hadith, Book 26, No. 5397. Apparently, this is an effort to create an impression that hers is a serious research work. Now again, if you try to verify the facts you are bound to be shocked. Because, Hadith No. 5397 has absolutely nothing to do with Book No. 26 of Bukhari. Book number 26 of Bukhari in fact begins with Hadith No. 589 and concludes at Hadith No. 823. Again, if you try to trace Hadith No. 5397 in Bukhari, you will find it in Book number 79 of Bukhari which is totally devoted to matters related to health and medicines. There again, this specific Hadith No. 5397 is all about spread of plague in Syria and it is not even remotely related with the issues raised by Tasleema or the words quoted by her.
Tasleema concludes her article by giving an open call to burn the Burkha. That should help anybody to measure the level of her faith in peaceful, democratic and intellectual modes of debate. Those who resorted to violence in course of their protest against her insensitive article were of course wrong. However, some of the facts revealed above should suffice for anybody who wants to see the role played by Tasleema, her writings and her promoters in instigating violence and bloodshed.
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