‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’?

The Reflection of Theological Controversy

in Indonesian Qur’an Translations
Johanna Pink
UNIVERSITÄT FREIBURG

Qur’an Translations and Theology in Indonesia

Studying translations of the Qur’an into any language spoken and read by a large
number of Muslims today is a challenging endeavour, especially since we are faced
with an ever-growing number of such translations. Under these circumstances, it is
unrealistic to even attempt an all-encompassing, comprehensive analysis. Instead, it is
advisable to follow one of two strategies: either focusing on a small selection of
translations, or even a single one, illuminating their context, aims, and methods; or
undertaking a comparative analysis of how a specific issue is reflected in various
translations, thereby identifying broader trends. This paper pursues the latter
approach. It seeks to compare Qur’an translations into Bahasa Indonesia, today the
official language of the Republic of Indonesia, produced from the 1920s to the
present day. In doing so, it analyses patterns underlying the exegetical decisions made
by their authors. These exegetical decisions are all related to theology; and I am using
the term here to denote the field of uṣūl al-dīn and the debates that have taken place
within premodern scholastic theology (ʿilm al-kalām), especially with respect to the
actions and attributes of God. These debates, as far as the modern period is concerned,
receive much less scholarly attention than socio-political discourses on law and ethics
that involve, for example, gender relations or questions of violence, war, and peace.
This is unfortunate if we consider the important place that theology takes in the
Qur’an, in Muslim intellectual history, and for Muslim beliefs. We know little as yet
about the influence that the debates on kalām and their manifestation in tafsīr exercise
on the exegetical choices that modern Muslim Qur’an translators make.

Examining these influences is of more than historical interest. Theology is a political

matter in today’s Indonesia. The Indonesian state has long had a vested interest in

Journal of Qur’anic Studies 17.3 (2015): 100–120

Edinburgh University Press
DOI: 10.3366/jqs.2015.0213
# Centre of Islamic Studies, SOAS
www.euppublishing.com/journal/jqs
 ‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’? 101

restricting expressions of political Islam. At the same time, Suharto’s New Order
regime (c. 1968–98) has supported certain forms of religious expression that were not
considered a danger to the regime, especially Ṣūfism. Ṣūfism, however, has been
strongly contested since reformist Islam started to take hold in Indonesia in the
beginning of the twentieth century. This reformist discourse has generally accused
‘traditional Islam’ of condoning syncretism and ‘un-Islamic’ social practices.

In spite of the fact that Indonesia is not officially an Islamic country, it is not a secular
state either. Officially acknowledged religions are endorsed and supported by the
state – first and foremost Islam. Thus, the Indonesian state is a strong actor in the field
of religion, and it has a strong interest in promoting an Indonesian Muslim identity
that is synonymous with ‘moderate Islam’.1 This is generally taken to be based on
Ashʿarism, with the Egyptian al-Azhar University being a particularly strong
influence on modern Indonesian theologians as they have often pursued part of their
studies there.2 Simultaneously, since the 1980s the Indonesian state has tolerated or
even supported Saudi influence in the country; institutions funded by Saudi Arabia
include schools, missionary organisations, and the Imam Muhammad bin Saud
University in Jakarta. This Wahhābī influence3 constitutes a challenge to the
predominant theological discourse, as do the modernist proponents of a neo-Muʿtazilī
outlook.4

This paper aims at examining the traces of these conflicting currents in Qur’an
translations into Bahasa Indonesia, focussing on a selected number of Qur’anic
expressions that have the potential to raise theological concerns or debates. It thus
hopes to give a clearer idea of the various types of issues that lead to translation
problems and the degree to which they are linked to the specificities of the target
language, on the one hand, or problems connected to the interpretation of the verse, on
the other hand. Furthermore, it seeks to clarify the extent to which Indonesian Qur’an
translations are embedded into the tradition of tafsīr, as well as the specific issues that
distinguish translations from tafsīr works. In this context, the paper explores the way
in which Qur’an translations navigate the tension between a diachronic, trans-regional
Muslim intellectual tradition and local dynamics, preoccupations, and power fields.
On a more practical and technical level, I hope to offer a contribution to the repertoire
of Qur’anic words and expressions that are useful for an analysis of Qur’an
translations, thereby transcending the general focus on overtly contentious issues such
as the beating of wives in Q. 4:34.

Sources

As mentioned above, this paper seeks to explore the potential of an approach that uses
a comparatively large number of Qur’an translations in order to identify trends.
Because of this, it is not possible to describe the works, their authors, intentions, and
102 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

contexts in any depth here, but some contextualisation of the sources is required. For
my analysis, I have taken into account all Qur’an translations into Bahasa Indonesia
that were available to me in libraries and bookstores. I have consciously not made a
selection according to quality, perceived importance, or impact. With regard to
impact, as far as written translations are concerned, the various Qur’an translations
that have been published by the Indonesian Ministry of Religion since 1965 dwarf
every other available translation. At the same time, the influence of oral translations
offered by Muslim scholars in schools and mosques seems to be substantial, but can
hardly be quantified.

A further question arises as to what exactly constitutes a Qur’an translation and

according to what criteria it can be distinguished from a work of tafsīr.
Terminologically, a number of works in Indonesian call themselves a ‘translation’
(terjemah). Others label themselves ‘commentary’ (tafsir) or have titles such as ‘The
Qur’an and its Meaning’ (Al-Qur’an & Maknanya) without necessarily being more
extensive in their scope than some of the works that run under the label of terjemah.
Finally, there are works with names such as ‘translation and commentary’ (terjemah
dan tafsir) or ‘explanatory translation’ (tarjamah tafsiriyah). Clearly, such labels
depend not exclusively on the nature of the work in question, but also on the
publisher’s religious perspective on the translatability of the Qur’an. Therefore,
I have, in my selection of the works to be analysed, neither relied on such labels nor
excluded any work that contains some degree of annotation or commentary. Instead,
I have followed the rule that such content should be distinctly less extensive than the
actual translation, that is the section of the text that aims at directly representing the
meaning of the Qur’an. Furthermore, I have limited my study to works that do not
seek to comment on every single verse of the Qur’an, but only provide comments or
annotations on verses that their authors consider to be in need of additional
explanation. This enables me to see whether a translator sees in a specific verse of the
Qur’an a difficulty that warrants a note, as opposed to works that offer a running
commentary on the entire text. The criteria outlined here, of course, constitute a
working definition that does not involve any normative claims. Defining works that
meet these criteria as translations, for the purposes of this study, is not to say that they
should not be considered works of exegesis; rather, this article seeks to examine the
extent to which this is the case.

All thirteen translations that I have included in the study have been written –
individually or collectively – by religious scholars or Muslim intellectuals with the
intention of providing a reading aid to the Arabic Qur’an for a Muslim readership. The
one Indonesian translation that aims at transmitting the poetic language of the Qur’an
into Bahasa Indonesia, Bacaan Mulia by H.B. Jassin, could not been taken into
consideration in my comparative analysis.5 The Qur’an translations that I have used
include three that stem at least partly from the colonial period. One of these, that by
 ‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’? 103

A. Hassan, was only published after independence, the other one was published by
Mahmud Yunus in several different versions both before and after independence. Two
of the Yunus versions that markedly differ from each other and therefore have to be
counted as separate works were available to me.6 I have furthermore consulted three
editions of the translation provided by the Ministry of Religion which have been
published under different regimes and, again, markedly differ from each other; they
were published in 1965–9, 1989, and 2013.7 Related to these is a translation
distributed by the Saudi-Arabian King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Glorious
Qur’an. It is probably based on a 2002 Indonesian government edition, which is
mostly an abridged version of the 1989 edition.8 However, while the Saudi and the
government versions are identical in the actual wording of the translation, this is not
true for notes and for interpretive additions in brackets; some examples will be given
below. Finally, I have used six Qur’an translations by individual scholars or groups of
up to three scholars that have been published between 1959 and 2011.9 I have also had
access to two works by the branches of the Ahmadiyya movement which are special
cases due to the fact that they are both translations of existing English Qur’an
translations, rather than the Arabic Qur’an. Both are too long to fulfil my working
definition of a translation, as the amount of notes is massive.10 However, as with other
extensive Indonesian Qur’anic commentaries,11 I have consulted them in certain cases
for the sake of comparison.12

A general problem in the study of Qur’an translations, and one that has no easy
solution, is a lack of historically reliable sources. Qur’an translations are normally not
systematically collected by libraries. Therefore, early editions of these works are often
not accessible. This is because Qur’an translations are not usually considered original
works of scholarship. For the same reason, when new editions of translations are
produced, the publishers do not seem to see fidelity to the original text as an important
concern. Thus, some of the better-known historical Qur’an translations have been
published in new editions that have undergone revisions, the extent and nature of
which is entirely unclear. The situation is further complicated by the fact that, in some
cases, the authors themselves have published revised editions of their own works, but
in recent editions it is not always clear which of these versions has been used by the
publisher. The focus of such publications is on offering a ‘correct’ reading of the
meaning of the Qur’an, not necessarily on staying true to the original translator’s
choices. Therefore, the value of some of the sources I have been forced to content
myself with is limited, from a historiographical point of view. Nevertheless, they are
relevant because they provide an insight into the kind of Qur’an translations that have
been made available to the Indonesian public during the Republican period.

The analysis of chronological developments in subsequent sections of this paper will

have to be approached with a certain amount of caution for the reasons mentioned
above. Generally, however, it should be mentioned that the earlier translations, at least
104 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

until the 1960s, all stem from authors with a reformist orientation who wrote them
with the purpose of educating a broader Muslim public on the contents of the Qur’an
and had a rather scripturalist outlook, while the more traditional ʿulamāʾ of the time
still largely refuted translations of the Qur’an and sought to restrict its use to higher
institutions of Islamic learning.13 This has changed in recent decades, with Islamist
authors and mainstream ʿulamāʾ having produced their own translations.

Free Will and Predestination

The question of whether God has endowed humans with free will or whether He has
predestined their actions and, therefore, their ultimate fate was one of the core issues
in the controversies that contributed to the rise of scholastic theology (kalām), and one
that theologians engaged with for many centuries. In later mainstream Sunnī theology
as it has traditionally been upheld in Indonesia, belief in divine predestination
(al-qaḍāʾ wa’l-qadar) emerged as the norm. However, through the influence of the
reformist Muhammadiyah movement, a few scholars started engaging with the
rationalist theology of the Muʿtazila throughout the twentieth century. Harun
Nasution, especially, propagated the replacement of the hitherto predominant
Ashʿarī doctrines with Muʿtazilī ones, especially where the issue of free will is
concerned. In Nasution’s opinion, this was not a purely theological matter; he
believed that the doctrine of divine predestination hindered national progress and
development.14

The Qur’an makes no conclusive statement on the issue of free will, but contains a
great number of verses that could be understood as evidence for either point of view.
One particularly striking example is Q. 2:7, which says about the unbelievers
(alladhīna kafarū): God has sealed their hearts and their hearing (khatama’llāhu ʿalā
qulūbihim wa-ʿalā samʿihim). This has raised the issue, especially for exegetes with
Muʿtazilī leanings, of whether God has indeed made it impossible for the unbelievers
to hear and feel the truth and whether their unbelief, therefore, has been preordained.
Jār Allāh al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144), for example, rejects this interpretation, not so
much because the Qur’anic wording would make it implausible, but because it
contradicts his Muʿtazilī convictions. This would be an evil way for God to act, he
maintains, and God is incapable of committing evil acts as the Qur’an states on several
occasions. Therefore, the expression must be meant in a figurative sense: the
unbelievers close their hearts and hearing against the divine truth so tightly that it is as
if God Himself had sealed them.15 The Ashʿarī exegete ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar al-
Bayḍāwī (d. 685/1286), on the other hand, understands this verse as a statement of
divine predestination, but nevertheless goes on to list no less than seven Muʿtazilī
interpretations that offer alternative readings; for example, God might only have
sealed the unbelievers’ hearts in order to affirm a decision they have made
themselves.16
 ‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’? 105

When dealing with Q. 2:7, Indonesian Qur’an translators might have opted for leaving
this debate to the exegetes by simply translating the Arabic verb khatama (‘to seal’)
with a semantically close Indonesian verb without further comment. This poses
difficulties, however, because the verb khatama contains two overlapping semantic
fields, both of which play a role in the spectrum of existing interpretations: a seal is
used in order to securely close something, but also as a stamp or mark. The Indonesian
language does not have a verb that encompasses both semantic fields and conveys the
ambiguity this involves. Translators have to decide between the meaning of coverage
or closure, on the one hand, and the meaning of stamping, branding, or marking
something, on the other hand. The former interpretation would strongly suggest that
unbelief is a result of God’s decision to close the unbelievers’ hearts and hearing to
the divine truth; the latter interpretation is more easily compatible with the doctrine of
free will.

Both possible interpretations can be found in the Indonesian Qur’an translations I

consulted, but the vast majority opt for the semantic field of ‘closing’ or even
‘locking’ (menutup or mengunci[-mati]) the unbelievers’ hearts as the primary
translation.17 The alternative is to use mencap (‘to stamp, impress, mark, label’).18
This is only done by Mahmud Yunus, a reformist scholar who was one of the first
(1938) and most renowned translators of the Qur’an into modern Indonesian,19 and by
the equally reformist early post-independence scholar Hasbi ash-Shiddieqy in his
Al Bayan (1966). The latter puts menutup mati (‘to close tightly’) in brackets, though,
maybe in an attempt to denote the ambiguity of the original khatama.20 The 1960s
were the time in which Harun Nasution came up with his neo-Muʿtazilī ideas, and
they were also the time in which the Indonesian exegete Hamka wrote his famous
Qur’anic commentary Tafsir al-Azhar in which he translated khatama as memeterai
(‘to stamp’), elaborating that the verse clearly does not talk about predestination, but
about the way in which God confirms a decision taken by humans.21 None of the more
recent translators follow in this vein, however; they are unanimous in their preference
for a translation that suggests that God made it impossible, by closing certain people’s
hearts and hearing, for them to believe in Him.

Thus, the exegetical debate on Q. 2:7 – a debate that is not as much necessitated by
the wording of the Qur’an as it is the result of an existing theological controversy – is
reflected in all Indonesian Qur’an translations in some way. It cannot be entirely
ignored; the translator cannot avoid making a decision because the structure of the
target language does not allow for the same semantic range, and thus ambiguity,
as the Arabic original does. Faced with a choice between a translation that
suggests an orthodox Ashʿarī predeterminationist view and a translation leaning
towards the belief in freedom of will, the bulk of translations settle for the
former.
106 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

The Relationship Between God and Man

Not in all cases are the Arabic terms used by the Qur’an as difficult to translate as in
Q. 2:7. A close look at a number of verses describing the relationship between God
and man, and the prerogatives of God and His capacity to be affected by human
actions, makes clear that theological dogma will nevertheless exert a strong influence
upon many translators to the effect that they will digress from the Qur’anic wording in
order to present their readers with what they consider a correct translation. This is true
in widely varying degrees, though, and depends a lot on the issue at hand.

Q. 33:57 talks of those who hurt God and His Messenger (alladhīna yuʾdhūna’llāha
wa-rasūlahū), which raises the question whether God – as opposed to Muḥammad –
is actually capable of being afflicted by any kind of human action. Nearly all22
translators translate yuʾdhūna as menyakiti (‘to torture, torment, plague, pester; to
hurt, offend, injure’), but only three23 leave this translation uncommented. All others
have some kind of note, commentary, or alternative explanation. Hassan, for example,
writes mengganggu [agama] Tuhan: hurting the religion of God, not God Himself.
According to Yunus, ‘hurting’ God really means ‘revolting’ (mendurhakai) against
Him; he gives this explanation in brackets after menyakiti. The first editions of the
Ministry of Religion translation, as well as their Saudi counterpart, explain in a
footnote that ‘hurting God’ means committing actions that do not please God and are
not approved of by His messenger, for example professing unbelief or the denial of
Muḥammad’s prophethood. Surin also has a footnote that says ‘hurting God’ means
refusing to follow His commandments, while hurting the Prophet means insulting and
belittling him. Like Surin, Thalib distinguishes between the meaning of the verse with
respect to God and its meaning with respect to Muḥammad: those who commit shirk
(menyekutukan Allah) and harass (mengganggu) the Prophet. Quraish Shihab, on the
other hand, does not make such a distinction. He explains the verb menyakiti, rather
laboriously, in a bracket as ‘to have a certain attitude, talk, or act in a way that implies
harassment towards God and His Messenger’. All in all, it is clear that most translators
do not feel comfortable, from a dogmatic point of view, with letting the verse stand by
itself. However, their interpretive intervention is clearly marked by brackets or in
footnotes; the only exception is the Islamist translator Muhammad Thalib for whose
‘interpretive translation’ the conflation of translation and ‘dogmatically correct’
interpretion is programmatic.24

The translators show similar reservations when dealing with a passage in Q. 47:7
where the Qur’an tells the believers if you help God, He will help you (in
tanṣurū’llāha yanṣurkum). This is just as problematic as the above-mentioned verse,
although for the opposite reason: In what way could humans possibly help God, and
why would God need their help? Only one translator – again, Hasbi ash Shiddieqy –
renders the verse into Indonesian without additions or modifications to the meaning.
 ‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’? 107

The vast majority of translators, however, solve the theological problem by

inserting the word agama (‘religion’) in brackets so that the verse reads if you help
[the religion of] God. In all these cases, the insertions are recognisable as not being
part of the original text. Again, the exception is Thalib’s Islamist translation, which
digresses significantly from the Arabic wording: If all of you wage jihād for the
defence of Islam (jika kalian berjihad untuk membela Islam) – this seems to be
synonymous with ‘helping God’ for him.

Not in all cases are the translators as conscientious about marking alterations to the
wording or structure of the Qur’anic text as in the above-mentioned examples,
however. Q. 8:2 says with regard to the believers: When His signs are recited to them,
they [the signs] increase them in faith (idhā tuliyat ʿalayhim āyātuhu zādathum
īmānan). The dogmatic problem here is it that the verse explicitly ascribes the power
to increase the believers’ faith not to God, but to His signs, whereas, according to the
Sunnī mainstream view, only God has the power to create or increase a human’s faith.
Nearly all Indonesian translators seem to share this dogmatic perspective: they choose
to disregard the Arabic syntax and instead translate the verse along the lines of when
His signs are recited to them, their faith increases (bertambah) [in strength]. The
1989 edition of the government translation and its Saudi counterpart – in contrast to
the first and most recent editions – seem to be conscious of the syntactic distortion
that this involves and therefore add a clarification in brackets: their faith increases
(because of them [the verses]), much as Hamidy and Fachruddin do.25 The only
translator who is faithful to the Arabic syntax is Muhammad Quraish Shihab, a
renowned theologian with a high level of skill in Arabic26 who is generally prone to
taking nuances in the Arabic text into account.27 The overall picture, however, is that
most translators prefer to change subject-object relations in order to guarantee the
conformity of their translation with what they consider dogmatically correct. In this
case, the exegetical intervention is not discernible for readers who are incapable of
understanding the nuances of the Arabic text.

The same is true for the way in which many translators deal with the Qur’anic
exhortation in God let the believers put their trust (wa-ʿalā’llāhi fa’l-yatawakkali’l-
muʾminūn) in Q. 9:51. The first translation to introduce a small, but significant
addition to the Indonesian version of this verse was the Ministry of Religion
translation of 1965, which rendered the phrase as hanjala kepada Allah orang-orang
jang beriman harus bertawakkal (only in God must the believers put their trust).28
The insertion of the word hanya29 (‘only’) constitutes a modification in meaning: Not
only are believers asked to put their trust in God, as the Arabic wording suggests, but
they are also explicitly instructed not to put their trust in anyone else. Interestingly, all
later translations, with only one exception – Bachtiar Surin30 – follow the example of
the government translation and, while otherwise not rendering the verse in identical
ways, add the word hanya to their translation. Mahmud Yunus even added the word to
108 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

the 1973 edition of his translation after it had been lacking in earlier editions. It seems
likely that this is in line with a dogmatic position that firmly denies the possibility of
intercession (shafāʿa) on the believers’ behalf by any creature unless it is derived from
God’s will, and consequently forbids Muslims from asking anyone but God for such
intercession. This position, especially in its emphatic form, has its roots in Muslim
reform movements that strove for a purification of Islam from illicit innovations
and for a concentration on tawḥīd, based on the ideas of Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya
(661–728/1263–1328). It has a strong anti-Ṣūfī connotation. In the Indonesian
context, Muslim reform movements, starting with the Muhammadiyah that was
founded in 1912 and was heavily influenced by the Egyptian Salafiyya around
Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (1865–1935),31 vehemently opposed the authority of local
Ṣūfī shaykhs and the devotion to Ṣūfī ‘saints’. It is likely that this is what Indonesian
Qur’an translators had in mind when they translated the Qur’an as exhorting believers
to only put their trust in God. In no instance is the word hanya discernible as an
interpretative addition.32

Anthropomorphism

The anthropomorphic attributes of God mentioned in the Qur’an and the sunna have
been another core issue of theological controversy. The mainstream of Sunnī theology
came to categorically reject anthropomorphism (tashbīh) and to emphasise God’s
transcendence (tanzīh) while at the same time maintaining that the anthropomorphic
attributes found in the Qur’an are ṣifāt khabariyya, attributes of God that are attested
in an incontestable source of Islam and therefore have to be accepted as being more
than mere metaphors. This acceptance was linked to the well-known formula of bi-lā
kayf which, in a more traditionalist sense, meant ‘without further comment’, while the
scholastic theologians rather used it ‘in the sense of “without qualifying God in a way
only to be applied to His creation”; they presented it as a middle course between a
literal acceptance of the anthropological statements in the Scripture … on one side and
their metaphorical interpretation … on the other’.33 Scholars such as al-Ghazālī,
however, distinguished between an anthropomorphic language geared towards
common people and a discourse of transcendentalism that is limited to scholars.34
This might be a relevant distinction with respect to Qur’an translations, which are
usually directed at Muslims with little or no religious education.

Against this backdrop, how do Indonesian translators deal with Qur’anic verses that
speak of ‘God’s face’, as in Q. 55:27, yet still abides the face of thy Lord (wa-yabqā
wajhu rabbika)? Up until the 1980s, translators were clearly reluctant to use an
Indonesian synonym for the Arabic wajh (‘face’) and instead followed the example of
the earliest translators, Mahmud Yunus and A. Hassan, by settling for translations
along the lines of diri Tuhanmu or dzat/zat Tuhanmu (thy Lord Himself). The only
exception is the work by Hamidy and Fachruddin who use the loan word wadjah to
 ‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’? 109

signify ‘face’, but explain in a footnote that it denotes the grandeur, magnificence, and
might of God as well as His positive attributes. The more recent translations, starting
from the 1989 edition of the official government translation, abandon these
reservations and translate wajh as wajah. Once again, only Muhammad Thalib, a
fierce critic of the government translation,35 diverges from the consensus: he omits the
word altogether, translating the face of thy Lord as only thy Lord.

In another instance, the translators’ reservations against an unqualified use of the word
‘face’ in connection with God are even more distinct. Q. 2:115 says whithersoever you
turn, there is the Face of God (fa-aynamā tuwallū fa-thamma wajhu’llāh). The only
translation that uses the Indonesian word wajah (‘face’) without qualifications or at
least explanatory notes is the most recent edition of the government translation.36 The
majority of translations – seven in all – use the word wajah, but add an explanatory
footnote or bracket that gives this translation a metaphorical meaning: ‘the face of
God’ refers to the qibla, the direction of prayer, according to some, or to the fact that
God sees everything, according to others. Alternatively, it might mean that every
place one might turn to is blessed by God, as Quraish Shihab explains in brackets
behind the term wajah. This understanding is in line with the early translation of
Hassan who uses a directly metaphorical translation, keridaan (‘blessing’), with an
explanatory footnote that states that wajah, here, is a metaphor for God’s
magnanimity, mercy, or perceptiveness. The other early translation from the
colonial period, Yunus, likewise opts for a metaphorical rendition of the word
‘face’, translating it as kiblat (Ar. qibla), without any further comment.37 The only one
from among the translations produced in the nation-state period to follow this example
and avoid any reference to ‘God’s face’ is Muhammad Thalib’s. Interestingly, this is
one exegetical problem on which the 1989 government edition and the more recent
version distributed by Saudi Arabia differ despite their general congruence. The 1989
government and the Saudi version are identical in their rendition of the verse, but have
completely different footnotes. The 1989 government edition states, much like its
1965 predecessor, that the expression ‘God’s face’ here refers to God’s omniscience.
The Saudi edition, on the other hand, points to an occasion of revelation mentioned by
Abū Jaʿfar b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (224–310/839–923) that is clearly connected to the
question of where to turn in prayer when the qibla is unknown. It is obvious that the
Saudi version38 is based on a more traditionalist and ḥadīth-minded attitude towards
interpreting the Qur’an and more interested in matters of correct ritual than the
government one.

In both instances of the Qur’anic usage of the expression ‘God’s face,’ it becomes
apparent that the majority of translators have reservations against an unqualified direct
translation of the anthropomorphic expressions contained in the Qur’an. At the same
time, there might be a trend towards a more literal translation of anthropomorphic
Qur’anic statements about ‘God’s face’ in recent decades. Any such trend would be
110 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

strongly opposed by Muhammad Thalib, however, whose ‘interpretative translation’

adamantly refuses to even hint at the existence of the word ‘face’, with respect to God,
in the Qur’an.

While the concept of ‘God’s face’ thus poses difficulties for translators, they generally
have a lot less problems with expressions that involve ‘God’s hand’. For example,
Q. 67:1 says Blessed be He in whose hand is the Kingdom (tabāraka’lladhī
bi-yadihī’l-mulk). Out of twelve translations, nine translate this literally (yang di
tangan-Nya) or quasi-literally (di genggaman-Nya, ‘in whose grip’39) without any
explanations or comments. The other three replace the phrase ‘to be in one’s hand’
with a verb, either menguasai (‘to control, dominate, rule’)40 or mengendalikan (‘to
control’).41 A similar picture emerges with respect to Q. 48:10, God’s hand is over
their hands (yadu’llāhi fawqa aydīhim). In this case, not a single translator omits the
reference to ‘God’s hand’, although many translations contain an explanatory
expansion of the sentence or add a footnote explaining this expression either as a
metaphor for a pact with God or as a metaphor for God’s might. A possible
explanation for the general lack of reservations against an anthropomorphic
translation, in the case of God’s hand, might be the fact that the metaphorical
connotations of phrases involving hands seem more obvious and self-explanatory than
that of phrases involving God’s face; maybe the risk of anthropomorphic
‘misunderstandings’, on their readers’ part, seemed lower to the translators in this
case.

On the other hand, when the Qur’an talks of ‘God’s throne’ (kursiyyuhū) that
‘comprises the heavens and earth’ (wasiʿa … al-samawāti wa’l-arḍ) in Q. 2:255, the
translators near-unanimously feel that this needs either to be explained or translated in
a metaphorical manner. The one exception – interestingly, and in contrast to his
reluctance to subscribe to the concept of ‘God’s face’ – is Thalib who uses
singgasana, the Indonesian equivalent for ‘throne’, without further comment. Two
thirds of the translators use the loan word kursi, but half of those add a footnote
providing a metaphorical meaning for this expression, while the other half add one or
two metaphorical interpretations in brackets within the main text. The interpretations
given include God’s knowledge, His kingdom, and His might. The same is true for
those three translations which do not use the semantic field ‘throne’ at all, but replace
it with a word denoting that which the throne stands for in their opinion: Hassan uses
pengetahuan (‘knowledge’), while Hasbi ash Shiddieqy prefers the Arabic loan word
ilmu with roughly the same meaning. Surin, on the other hand, uses kekuasaan
(‘power’, ‘might’).

An interesting side observation, with respect to this segment of the Throne Verse,
concerns the difference between the government translation and the Saudi version.
Both the 1965 and the 1989 government edition translate the word in question as kursi
 ‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’? 111

and contain a footnote saying that some exegetes interpret this as God’s knowledge,
others, as his might. However, the 2002 edition distributed by Saudi Arabia’s King
Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur’an – again – has a markedly different
footnote that adds to the original explanation the following statement: ‘The correct
opinion pertaining to the meaning of “Kursi” is that it is the place where God positions
the soles of His feet.’ This statement goes back to the extensive exegetical debate on
the meaning of the Arabic term kursī that, besides ‘throne’, could also mean ‘chair’,
‘seat’, or ‘pedestal’, and the way in which it differs from God’s ʿarsh (‘throne’) that is
mentioned in other verses of the Qur’an, for exampe Q. 85:15. Some exegetes, such as
al-Bayḍāwī,42 are not particularly interested in this debate because they categorically
refuse to accept the existence of a ‘throne of God’ and therefore think that both kursī
and ʿarsh have metaphorical meanings anyway. Other, more traditionalist exegetes
such as al-Ṭabarī43 and ʿImād al-Dīn Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373)44 mention – but not
necessarily prefer – interpretations going back to early scholars according to which
the kursī is below God’s ʿarsh and is the pedestal upon which He places His feet. In
contrast to most premodern exegetes, Muḥammad al-Shawkānī (1173–1250/1760–
1835), a scripturalist Sunnī exegete strongly endorsed by many contemporary Saudi
scholars,45 not only quotes this tradition, but argues in favour of such a literalist
interpretation.46 It is this interpretation that the King Fahd version of the government
translation refers to and that it decisively claims to be the correct one. The most recent
government translation is far more cautious. It maintains the original reference to
those exegetes who understand kursī to mean either God’s omniscience or His might,
and solomonically adds ‘and there are other interpretations, too’.

This example is telling; it suggests that, while unqualified and straightforward

anthropomorphic interpretations are still avoided by most Indonesian translators
especially when related to ‘God’s face’ or ‘the Throne of God’, there is a certain trend
towards more literal translations in such cases that might have to do with an increasing
influence of traditionalist Sunnī theology as it is promoted by Saudi Arabia. Most
translators, however, do not seem to agree with the likes of al-Ghazālī that
anthropomorphism is suitable for lay Muslims and transcendence for the scholars;
they rather try to transport the ‘correct’, scholarly meaning in their translations.

Translation as Exegesis

It has become clear, from the analysis above, that translations, like Qur’anic
commentaries, are works of exegesis. Even such translations that have no footnotes or
commentary sections whatsoever rely on a vision of what the Qur’anic text is
supposed to mean. The notion of being ‘faithful’ to the text is clearly not an
imperative consideration for most translators when they feel it might lead to an
‘incorrect’ understanding of the Qur’an on their readers’ part.
112 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

For example, Q 9:51 reads Naught shall visit us but what God has prescribed for us
(lan yuṣībanā illā mā kataba’llāhu lanā). The verb translated here as ‘to prescribe’ is
kataba, the basic meaning of which is ‘to write [down]’. There is practically a
consensus among Sunnī exegetes, however, that the verse refers to more than divine
prescience; that it is God who prescribes and decrees what kind of fate visits humans.
Against this backdrop, Indonesian translators have two basic options: they may retain
the literal meaning and use the verb menulis (‘to write’) in the hopes that their readers
will understand this just as the original Arab listeners would have understood the
Qur’anic verse; or they may choose a translation that makes the meaning, as it is
generally understand by Muslim exegetes, plain and unambiguous by using verbs like
menetapkan (‘to determine’) or even the Arabic loanword men(t)akdirkan (‘to
decree’). Only one translation, that by Yunus, chooses the former option, however;
and even Yunus, in a later version of his work, adds a reference to takdir (‘the divine
decree’).47 The vast majority settle for the latter option, thereby delimiting the readers’
interpretive discretion without making this explicit.

In other cases, as I have shown, the translators’ exegetical interventions are more
transparent. For example, as has been shown above, the majority of translations
incorporate the Muslim exegetical tradition into their translation of the Throne Verse
in much the same concise way as paraphrastic Qur’anic commentaries such as the
Tafsīr al-Jalālayn by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī (791–864/1389–1459) and his disciple
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (849–911/1445–1505) do.

The incorporation of exegetical material into a translation or a paraphrastic

commentary has its limits, however. For example, with regard to Q. 1:7, the path
of those whom Thou hast blessed, not of those against whom Thou art wrathful, nor
of those who are astray, most premodern exegetes quote a Prophetic ḥadīth that
al-Suyūṭī, in his Durr al-manthūr, has in no less than six versions, according to which
those whom Thou hast blessed are the believers while those against whom Thou art
wrathful are the Jews and those who are astray are the Christians.48 While not all
exegetes explicitly endorse this interpretation and some – such as al-Bayḍāwī49 –
even reject it, it was so commonplace that the paraphrastic Tafsīr al-Jalālayn presents
it quite unequivocally as the meaning of the verse.50 However, in the Indonesian
translations, despite the fact that many of them have extensive notes on Sūrat
al-Fātiḥa, reference to this ḥadīth is scarce. The first translator to mention it – but
only in order to dismiss it outright – is Hasbi ash Shiddieqy who explains in a note on
Q. 1:7 that those who are hated (orang-orang yang dibenci) are those who have
deviated from the path of Islam, whether they be Jews or from any other religion. This
reference to Jews is hardly understandable without knowledge of the exegetical
tradition; Hasbi ash Shiddieqy obviously assumes that many of his readers will have
heard of it. Interestingly, he makes no reference to the Christians at all although they
are always mentioned alongside the Jews in the exegetical ḥadīth mentioned above.
 ‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’? 113

Surin, whose Al Kanz is otherwise only infrequently annotated, has more than two
pages of notes on Q. 1:7,51 most of which deal with the ḥadīth connecting Q. 1:7 with
the Jews and Christians, for which he quotes Ibn Kathīr as his source. He then
explains at length the misdeeds of the Jews and their claims to be the ‘Chosen People’,
predominantly drawing on examples from the Qur’an and old Testamentary history.
He makes a brief reference to the Christians who, according to him, ‘are astray’
because they emerged from the Jewish faith, which was wrong from the outset: the
Jews are clearly the main perpetrators, from his point of view – which might reflect a
more general attitude among Indonesians that might also be behind Hasbi ash
Shiddieqy’s exclusive focus on the Jews. While state ideology promotes religious
unity between Christians and Muslims (and Buddhists and Hindus), Jews are no part
of this narrative. In any case, Surin’s lengthy excursus on the Jews is preceded by a
detailed explanation of the more general meaning of the verse that does not restrict its
meaning to specific religions. The Jews and Christians are not mentioned in Surin’s
actual translation either. The difference between the Qur’anic wording and an
exegetical ḥadīth that is part of the commentary tradition therefore becomes fairly
clear to the reader. This is different in Muhammad Thalib’s translation, which renders
Q. 1:7 as the religion that is followed by those whom You have already blessed with
the guidance of Islam until their death, not the religion of the Jewish people who are
despised by Allah, and also not the religion of the Christian people who reject
Muḥammad’s prophethood.52 The Qur’anic text and the exegetical ḥadīth are thereby
conflated to produce one authoritative meaning. Unsurprisingly, Thalib’s exegetical
view, in this respect, is identical with that expressed by the Saudi translation, which
retains the original text as well as the original, rather general, footnote from the
government translation, but inserts the Jews and the Christians in brackets into the
main text: not (the way of) those who have drawn wrath upon themselves (the Jews),
and (also) not (the way of) those who go astray (the Christians)’ (bukan (jalan)
mereka yang dimurkai (Yahudi), dan bukan (pula jalan) mereka yang sesat
(Nasrani)).

The rest of the Indonesian translators, however, are silent on this issue. They choose
not to make any reference to an exegetical ḥadīth – albeit one that is usually
considered authoritative – that rather blatantly narrows down the ‘general (ʿāmm)
meaning’ of the Qur’an to a very specific (khāṣṣ) meaning without any real need, as
the original wording of the verse – unlike the Throne Verse – does not pose any great
dogmatic problems for mainstream Sunnī scholars. Most translators presumably
follow the mainstream approach to exegesis where the general meaning suggested by
a Qur’anic expression has precedence over a specific one unless it is clear, for some
reason, that the general meaning cannot be applicable.

Moreover, the Indonesian state ideology of ‘unity in diversity’ has always strongly
discouraged the incitement of interreligious strife, especially during the Old and New
114 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

Order periods. This ideological setting might play an important role in most
translators’ refusal to make any mention of this topic; it also explains Thalib’s strong
opposition to this mainstream approach because his Qur’an translation is a project that
is meant to directly challenge the state’s authority to set the terms of Indonesia’s
religious discourse.

On a more general level, the example of Q. 1:7 shows that the allusion to exegetical
material in Indonesian translations, while not uncommon, is not a necessity even
when a specific exegetical tradition is generally considered authoritative in the
tradition of Sunnī tafsīr; translators only take recourse to such material when they fear
that their translation might otherwise create a dogmatically ‘wrong’ impression in the
reader.

Conclusion

All the translations studied here conceive of themselves, often quite consciously,
as exegetical works, aiming to remove ambiguities and to ‘clarify’ Qur’anic
statements that they consider to be irreconcilable with theological dogma. On the
other hand, they build upon an exegetical tradition that sometimes induces them to
add ambiguity to the text, rather than remove it. The case of the Throne Verse,
where many translators offer two possible metaphorical understandings of the term
kursī, is a striking case in point. Often, the translators’ decisions cannot be
understood without knowledge of the exegetical tradition they are based on. Not
always are the translators’ exegetical choices recognisable as such, especially in those
cases where the ‘right’ translation seems undisputable to them from a dogmatic point
of view and where they therefore see no need to make it recognisable as a personal
opinion.

Clearly, the target language is a factor that heavily influences the extent to which
translators have to act as interpreters, as the example of the verb khatama in Q. 2:7,
which has no equally ambiguous semantic equivalent in Indonesian, has shown.
A cross-language comparison would be necessary in order to evaluate more precisely
the role of language for the imposition, creation, or avoidance of exegetical disputes
and difficulties expressed through the medium of translation.

From a historical perspective, the analysis shows that especially the early endeavours
by Mahmud Yunus, A. Hassan and, to a certain extent, Hasbi ash Shiddieqy, all of
whom represent a reformist trend,53 aim for a translation that is close to the text and
largely ignores the premodern exegetical tradition. Still, while they are in many
instances closer to the Qur’anic wording than later translations, they are not beyond
dogmatic considerations that sometimes even reverse this tendency. Thus, it is exactly
the earlier translations that display a high level of discomfort with respect to the
anthropomorphic attributes of God, while literalist and traditionalist readings become
 ‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’? 115

slightly more pronounced in later decades. This is, unsurprisingly, most obvious in the
edition of the government translation that is distributed by Saudi Arabia.

It is apparent, from all the translations studied, that their authors had in mind Muslim
readers who would not use the translation for recitational or aesthetic purposes, but in
order to understand the meaning of the Qur’an, and who should therefore not be led to
adopt readings that might possibly be derived from the text, but might be false from a
dogmatic perspective. Given this fact, it seems well justified to distinguish, in the
study of translations, between those whose focus is predominantly or exclusively on a
Muslim audience and those whose focus is on non-Muslim readers – which is not to
say that this dividing line is always clear.54

Notes
1 For a general overview of the relationship between Islam and state in Indonesia, see
Federspiel, Popular Indonesian Literature of the Qur’an, pp. 9–30; Saeed, ‘Introduction’,
pp. 6–12.
2 On the religious trends at play here, see Woodward, ‘Textual Exegesis’.
3 On the Saudi influence through schools, in particular, see Hasan, ‘Salafi Madrasas’.
4 On neo-Muʿtazilism in Indonesia, see Saleh, Modern Trends, pp. 196–240.
5 This work and the controversy around it have been discussed in a study of its own, see
Rahman, ‘The Controversy around H.B. Jassin’. See also Riddell, ‘Translating the Qurʾān’,
which not only discusses the controversy and its reasons but also gives a good general overview
of the field of Indonesian Qur’an translations and commentaries.
6 Hassan, al-Furqān, was published in periodicals from 1928 onwards; the complete version
was published as a book in 1956 (see Feener, ‘History of Qur’anic Exegesis’, p. 56). Junus,
Tarjamah, and Yunus, Tafsir, are different versions of the same work. Junus, Tarjamah, is
based either on the original 1938 edition or a revised post-independence edition published by
the author himself and contains a translation without notes or commentary. Yunus, Tafsir, is
based on the revised and commented translation published by the author in 1973 (see Yunus,
Tafsir, pp. II–VI). See also Baidan, Tafsir Al-Qur’an Di Indonesia, p. 88.
7 Departemen Agama Republika Indonesia, Al Quräan Dan Terdjemahnja (1965–9);
Departemen Agama Republika Indonesia, Al-Qur’an Dan Terjemahnya (1989); Kementerian
Agama Republika Indonesia, Al Qur’an Dan Terjemahnya (2013).
8 There are only slight, almost unnoticeable, but important differences between the 1989
government version and the version distributed by Saudi Arabia. Some of these only concern
differences in spelling and punctuation. However, there are also occasional insertions in
brackets that seek to enforce a ‘proper’ understanding of the translation, e.g. in the declaration
of tawḥīd in the beginning of Q. 2:255 or in Q. 1:7, which will be discussed below. Generally,
the government translation is so pervasive that there are many versions, both in print and on the
internet, that contain small variations and thereby make the analysis rather difficult. Some of
these variations might be unintentional (like differences in spelling), others are clearly
intentional, like the inclusion or omission of footnotes or interpretative additions taken from
both the 1989 and the 2002 version. For this paper, I rely on the printed edition of the
government translation published by the Ministry of Religion in 1989 and on the online version
available on the website of the King Fahd Complex (http://qurancomplex.gov.sa/Quran/
Targama/Targama.asp?l=arb&t=ind [accessed 16 Sept 2014]).
116 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

9 Hamidy and Fachruddin, Tafsir Qurän; Hasbi Ash Shiddieqy, Al Bayan, Surin, Al Kanz;
Adlany, Tamam, and Nasution, Al Quran Terjemah Indonesia; Shihab, Al-Qur’an &
Maknanya, Thalib, Al-Qur’anul Karim.
10 Panitia Penterdjemah Tafsir al-Qur’ān Djema’at Ahmadiyah Indonesia, Al-Qur’ān (I only
had access to the first volume of two), and Ali and Bachrun, Qur’an Suci. The former was
published by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, the latter by the Lahore branch of the Ahmadiyya
movement.
11 Especially Bakry, Idris, and Madjoindo, Al-Qurän-ul-Hakim (I only had access to the
second of presumably six volumes, covering the sixth to tenth juzʾ of the Qur’an), and Hamka,
Tafsir Al-Azhar.
12 Some information on several of the works studied here can be found in Feener, ‘History of
Qur’anic Exegesis’, and Federspiel, Popular Indonesian Literature of the Qur’an. It has to be
noted, however, that both authors’ assertion that the government translation was a New Order
project initiated in 1967 by Suharto’s regime is wrong. The first volume had already been
published in 1965, well before the regime change, and was initiated at least in 1961, as the
introduction to Al Quräan Dan Terdjemahnja (vol. 1, 1965) states. The Suharto regime simply
tried to take credit for it from 1967 onwards, as the front matters of the second and third volume
reveal.
13 See Feener, ‘History of Qur’anic Exegesis’.
14 Saleh, Modern Trends, pp. 196–9.
15 al-Zamakhshsarī, Kashshāf, vol. 1, p. 385 f.
16 al-Bayḍāwī, Tafsīr, p. 9.
17 Since I constantly refer to a dozen or more works of translation and since the Qur’anic
verses I refer to are easy to identify in the translations I have used, I will not generally cite
individual translations with page numbers for every statement I make about the translators’
choices.
18 The Indonesian-English translations in this paper are based on Stevens and Schmidgall-
Tellings, A Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary.
19 Both editions of Yunus’ work that I have used have the same wording here, which is not
always the case.
20 The Lahore Ahmadiyya translation does something similar, while the English translation by
Muhammad Ali that it is based on simply says Allah set a seal on their hearts, but expresses an
anti-predeterminationist stance in a note; see Ali, The Holy Qur-án. The Ahmadiyya Muslim
Jamaat translation is clearly in favour of free will, too.
21 Hamka, Tafsir al-Azhar, juzʾ 1, pp. 129–31.
22 The exceptions are Hassan, who has mengganggu (‘to annoy, harass’), and Hamidy and
Fachruddin, who have mencaci (‘to insult, humiliate, scorn, mock’).
23 These three are Hasbi ash Shiddieqy, Hamidy and Fachruddin, and the most recent edition
of the government commentary.
24 For information on Thalib, see the Arabic article by Munirul Ikhwan on Thalib’s translation
in this volume. Thalib is a representative of the Islamist Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia whose
main aim is the imposition of the Sharīʿa on Indonesian Muslims.
25 Likewise, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat translation adds ‘because of them’ in brackets.
26 Pink, ‘Tradition, Authority and Innovation’, p. 59.
27 He translates: apabila dibacakan kepada mereka ayat-ayat-Nya, ia menambah iman mereka
(whenever His signs are recited to them, they increase their faith).
 ‘Literal Meaning’ or ‘Correct ʿaqīda’? 117

28 The slightly earlier translation/commentary by Bakry, Idris, and Madjoindo does not have
hanya in the translation, but in the paraphrastic commentary in its footnotes: dan hanja
kepadaNja djua semuanja bertawakkal …
29 The Indonesian spelling reform of 1972 results in divergences in spelling between earlier
and later translations; e.g. hanja became hanya.
30 I could not find any information on Surin other than the fact that he published an annotated
translation, Al Kanz, and a slightly longer commentary on the Qur’an, Adz Dzikraa.
31 Syamsul Anwar, ‘Fatwā, Purification and Dynamization.’
32 Generally, the insertion of the word hanya (or the equivalent of ‘only’, in other languages)
in order to narrow down the Qur’anic meaning would well be worth a study on its own. For
example, in their rendition of Q. 8:2, several translations (although not as many as with respect
to Q. 9:51) insert hanya in connection with tawakkul, while others insert it into the segment
those are the believers … (innamā’l-muʾminūna’lladhīna …), thereby changing the meaning to
those only are the believers.
33 van Ess, ‘Tashbīh Wa-Tanzīh’, p. 344.
34 van Ess, ‘Tashbīh Wa-Tanzīh’.
35 See Thalib, Koreksi tarjamah, where he explains his criticism of the official translation and
the reasons for which he submitted his own ‘interpretive translation’.
36 In this, it concurs with the otherwise heavily annotated Ahmadiyya translation.
37 The Lahore Ahmadiyya translation goes into a similar direction.
38 The 2013 edition is pervasive in bookstores, but not yet available on the internet. Many
Indonesians still use the 2002 edition which is also the basis of nearly all Qur’an apps, online
tools, etc.
39 Only Hassan, Al-Furqān, opts for this version.
40 Surin, Al Kanz; Kementerian Agama Republika Indonesia, Al Qur’an Dan Terjemahnya.
41 Thalib, Al-Qur’anul Karim.
42 al-Bayḍāwī, Tafsīr, p. 56.
43 al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 2, p. 115.
44 Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr, vol. 1, pp. 309 f.
45 Pink, ‘Muhammad Al-Shawkānī’.
46 al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-qadīr, vol. 1, p. 272.
47 The annotated translation/commentary by Bakry, Idris, and Madjoindo also has menulis, but
clarifies the reference to predestination in an extensive commentary.
48 al-Suyūṭī, Durr al-manthūr, vol. 1, p. 16.
49 al-Bayḍāwī, Tafsīr, p. 4.
50 al-Maḥallī and al-Suyūṭī, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, p. 2.
51 His translation and commentary on the Fātiḥa, as a whole, takes up eleven pages.
52 yaitu agama yang diikuti oleh orang-orang yang telah Engkau karuniai hidayah Islam
sampai mati, bukan agama kaum Yahudi yang dihinakan oleh Allah, dan bukan pula agama
kaum Nasrani yang mengingkari kenabian Muhammad.
53 Feener, ‘History of Qur’anic Exegesis’, p. 56, p. 61.
54 A similar distinction has been made, for purposes of analysis, by Andrew Rippin with
respect to translations of tafsīr works in a recent study. See Rippin, ‘Contemporary
Translation’.
118 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

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