Malayalam literature
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Translation into Arabic
As in 2020
Anyone travelling through small and large towns of Kerala can't help notice eateries with fiery shawarma spits in front that advertise Arabic fare: al-faham grilled on charcoal and served with fluffy kubboos and the Yemeni kuzhi mandi, made in ovens dug in the ground.
One of the best ways for two cultures to get to know each other is through translations of works of literary merit. But despite the unapologetic embrace of culinary culture, trade relations spanning centuries, lexical borrowings made invisible by familiarity, and presence of academic institutions to foster learning, direct literary exchanges between Arabic and Malayalam so far had been few and far between.
The cultural imbalance is also palpable: very few literary works have been translated to Arabic, when compared with translations to Malayalam. This is despite the proliferation of Arabic departments in the colleges and numerous Islamic institutions with focus on Arabic language learning.
"One reason could be that Arabic scholars with religious background shied away from translation of non-religious works because they considered the language to be sacred," reasons N Shamnad, who heads the department of Arabic at University College, Thiruvananthapuram. A prolific translator, Shamnad has since 2017 rendered seven novels into Malayalam directly from Arabic. They include works by Najib Mahfouz, a Nobel prize winner, Mahmoud Saeed, Habib Selmi and Khaled Khalifa. His colleague, K Mohammed Ali Askar, has published translations of poems by Adonis, Khalil Gibran's al-Musiqi and a biography of Gibran by Mikhael Nuayma.
In 2019, Qatar honoured Shamnad with the prestigious Sheikh Hamad award for translation and international understanding. He shared the award with journalist and translator V A Kabeer, a prolific translator of short fiction.
The renewed interest in literary translations shows that notion of sacredness which made a generation believe it was wrong to render 'obscene' and 'impure' literature into the lofty language of holy Koran no longer holds sway.
A significant transformation is the arrival of new generation scholars like Suhail Abdul Hakeem and Ibrahim Badshah in the scene. Both who graduated from Wafi institutions administered by Coordination of Islamic Colleges are now actively engaged in translating contemporary fiction and poetry.
Suhail Wafi entered limelight with the translation of Benyamin's Aadujeevitham in 2014 as published Ayyamul Maaiz by Afaaq books. Last year, Suhail, based in Qatar, translated Vaikom Mohammed Basheer's Balyakala Sakhi into Arabic. Titled Raffeeqath Assiba, it was published by Arab Scientific Publishers based in Beirut. It was also the first Arabic translation of a Basheer novel. His latest is Thahthassamaayil Mudlima, a translation of Iruttu by B M Zuhra, published by ministry of sports and culture, Qatar.
Ibrahim Badshah, a research scholar with Delhi University, translated two works - Saud Alsanousi's The bamboo stalk and Booker prize winner Jokha al-Harthi's Celestial Bodies into Malayalam.
Shamnad credits Muhiyudheen Alwaye as the first translator of a literary text of merit in Malayalam to Arabic. Alwaye's translation of Chemmeen by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai was published in 1965 by Indian Council for Cultural Relations. "But the bulk of the translations were religious texts. For Muslims, source of their religion lay in Arabic and that was reason why such translations were focused on such works," feels Suhail.
But the contribution of Arabi-Malayalam, which used a modified Arab script was never duly acknowledged in Kerala. Muhiyuddin Mala, appeared in Arabi-Malayalam in the same era when Adhyatma Ramayanam was written, points out Badshah.
"Six years before Chandu Menon wrote Indulekha, Chahar Darvesh, the Persian novel written by Amir Khusrau was translated and published in Arabi Malayalam. Apart from this there are around 50 novels in Arabi Malayalam, which are either translations or original works," says Badshah, who feels the language was denied the status granted to Manipravalam, an admixture of Malayalam and Sanskrit.
While translating Aadu Jeevitam, Suhail's intention was to let the Arab world know about the moral questions it posed. "What do the people in Arab countries know about us apart from as economic immigrants in search of work?" asks Suhail, who is also saddened by academic disregard for Arabic in Kerala's varsities, many of them which follows a stale curriculum.
"When I studied at Wafi, we had lot of modern texts in the curriculum. In Darz tradition, the curriculum is still old, their focus is on making people understand the language and religious scholarship," says Badshah.
Mona Kareem, author of three poetry collections in Arabic and a faculty with University of Maryland, says she was shocked to know that there are over two million Malayalam speakers, with centuries of encounters, marriages, immigration, and shared culture across the Indian Ocean, but only three or four titles, two of them recently published. "This reality is not separate from the way Gulf states have successfully managed to separate and isolate south-Asian migrants, rejecting their cultures, and not allowing them access to local culture and language. Arabic publishers are doing nothing to challenge the status quo, they are still obsessed with western literature," said Kareem.
In an essay on Arabic translations, Shamnad poses a crucial question: Who would read the translations? Though Arabs had a rich oral tradition they were not considered great readers. Unlike the West, where affluence led to interest in literature, the Arab world went after material things like fast cars and football, feels Badshah “But this has now started to change with state promoting the culture of reading,” he said. For translators there is yet another daunting task: Finding publishers.
