Hermeneutics As Translation: An Assessment of Islamic Translation Trends in America

Summary

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It is a term that has entered every imaginable scholarly discourse, from the expected territories of literary criticism, biblical scholarship, linguistics, and pastmodern philosophy, to more far flung fields such as architectural studies, economics, and the cognitive sciences. Yet we know from our hermeneutical vantage point that the foundational texts we revere and study would not have come to us without the textual cooperation and propagation provided by this lengthy era of scholars in between.

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Hermeneutics As Translation: An Assessment of Islamic Translation Trends in America

If we are to understand hermeneutics as translation we must take the time to engage and situate these two significant terms. This article will proceed in two parts: one theoretical, the other historical. In the first half I will locate hermeneutics as an applicable and participatory process within the study of Islam. Then I will proceed in the second half to investigate translation, specifically surveying Islamic translation trends within the United States, as a concrete manifestation of hermeneutics in our midst and, by exploring this, hopefully move us towards a better understanding of the living context in which we find ourselves today.

Hermeneutics is a term pregnant with meaning. The word has begun to haunt the halls of the ivory towers in which we abide. It is a term that has entered every imaginable scholarly discourse, from the expected territories of literary criticism, biblical scholarship, linguistics, and pastmodern philosophy, to more far flung fields such as architectural studies, economics, and the cognitive sciences. Now it appears that hermeneutics has something to do with the future of Muslims in America. One could invoke Greek etymologies and mythologies or possibly dig for roots in biblical exegesis, but I would prefer to avoid the overplayed trope that is the question of origins. Whatever importance that question may hold, I am concerned more immediately with what exactly does hermeneutics mean? What is its significance for the study of Islam? The common answer provided Ls that hermeneutics is "interpretation." That definition is straightforward and equationally clear. But it is also too reductionist an answer for our present purposes. There are in fact many ways that hermeneutics can and has been defined and to answer it within the field of Islam in America, our response will be multivalent.

Within hermeneutics is the idea that one should cultivate a hermeneutical consciousness, which in part entails contextualization, particularly of one's own position and prejudices. Keeping in line with this, I am compelled then to disclose the horizon from which I speak. First, I have no patience for claims to human objectivity, because I do not believe it exists. Scholarship is never neutral. But that should not imply that it is necessarily negative. My unde...

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