The Koran is never translated into other languages, except by infidels, who only think they do. Muslims interpret it into other languages. This is a valid application of the Italian maxim "Tradutore, tradittore", "To translate is to betray", because each language has its own rhythm and context, whose complete meaning can never be truly translated. John Ciardi of Rutgers, an American poet of great gifts, said it very well in his Note at the beginning of his 1954 English rendering of Dante's Inferno: ". . . 'translation' implies a series of word-for-word equivalents that do not exist across language boundaries any more than piano sounds exist in the violin." (p. ix)

That the Koran also contains poetry makes this distinction more significant; that it is a holy book makes this imperative to its devotees. Having worked at translating the Greek in John's Gospel (Luke, the cosmopolitan, was too much for me), I understand first-hand the number of choices the translator must make, and how much of the translator's own way of thinking "contaminates" the text because of those choices. The Reformation followed hard on the heels of the Renaissance partly because of the new scholarship and the myriad interpretations of the Old and New Testaments through translations not derived from the canonically accepted Vulgate by Jerome. The requirement to study the Koran in its original language -- from God's lips to your ear, as it were -- avoids this whole issue. Muhammed, as a travelling merchant, would have been well aware of the perils of translation.

Interesting that, though the Old and New Testaments are also considered holy, there is no stricture to study them in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, except from an academic point of view.

It doesn't seem odd to me that an Al-Jazeera reporter would interview a Taliban mullah in Arabic. This is the language they can both speak. It's like an Indian from the north of Indian and one from the south speaking English to each other, or the fact that universities in Brazil conduct their classes in Spanish though their population speaks Portuguese. What I do find significant is that bin Laden, who obviously knows English very well, should choose to speak through a translator. Americans by and large speak only English. He knows that. This is one more way he seeks to redraw the lines on a playing field that he sees to be overwhelmingly controlled by America.

Personally, I think we should pay close attention to what he says, because he tells us, in his hubris, how to defeat him utterly. We need to listen very carefully. He will tell us what he preaches. We, knowing this, can show him to be the fanatic he is, not only to those who know already, but to those whose despair have led them to believe him. It's not enough just to kill him.

Mary Anne