Spiritual Colonialism through Contemporary Translation

Author: Umra Shahzad. 

The current research takes the position that translation is an ideological process of rewriting the original texts. This rewriting, it is claimed, has its own political implications and is most of the time deceptive in its application. I argue that there is an urgent need to thoroughly acknowledge and contextualize the power relationships inherent in the translation process and their impact on the practice of translation. Positing on Jamil Asghar’s article, “The Power Politics of Translation: A Study of Translation- Ideology Nexus”, and Susan Basnett’s book An Introduction to Comparative Literature, the research unfolds the ideological implications of Coleman Bark's translation of Rumi’s poetry. It unveils the erasure of Islam and cultural appropriation of the poetry of Rumi under the guise of translation. 

It is partly as a result of these discursive strategies that a new paradigm of translation is required, one that takes into account the ideological and value-laden nature of the translation process. However, different political implications are foregrounded when it comes to translation as a sub-field of comparative literature. Historically, a comparison was drawn among the different nations by either translating works or by establishing cultural hierarchy. As readers, we should acknowledge that “the act of rewriting operates on the politics of inclusions/ exclusions as well (Asghar 4).  Nevertheless, in the present world, the translation is committed to sustaining the hegemony of western literature and writers over non-western literature. Hence, Coleman Bark’s works prove to be controversial when they are ideologically contextualized. 

Susan Bassnett in her book, An Introduction to Comparative Literature, highlights the significance of translation in constructing cultures and racial hierarchies. She extends her argument by utilizing Foucault’s concept of ‘comparison of measurement’ and ‘comparison of order’. The former establishes relations on the basis of equality and inequality and the latter, establishes hierarchy on the basis of differences. Both are loaded with the baggage of politics and Manichean hierarchies. Lawrence Venuti holds a similar view. According to him, Orientalists were considered a raw material by the western writers as they believed it is their duty to transform these texts and elevate their status. 

To domesticate the Orient, European writers like Coleman Barks translated the works of Molana Rumi and decontextualized them from Islamic roots. In other words, Rumi became a Western Secular phenomenon that inspired many Western writers and artists. However, his name, still remembered by thousands of people, exists as a consequence of spiritual colonialism and cultural colonialism. Coleman Barks writes “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.” quoting it from Rumi’s Masnavi. He entirely erases the context in which it was written in Persian. Sharghzadeh owner of the Persian poetics platform reveals this original poem written in Persian which was misquoted and misrepresented by Coleman Barks. He writes: “Beyond Heresy and faith,/ there is another place,/ we yearn for what’s in the midst of that desert plain. When the agnostic arrives there, he prostrates his face,/There is no heresy, faith, or Place in the domain.” There is a stark difference between the two versions since Barks was not learned in Persian, he took the liberties as that of Fitzgerald to appropriate and change the original work of Rumi.  His version of the poem is highly misleading. It conveys a secular mode of Rumi’s thought which somewhat divorces him from his religious roots. In Islam, the difference between good and bad is polarized through religious teaching. However, misquoting a spiritual scholar not only meant to misrepresent Islam but also to embrace Rumi in secular Western thought. 

During the Victorian era, Western writers began to dissociate mystical poetry from its Islamic roots, according to Omid Safi, a Middle Eastern and Islamic studies professor at Duke University. The translators and writers were not innocent producers of the text, and their activities were politically directed to inferiorise Muslims and non-Western people. Much of it is credited to the process of translation that was utilized by Western authors to elevate the status of Orientalist discourses and culturally appropriate them. Underlying this explanation is the assumption that the physical differences between Western civilization and non-Western civilization are due to a lack of cultural propriety. However, in the present world, translation is taken to another level. It is used to capitalize on the original texts whose authors are no longer alive. For this matter, we can analyze the works of Coleman Barks which include more than 20 books. He has translated Rumi’s work and “removed the cultural and linguistic specificities of the source texts” (Asghar 7). Coleman Barks is not a religious scholar whose motive was to spiritually elevate the American audience, but he is a manipulative Western author who took the liberties to strengthen the Western Canon under the flag of spiritual colonialism.

In a highly globalized world, we should not just “understand the politics of translation rendered in a text and its aesthetic form” (Venuti) but also move beyond the debates of Imperial injustices done to non-Western literature. It is time that non-European academia build its own literary standards of translation and comparison to avoid forgeries in the so-called globalized world. The works of people like Sharghzadeh should be acknowledged and taken as an inspiration to reclaim indigenous history and culture. That is only possible if we people transcend the boundaries of speaking and writing in English, towards indigenized languages. Thus, the translation of those works should be credited that prioritizes the source text over the translated text. 

Works Cited

Ali, Rozina. “The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi.” The New Yorker, 5 Jan. 2017, www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-erasure-of-islam-from-the-poetry-of-rumi.

Asghar, Jamil. “The Power Politics of Translation: A Study of Translation- Ideology Nexus Translation Distrusted and for Good Reasons.” NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry, vol. 13, 2015, www.numl.edu.pk/journals/subjects/156636643313.2))NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry Vol 2013.pdf. Accessed 24 Apr. 2022.

Bassnett, Susan. Comparative Literature : A Critical Introduction. Oxford, Uk ; Cambridge, Mass., Usa, Blackwell, 1993.

Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility : A History of Translation. London ; New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 1995.