Bias in Arabic-English Translation: The Legacy of Orientalism

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I gave a very long presentation about this topic for an American Translators Association conference, and I had to cut out a lot, so I’ve decided to expand it as much as I want, but I am breaking it into smaller parts, so that you don’t die of boredom.

From the medieval period to the rise of imperialism, Arabic to English translation of scientific, religious, and legal texts was mainly performed by scholars known as Orientalists, whose work was used as a political tool by European colonial powers so that they could continue to dominate Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA). Today, Islamophobia and racism, which stem from Orientalism, are predominant factors that influence Western stereotypes about the SWANA region and its people. This blog series will examine how these biases influence and are influenced by translation.

What is Orientalism?

The main definition of Orientalism dealt with in this blog series is the way of thinking about Asia (and Africa?) or ‘the East’ and its people as strange, servile, exotic, mysterious, erotic, and dangerous. Depictions of the region or its people are usually stereotypes from colonizers’ perspectives; explorers’ diaries; scholars’ (often faulty) translations or ill-informed studies; and military officials’ subjective reports, which are then published.

Orientalist Scholars and the SWANA Region

In the eighteenth century, when scholarly Orientalism and colonization were prospering, many leading Western thinkers, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Sir William Muir, consistently promoted the idea that Arabs and Islam are monoliths.[i] We all know that’s not true, but the scholarly work of Orientalists have perpetuated these ideas and formed stereotypes that have persisted for centuries.

A huge team of scholars and scientists, as ordered by Napoleon Bonaparte, collaborate to write a series of publications on Egypt called Description de l’Égypte: the entirety of the research was based on the colonizer’s observations; the local Egyptians were not interviewed, not given a chance to express their thoughts on their own culture.[ii] Since Orientalists were in a position of power in relation to SWANA citizens and immigrants, they were free to publish biased scientific and literary publications without mediation, and this applied to translations of Arabic works as well.

Most Arabic studies published by early Orientalists (ca. 1500-1850) generalized and were more selective rather than methodical; the Orientalists’ selection (of samples) depended on their personal interests, which led to an inaccurate generalization of the SWANA region. They also tended to localize the texts—to use a domestication strategy rather than foreignization—which as most postcolonial translation studies point out, allows the target culture to dominate the source text.

Paul Bowles, a self-exiled American who settled in Tangier after WWII, wrote about Morocco and North Africa and translated a group of young, poor, illiterate oral storytellers in Tagnier. He was only interested in sharing the perspective of these storytellers because he disapproved of written culture/literature for ‘not being Moroccan.’[iii] In an interview with Elghandor, Bowles himself said, “I think what I have written is generally realistic, yes. I think I have left out a great deal, oh yes, an enormous amount, but I do that on purpose; it’s not a mistake. I had no intention of giving a fair picture.”[iv] While we may be able to debate Bowles’ ideas about Moroccan identity (Morocco is an Amazigh country that was invaded and ruined by Arabs—his words, not mine), his representation/translation of Moroccan culture and oral storytelling has provided Orientalists with a skewed interpretation of Moroccan/SWANA culture.

Orientalists and Colonizers

Orientalists had an intimate relationship with colonial powers, and “translation became the right hand of colonizing effort.”[v] According to Orientalist Donald Little, “commercial and political consideration led Westerners to study Islam [and Muslims] in order to subject them to imperialist control.”[vi] Scholars Anour Abdel Malek and Edward Said also link the origin of Orientalism with imperialism, and in turn, suggest that Orientalist knowledge was produced by colonial powers. Some go as far to say that Orientalists’ works were not strictly academic but weapons of war propaganda, as some Orientalists were in the service of war, colonialism, trade, and politics.[vii]

Translation is another mode of representation: it was used for administrative and governing purposes and used to rewrite the indigenous past. Scientific, religious, and legal texts would be translated into the colonized people’s local languages to consolidate the colonizers’ hegemonic power; and when locals were forced to translate their corresponding texts into the colonizers’ (European) languages, they would have to mold and express their cultural concepts according to the target European culture.

William de Slane’s translation of a part of Ibn Khaldun’s (an eminent Arab sociologist and historian in the 1300s) work on the Amazigh became the foundation of French historical knowledge of North Africa and “was converted colonial text with colonial categories.”[viii] De Slane’s introduction to his translation of Ibn Khaldun indicates his strategy and the imposition of colonial judgments that guided his choices:

The task of the translator is not limited to the exact reproduction of ideas uttered in the text that is the subject of his translation. There are other obligations as well. He should rectify the errors of the author, clarify the passages that offer some obscurities, provide ideas that lead to the prefect understanding of the narrative and give the necessary assistance to make the book better understood.

His introduction was also a trap: it made the readers perceive the translated text in a certain way, for them to understand it as the translator (de Slane) interpreted it. Ibn Khaldun’s concepts of race and nation (Arabs and Amazigh) were transformed during de Slane’s translation, influenced by European conceptions of race and nation and under de Slane’s assumption that Ibn Khaldun’s explanation of Amazigh origins were incorrect. Ibn Khaldun asserted that the Amazigh were (genealogically) descendants of Canaan, which if adopted would indicate that both the Roman and then French presence in Algeria is illegitimate; de Slane simply deemed it incorrect in his authority as the translator.

Eurocentrism in Translation Studies

According to Al-Batineh, unequal power relations between the West and “the Rest” allowed European ideas to shape translation studies; many assumptions about translations and translators were formed from a purely Western perspective.[ix] Many translation scholars pointed to this Western dominance of thought and advocated for international translation studies that limited by ethnocentrism less.

Colonialism and Orientalism played a key role in suppressing the Muslims’ humanist and translation traditions and the strides that Arabs made in science, mathematics, and medicine. There were two main translation movements: (1) scientific and philosophical works in Greek were translated into Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age, and (2) the Arabic translations of these same works were translated into Latin and Hebrew during the European Renaissance. Arabs had even established translation centers and colleges, the most notable one was in Baghdad.

In a historiographical study, British Orientalist De Lacey O’Leary highlighted the achievements of the Greeks, by highlighting translations of Greek sciences and philosophy into Arabic.[x] He downplayed the important role Arabs played in preserving scientific knowledge through translation and in advancing these disciplines. He did this very simply: he always mentioned when the source text was Greek (first wave translations), but he omitted the fact that the source text was Arabic when these texts were translated into Latin and Hebrew (second wave translations).

Even when the source text of a second-wave translation is an original work in Arabic, not a translation from Greek, O’Leary would try to link the scholar’s knowledge to the teachings/ knowledge of non-Arabs, most of the time, Westerners. He also emphasized the non-Arabs’ contribution to the Arabs’ translation movement, and if he does happen to mention an Arab author, he tends to focus on the individual, as if they were an exception to typical Arab scholars. In doing so, O’Leary has ignored how Arabs have preserved Western scholarship and sciences through translation and the Arabs’ own scholarly and scientific work.

Orientalism’s Legacy

            Orientalism originated in imperialism and is tied to political agendas. The scholars who pursued this area of studies and translated texts from the SWANA region have helped form stereotypes that persist to this day and have obscured facts that would have combatted these stereotypes. These translation traditions and stereotypes influence the bias present in methods used in Arabic-English translations even today. But more details on that next time.

[i] Ramdane, Tahraoui, and Merah Souad. “Between Orientalists and Al Jazeera : Image of Arabs in the West (Comparative Inquiry).” Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 1, no. 4, 2011, pp. 160–168. April 2011.

[ii] AlSharid, Hamdah. “Lost in Translation: Orientalism and the Origin of Islamophobia.” Sail Magazine - Community, Culture, Creativity, Sail Magazine, 9 Feb. 2019, sailemagazine.com/2019/02/lost-in-translation-orientalism-and-the-origin-of-islamophobia/.

[iii] Mourad, Hafida. “The Orientalist Leanings in Bowles's Translation and Representation of Moroccan Culture.” International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies, vol. 4, no. 3, 2016, pp. 91–103.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Larocque, Emily. “Translating Representations: Orientalism in the Colonial Indian Province of Bengal (1770s-1830s).” Constellations, vol. 3, no. 1, 2012, pp. 31–38., doi:10.29173/cons16284.

[vi] Abed, Majid AbdulHameed. “British Orientalism and Classical Arabic Literature: A Study in Reception, According to Jauss's Theory.” University of Leeds, March 2016.

[vii] Naoum, Abdel Fattah. “Anglo-American Orientalism’s Contribution to the Rise of Area Studies.” Doha Institute, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Apr. 2015, www.dohainstitute.org/en/lists/ACRPS-PDFDocumentLibrary/Orientalisms_Contribution_to_Area_Studies.pdf.

[viii] Hannoum, Abdelmajid. “Translation and the Colonial Imaginary: Ibn Khaldun Orientalist.” History and Theory, vol. 42, Feb. 2003, pp. 61–81., onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2303.00230.

[ix] Al-Batineh, Mohammed. “Historiography by Proxy: A Eurocentric View of Arabic Translation History through the Eyes of an Orientalist.” Dirasat: Human and Social Sciences, vol. 46, no. 3, 2019, pp. 105–115.

[x] Ibid.