Oct 8, 2004 16:35
19 yrs ago
17 viewers *
Arabic term

ولا نزكي على الله احدا

Arabic to English Art/Literary Religion
Can this be translated as "God is all-knowing", and if not, what is the best rendition? Thanks.

Context is the following:

العلماء الصادقين والشباب الصالحين, ولا نزكي على الله احدا

Proposed translations

+2
3 hrs
Arabic term (edited): ��� ���� ��� ���� ����
Selected

and only Allah trully knows who is a scholar and who is righteous



Your suggestion touches on part of the subject and so does Nesrin's answer. This saying cannot be translated word for word. The idea is that people cannot tell who is really good and who is not, so we would be trespassing on Allah's territory when we make such a claim. To understand the phrase we can first look at commands in the Quran forbidding people from praising one another openly:

ألم تر إلى الذين يزكون أنفسهم، بل الله يزكي من يشاء ولا يظلمون فتيلا - النساء

فلا تزكوا أنفسكم، هو أعلم بمن اتقى - النجم


The other reason for not doing so is the possible corrupting effect on the object of praise, here is the full version of the Hadith that Nesrin quoted:

"‏أن ‏ ‏رجلا مدح صاحبا له عند النبي ‏ ‏صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏ ‏فقال ويلك قطعت عنقه إن كنت مادحا لا محالة فقل أحسبه كذا وكذا والله ‏ ‏حسيبه ‏ ‏ولا أزكي على الله تعالى أحدا "

Which effectively means that if you must praise someone you should say "I consider him to be such and such, and only Allah knows for sure"

In this light, the meaning of the phrase you requested is: "and we do not praise anyone's merits in sight of Allah's true knowledge". However, instead of translating the phrase, I suggest replacing it with another that conveys the spirit of the original one:

"Faithful scholars and righteous young people -and only Allah knows the real scholars and the truly righteous- .."

Notice that this example is slightly different from the title of my answer just to give a choice of different wordings.
Peer comment(s):

agree Nesrin : enlightening explanation
39 mins
agree AhmedAMS
8 days
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks Alaa for your extensive input; I guess my intuited renditon of that phrase was pretty close to what you suggested, that God must be all-knowing (alternative translations, given the implicit meaning: no one can recommend someone to God, since He is all-knowing; or, no one can preempt God's all-knowing judgment; or, God is the final arbiter, because He is all-knowing)... Anyway, thanks go to Nesrin for her input, although the tanslation of the Hadith, as shown, sounds very cumbersome and foreign to English ears, and seems overall to be a pretty bad translation (stylistically speaking, and perhaps otherwise)... I tend to avoid this type of convoluted phrasing that is so typical in common translations of Arabic religious books... One has really to exercise one's own judgment and use these translations only as a broad guideline with many grains of salt (with few exceptions here and there)... "
11 mins
Arabic term (edited): ��� ���� ��� ���� ����

vindicate someone

it means that there is no nepotism with Allah and that all people are equal in front of Him
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+4
21 mins
Arabic term (edited): ��� ���� ��� ���� ����

we do not praise anyone over Allah's praise of him

According to http://www.qss.org/archives/asop/232.html, this expression is adapted from part of a Hadith which goes: أحسب فلانا، ولا حسيبه، ولا أزكي على الله أحداً، احسبه كذا وكذا.
This is translated as follows: I reckon <the person>, where Allah is his reckoner and I do not praise anyone over Allah's praise of him, I reckon him to be as <<such and as such>, if he knows that of him.

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Note added at 3 hrs 9 mins (2004-10-08 19:45:52 GMT)
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Sorry - Alaa pointed to the typo I made \"أحسب فلانا، والله حسيبه\"
Peer comment(s):

agree Khalid Hantash
37 mins
agree Lyes Bechkour : your translation is more accurate than mine :)
46 mins
thank you - it's not actually my translation, strictly speaking!
agree AhmedAMS
52 mins
agree Moushira El-Mogy
1 hr
neutral Alaa Zeineldine : You meant والله حسيبه. As for the translation, it is close, but it is difficult to capture the intended meaning. - Yes, I did check the link, and I am definitely talking about the translation.
2 hrs
Sorry for the typo. As for the translation, as I said, it's not my translation, it's taken from the link above, but I think it's fine.
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