1.Introduction: A long-term perspective on language and translation in the modern academic system

This article examines traces of (self-)translation in the work of Hasan Hanafi (1935–2021), a leading contemporary Egyptian philosopher, whose academic migratory path reflects the globality of the academic system in terms of increasing academic mobility and migration. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in Islamic philosophy from Cairo University, Hanafi went on to complete a doctorate in philosophy at Sorbonne University in Paris (1956–1966), followed by numerous visiting professorships that took him to the USA, Sudan, Kuwait, Morocco, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. He then returned to Cairo University, where he worked and taught for the rest of his career as Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Religion. During the decade that he spent in France, Hanafi wrote three books in French, and inspired by this temporary change of language, he later placed language at the centre of his philosophy: convinced that it was the archaic language of classical Islamic teachings that made it difficult for contemporary Muslims to connect with their own heritage, Hanafi sought a linguistic renewal of the classical Islamic disciplines.

Through a close reading of Hanafi’s French dissertation — Les méthodes d’exégèse ‘The methods of exegesis’ (Hanafi 1965Hanafi, Hasan 1965 Les méthodes d’exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Préface de R. Brunschvig [The methods of exegesis: Essay on the science of the foundations of understanding — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Preface by R. Brunschvig]. Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales.) — and one of his foundational philosophical texts in Arabic — التراث والتجديد At-turāṯ wa-t-taǧdīd ‘Heritage and renewal’) (2012 [1980]Hanafi, Hasan 2012 [1980] At-turāṯ wa-l-taǧdīd: Mawqifunā min at-turāṯ al-qadīm. [Heritage and renewal: Our attitude towards the old heritage]. 4th edition. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ǧāmiʿaiyya li-l-dirāsāt wa-n-našar wa-l-tauzīʿ.) — I aim to show the productiveness of his temporary switch to French for his later philosophical work. Before turning to Hanafi, however, I will make a brief digression into the historical development of language and translation in the academic system from the eighteenth century to the present in order to set out the point of departure of this article.

What distinguishes the academic system of the eighteenth century from that of the present day is above all the shift away from a multilingual academic system to an increasingly monolingual system in use today. It is well known and well researched that the development of modern sciences11.In this article, ‘science’ is used in the sense of the German ‘Wissenschaft’. The term not only refers to natural sciences, but also to social sciences, humanities, and academic philosophy. in the eighteenth century was accompanied by a transition from monolingual scientific communication conducted in scholarly Latin to a multilingual scientific landscape (Olschki 1919Olschki, Leonardo 1919 Geschichte der Neusprachlichen wissenschaftlichen Literatur [History of vernacular scientific literature]. Halle: Max Niemeyer.; Elsherif et al. 2024Elsherif, Garda, Andreas Gipper, Caroline Mannweiler, and Diego Stefanelli eds. 2024 Scientific Translation in the Early Modern Period. Special issue of Chronotopos 5 (1).), which created a great need for translation between the European vernacular languages. This linguistic diversification, it is argued, was not a coincidence but was constitutive of the development of modern scholarship (Hahn 2000Hahn, Alois 2000 Konstruktionen des Selbst, der Welt und der Geschichte [Constructions of the self, the world, and history]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp., 17–19; Ehlich 2006Ehlich, Konrad 2006 “Mehrsprachigkeit in der Wissenschaftskommunikation — Illusion oder Notwendigkeit? [Multilinguality in scholarly communication — Illusion or necessity?]” In Die Wissenschaft und ihre Sprachen [The languages of science], edited by Konrad Ehlich and Dorothee Heller, 17–38. Bern: Peter Lang., 20). Research on the role of translation in the history of the sciences (e.g., Olohan and Salama-Carr 2014Olohan, Maeve, and Myriam Salama-Carr eds. 2014 Science in Translation. Special issue of The Translator 17 (2). ; Dietz 2016Dietz, Bettina 2016 “Introduction.” In Translating and Translations in the History of Science, edited by Bettina Dietz, special issue of Annals of Science 73 (2): 117–121. ; Dupré 2018Dupré, Sven 2018 “Introduction: Science and Practices of Translation.” In Focus: Translating Science over Time, focus section of Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society 109 (2): 302–307.; Charlston 2020Charlston, David 2020 Translation and Hegel’s Philosophy: A Transformative, Socio-narrative Approach to A.V. Miller’s Cold-War Retranslations. New York: Routledge. ) also demonstrates the numerous productive effects that translation had during the “scientific Babel” (Gordin 2015Gordin, Michael D. 2015 Scientific Babel: The Language of Science from the Fall of Latin to the Rise of English. London: Profile Books. ), in other words in the “multilingual world” (Dupré 2018Dupré, Sven 2018 “Introduction: Science and Practices of Translation.” In Focus: Translating Science over Time, focus section of Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society 109 (2): 302–307., 302), in which scholars have lived. With this research came the insight that the function of translation for scholarship is not limited to transporting an original work into another language. Rather, translation itself is considered part of “scientific practice” (Dietz 2016Dietz, Bettina 2016 “Introduction.” In Translating and Translations in the History of Science, edited by Bettina Dietz, special issue of Annals of Science 73 (2): 117–121. , 117), or part of “(scientific) life” (Dupré 2018Dupré, Sven 2018 “Introduction: Science and Practices of Translation.” In Focus: Translating Science over Time, focus section of Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society 109 (2): 302–307., 302). The rise of English since the end of World War I (Gordin 2015Gordin, Michael D. 2015 Scientific Babel: The Language of Science from the Fall of Latin to the Rise of English. London: Profile Books. , 159–163) and the perceived decline of translation in academia has led to concerns that this trend towards monolingual scholarly communication will also lead to an “epistemic monoculture” (Bennett 2015Bennett, Karen 2015 “Towards an Epistemological Monoculture: Mechanisms of Epistemicide in European Research Publication.” In English as a Scientific and Research Language: Debates and Discourses. English in Europe, edited by Ramón Plo Alastrué and Carmen Pérez-Llantada, 9–36. Berlin: De Gruyter. )22.Bennett recently relativised her arguments from 2015, emphasising that due to language contact “as a result of unprecedented migration and technological advances” (Bennett 2023Bennett, Karen 2023 “Translating Knowledge in the Multilingual Paradigm: Beyond Epistemicide.” Social Science Information 62 (4): 514–532. , 516), academic language behaviour is imprinted today by a transnational paradigm. characterised by power imbalances due to linguistic and epistemic injustices (Catala 2022Catala, Amandine 2022 “Academic Migration, Linguistic Justice, and Epistemic Injustice.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 30 (3): 324–346. ; Soler 2021Soler, Josep 2021 “Linguistic injustice in academic publishing in English: Limitations and ways forward in the debate.” In Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes 2 (2): 160–171. ).

There is no doubt that the shift from multilingualism to increasing monolingualism has been a central development in the scholarly system over the last hundred years. However, I argue that there is a second significant shift that needs to be examined: modern scholarship has the self-image of an international undertaking. This self-image imposes two demands on scholars. On the one hand, it demands that the ‘scholar as reader’ acquires all relevant scientific knowledge, regardless of when it was written, by whom, and in what language. On the other hand, it demands that the ‘scholar as author’ makes their findings available to and visible within the scientific community.33.This distinction between ‘scholar as reader’ and ‘scholar as author’ is similar to Stichweh’s observation that the readers of scientific journals are also regarded as their (potential) authors (Stichweh 1984Stichweh, Rudolf 1984 Zur Entstehung des modernen Systems wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen. Physik in Deutschland: 1740–1890 [On the emergence of the modern system of scientific disciplines. Physics in German: 1740–1890]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp., 427). In the eighteenth century, there appeared to have been an emphasis on the former. This is particularly evident when we look at the European academies of science, which were the central institutions of scientific research at the time. The archives of the Académie Royale des Sciences ‘Royal academy of sciences’ in Paris, for instance, contain many letters and texts sent to it by non-French scholars. These letters and texts were, however, not written in French, which was the official language of the Academy, or Latin, which all members of the Academy were proficient in at the time, but in the foreign scholars’ respective languages: German, Spanish, Italian, and English. Members of the Academy with language skills in the relevant language then translated the letters and texts into French (Elsherif 2025Elsherif, Garda 2025 Translation im (früh)modernen Wissenschaftssystem — Funktionen und Erwartungen. Schwerpunkt: Frankreich (1600–1815) [Translation in the (early) modern scientific system — Functions and expectations. Focus: France (1600–1815)]. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.). Similar observations can be made about the Royal Society of London in England, and the newly established scientific journals such as the Journal des Sçavans ‘Journal of savants’ (De Sallo 1665De Sallo, Denis 1665 “Philosophical Transactions.” Le Journal des Scavans. Du Lundy V. Janvier, M. DC. LXV., 156., 156). At that time, therefore, it was mainly the ‘scholar as reader’ who was expected to carry out the necessary translation work in order to be able to read texts in different languages.

At present, however, the emphasis seems to be predominantly on the ‘scholar as author’ publishing in English (or, a few decades ago, in either English, French, or German) in order to ensure that their work can be read by a wide audience, rather than on the ‘scholar as reader’ trying to understand foreign-language texts. Hence, over time, there seems to have been a shift in responsibility from the ‘scholar as reader’ to the ‘scholar as author’.44.It is not my intention to give the impression that eighteenth-century scholars made no effort at all to ensure that their work was translated and published in the language(s) in which works were widely read within the scientific community. The efforts of Spallanzani to have his works translated into French (Gipper and Stefanelli 2021Gipper, Andreas, and Diego Stefanelli 2021 “Die Wissenschaftsübersetzung als Generator symbolischen Kapitals: Das translatorische Dreieck Bonnet-Spallanzani-Senebier [Scientific translation as generator of symbolic capital: The translatorial network of Bonnet, Spallanzani and Senebier].” In Übersetzen in der Frühen Neuzeit — Konzepte und Methoden / Concepts and Practices of Translation in the Early Modern Period, edited by Regina Toepfer, Peter Burschel, and Jörg Wesche, 161–184. Berlin: Metzler. ), as well as the cases discussed in Willer and Keller (2020)Willer, Stefan, and Andreas Keller eds. 2020 Selbstübersetzung als Wissenstransfer [Self-translation and the transfer of knowledge]. Berlin: Kadmos. prove the opposite. Nevertheless, the historical tendency towards a shift in responsibility from the scholar as reader to the scholar as author is evident.

Although this article is not the ideal place in which to provide a full explanation of this change, I intend to highlight the implications of this change for research in Translation Studies: the increasing demand on scholars as authors to make their research comprehensible to the scientific community suggests that translation is one of several possible coping strategies for the author in scholarly communication. However, translation is often done before publication and not after, as Susam-Sarajeva (2002Susam-Sarajeva, Şebnem 2002 “A ‘Multilingual’ and ‘International’ Translation Studies?” In Crosscultural Transgressions: Research Models in Translation Studies II: Historical and Ideological Issues, edited by Theo Hermans, 193–207. Manchester: St. Jerome., 200) points out (see also Rozmysłowicz 2022Rozmysłowicz, Tomasz 2022 “Soziologen übersetzen: Akademische Translation im US-amerikanischen Exil [Translating sociologists: Academic translation in exile in the USA].” In Translation und Exil (1933–1945) I: Namen und Orte. Recherchen zur Geschichte des Übersetzens [Translation and exile (1933–1945) I: Names and places. Research into the history of translation], edited by Aleksey Tashinkiy, Julija Boguna, and Tomasz Rozmysłowicz, 121–145. Berlin: Frank & Timme., 128). Due to the traditional focus of Translation Studies being on published translations and on translations referred to as translations (Toury 1995Toury, Gideon 1995 Descriptive Translation Studies — and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ), this “translationality” (Koskinen 2014Koskinen, Kaisa 2014 “Tampere as a Translation Space.” Translation Studies 7 (2): 186–202. ) of the current academic system cannot be explained, and the translation processes which form part of authors’ coping strategies to address the urge to publish in the academic lingua franca(e) remain overlooked.

Viewing the scholarly author as ‘self-translator’ has promise as an analytical concept to capture these translational coping strategies. Used in this way, the understanding of ‘self-translator’ differs from the conventional meaning of the term. Usually, a self-translator refers to someone who translates a text they have previously written into another language (Cordingley 2022Cordingley, Anthony 2022 “Self-Translation.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Translation, edited by Kirsten Malmkjær, 75–95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 75). In this article, I use the analytical concept of a self-translator more broadly, encompassing all those efforts in which authors ‘take care of’ the translation of their texts themselves — be it in the form of self-translation in the conventional sense of the word, commissioning the translation of their manuscripts, or resorting to machine translation systems (see Bowker and Buitrago Ciro 2019Bowker, Lynne, and Jairo Buitrago Ciro 2019 Machine Translation and Global Research: Towards Improved Machine Translation Literacy in the Scholarly Community. Bingley: Emerald.). From this perspective, not only books declared as translations are considered, but translation traces are also examined within the ‘original’ publications in various languages for smaller translation units, such as quotations, sentences, and terms (Heller 2019Heller, Lavinia 2019 “Where Does Philosophy Take Place in Translation? Reflections on the Relevance of Microstructural Translation Units within Philosophical Discourse.” Translated by Charleton Payne. Chronotopos 1 (1): 147–172.; Rozmysłowicz 2022Rozmysłowicz, Tomasz 2022 “Soziologen übersetzen: Akademische Translation im US-amerikanischen Exil [Translating sociologists: Academic translation in exile in the USA].” In Translation und Exil (1933–1945) I: Namen und Orte. Recherchen zur Geschichte des Übersetzens [Translation and exile (1933–1945) I: Names and places. Research into the history of translation], edited by Aleksey Tashinkiy, Julija Boguna, and Tomasz Rozmysłowicz, 121–145. Berlin: Frank & Timme., 28–29).

This perspective is explored in this article by analysing Hasan Hanafi as a self-translator; in other words by observing and analysing his academic migration to France, his change of language and self-translational efforts to adapt to the French academic tradition, and the influences of this (physical and linguistic) migration on his later philosophical texts in Arabic. Therefore, the focus of the following analysis of Hasan Hanafi’s philosophical work is not primarily on his translations of Spinoza or Derrida, nor on his Arabic self-translations (in the conventional sense) of two books written previously in French (Hanafi 2013aHanafi, Hasan 2013a Taʾwīl aṭ- ẓāhariyyāt: Al-ḥāla ar-rahina li-l-manhaǧ aṭ- ẓāhariyāti wa taṭbīqu fī ẓāharat ad-dīn. Orig. L’Exégèse de la phénoménologie: l’état actuelle de la méthode phénoménologique et son application aux phénomènes religieux. Translated by Hasan Hanafi. Cairo: Maktaba madbūlī., 2013bHanafi, Hasan 2013b Ẓāhariyyāt at-taʾwīl: Muhāwila fī tafsīr wuǧūdī li-l-ʿahad aǧ-ǧadīd. Orig. La Phénomenologie de l’exégèse: Essai d’une hermeneutique existentielle à partir du Nouveau Testament. Translated by Hasan Hanafi. Cairo: Maktaba madbūlī.). Rather, traces of translation on the terminological level have been discovered in his French dissertation Les méthodes d’exégèse ‘The methods of exegesis (1965) and his book written in Arabic التراث والتجديد At-turāṯ wa-t-taǧdīd ‘Heritage and renewal’ (2012 [1980]Hanafi, Hasan 2012 [1980] At-turāṯ wa-l-taǧdīd: Mawqifunā min at-turāṯ al-qadīm. [Heritage and renewal: Our attitude towards the old heritage]. 4th edition. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ǧāmiʿaiyya li-l-dirāsāt wa-n-našar wa-l-tauzīʿ.) (henceforth Heritage and Renewal).

2. Heritage and Renewal: The philosophical project of Hasan Hanafi

Hasan Hanafi (1935–2021) studied philosophy at Cairo University in the 1950s. As he describes in his autobiography (Hanafi 1989Hanafi, Hasan 1989 Ad-Dīn wa aṯ-ṯawra fi miṣr, 1965–1981. Al-Ǧuzʾ as-sādis [Religion and revolution in Egypt, 1956–1981. Volume 6]. Cairo: Maktaba madbūlī., 221–222), he felt very alienated by the subject matter of his studies and experienced an intellectual crisis in response to the state of Islamic philosophy. He was impressed by modernist and reformist authors such as Sayyid Qutb (whose narrow worldview he later began to question), Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, and Muhammad Iqbal, whose works he read outside of the university while he had to learn rigid dogmas and theories unrelated to the reality and life of Muslims in the lectures he attended.

In his later philosophical work, Hanafi uses his experience of Islamic philosophy in crisis as an opportunity to reflect critically on the institutional deficits affecting contemporary Arabic-Islamic societies. One such deficit that he emphasises is the lack of freedom to develop independent rational thought (Hanafi 1988Hanafi, Hasan 1988 Min al-ʿaqīda ila aṯ-ṯawra: Al-Ǧuzʾ al-awwal [From faith to revolution: First volume]. Cairo: Maktaba madbūlī., 227). Against this background, Hanafi’s great interest in the works of Spinoza, whose Tractatus philosophicus-politicus he translated into Arabic,55.On the Arabic translation of Spinoza, see Montada (2016)Montada, Josep Puig 2016 “Hassan Hanafi: Traducteur et interprète de Spinoza [Hassan Hanafi: Translator and interpreter of Spinoza].” In Hīrmīnuṭīqā at-turāṯ wa fīnumīnuluǧīyā at-taǧdīd [Hermeneutics of heritage and phenomenology of renewal], edited by Ahmad Abdal-Halim ʿAtiyya, 1–16. Zagazig: Université de Zagazig.. is unsurprising. He shared with Spinoza the conviction that freedom of thought is not a danger to faith, but rather its foundation (Hanafi 2020 [1971]Hanafi, Hasan 2020 [1971] “Muqaddamat al-mutarǧim [Preface of the translator].” In Risāla fī al-lāhūt wa-s-siyāsa, by Baruch de Spinoza, 11–112. Orig. Tractatus theologico-politicus. Translated by Hasan Hanafi. Windsor: Hindawi., 19). He also agreed with Spinoza that reason was humans’ only liberating power and that superstition was therefore an obstacle to their freedom. From this viewpoint, Hanafi problematises the long mystical tradition of Sufism in Islam. For Hanafi, the form of religion represented by Sufism, which historically had great significance especially in religious folk culture, is “a compilation of superstitions, hoaxes, and delusions” (“الصوفية، فهو مجموعة من الخُرافات والخُزَعبَلات والأوهام” aṣ-ṣūfiya, fa huwwa maǧmūʿa min al-ḫurāfāt wa-l-ḫuzaʿbalāt wa-l-ʾauhām) (20) that disregards the mind and is, thus, inherently corrupt. Hanafi wanted to reverse this dominance of the heart and emotions and the absence of the head and reason, thereby returning religion to the world of reason. This means that Hanafi sought to strengthen the rational approach to religion, following the example of the فلاسفة falāsifa ‘philosophers’. This rational approach to religion is not to be understood by analogy with the deistic traditions of the European Enlightenment. Rather, it resembles Lessing’s Christentum der Vernunft ‘Christianity of reason’.66.Hanafi’s Arabic translation of Lessing’s Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts ‘The education of the human race’ (1981) should also be considered in this context.

Related to this is a second tendency that Hanafi identifies as a deficit of Arabic-Islamic societies: an increasing alienation from their own heritage (تراث turāṯ). The preoccupation with heritage (turāṯ), or confrontation with one’s own cultural past, has become an enduring theme among Arab thinkers since the Arab Renaissance in the nineteenth century (Hildebrandt 2007Hildebrandt, Thomas 2007 Neo-Muʿtazilimus? Intention und Kontext im modernen arabischen Umgang mit dem rationalistischen Erbe des Islam [Neo-Muʿtazilism? Intention and context in the modern Arab reception of the rationalistic heritage of islam]. Leiden: Brill. , 105–108). With the translation of Western forms of thought, a gap emerged between the traditional and the new, a distinction that is visible in Hanafi’s work as well. The Arab discourse on turāṯ, which Hanafi follows in his texts, is thus characterised by the desire to maintain a connection to one’s own cultural heritage (i.e., classical Islamic teachings), and the experience of becoming increasingly alienated from it.

In his book Heritage and Renewal, first published in 1980 (but cited below from the 2012 edition), Hanafi formulates a ‘philosophical project’ with which he wanted to counter the alienation of Muslims from their cultural heritage. With the formulation of this philosophical project, Hanafi joined the ranks of the اصحاب المشاريع aṣḥābu-l-mašārīʿ ‘initiators of projects’: those Arab philosophers who see their task as working outside of the academic sphere and trying to bring about sociopolitical changes. The project was conceived as a triple reconfiguration of Muslims’ attitudes (1) to their own Islamic heritage and (2) to Western heritage, in order to subsequently develop (3) an emancipatory agenda for a Muslim stance vis-à-vis present-day reality. It is primarily the second part of his project (i.e., the reconfiguration of Muslims’ attitudes to Western heritage), and the concept of “occidentalism” that Hanafi formulated (Hanafi 2004cHanafi, Hasan 2004c “From orientalism to occidentalism.” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 40 (1): 227–237.), that has received the most attention out of all of Hanafi’s texts outside of Arabic-language discourse to date. In this article, however, the focus will be on the first part of his project, the part that concerns Muslims’ attitudes to their own heritage.

Here, Hanafi intended to transform the classical disciplines handed down in Islamic culture into modern disciplines in which the central concern is no longer God but humankind.77.In this change of perspective from theology to anthropology (Hanafi 1972Hanafi, Hasan 1972 “Théologie ou anthropologie? [Theology or anthropology?].” In Renaissance du monde arabe [Renaissance in the Arab world], edited by Anouar Abdel-Malek, Abdel-Aziz Belal, and Hasan Hanafi, 233–263. Gembloux: Duculot.), Hanafi was also inspired by Ludwig Feuerbach and his work Das Wesen des Christentums ‘The essence of Christianity’ (1841Feuerbach, Ludwig 1841 Das Wesen des Christentums [The essence of Christianity]. Leipzig: Otto Wigand.). In his subsequent work, he therefore addresses the Islamic disciplines of علم اصول الدين Ilm Uṣul ad-Dīn ‘religious studies’, فلسفة falsafa ‘Islamic philosophy’, علم اصول الفقه Ilm Uṣul al-Fiqh ‘Islamic jurisprudence’, and علم التصوف Ilm at-taṣawwuf ‘Islamic mysticism’, in an attempt to delineate the function that they had in the social context of their emergence, and transpose them into a renewed Arabic language (Hanafi 2012, 176). This is because Hanafi was convinced that the problematic alienation of Muslims from their own heritage and their inability to connect with the teachings of the traditional Islamic disciplines was due to the archaic language in which this heritage was formulated. Hanafi therefore sought to achieve the renewal of the classical Islamic disciplines through a linguistic renewal of the Arabic language, convinced as he was that any process of modernisation needs to start with a linguistic renewal:

إن العلوم الأساسية في تراثنا القديم ما زالت تعبر عن نفسها بالألفاظ والمصطلحات التقليدية التي نشأت بها هذه العلوم والتي تقضي في الوقت نفسه على مضمونها ودَلالَتها المستقلة والتي تَمنَع أيضاً إعادة فهمها وتطويرها. (…) هذه اللغة لم تَعُدّ قادرة على التعبير عن مضامينها المتجددة طِبقاً لمتطلبات العَصْر نظراً لطول مصاحِبتها للمعاني التقليدية الشائعة التي تريد التخلص منها، ومهما أَعطيناها معاني جديدة فإنها لن تؤدي غَرَضها لسيادة المعنى العُرفي الشائع على المعنى الاصطلاحي الجديد. ومن ثم أصبحت لغة عاجزة عن الأداء بمهمتَيها في التعبير والإيصال.(Hanafi 2012 [1980]Hanafi, Hasan 2012 [1980] At-turāṯ wa-l-taǧdīd: Mawqifunā min at-turāṯ al-qadīm. [Heritage and renewal: Our attitude towards the old heritage]. 4th edition. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ǧāmiʿaiyya li-l-dirāsāt wa-n-našar wa-l-tauzīʿ., 109–110)

ʾinna-l-ʿulūm al-ʾasāsiya fī turāṯ-i-nā al-qadīm mā zālat tuʿabbir ʿan nafsihā bi-l-ʾalfāẓ wa-l-muṣṭalaḥāt at-taqlīdiya al-lati našaʾat bihā hāḏihi al-ʿulūm wa al-lati taqḍī fī-l-waqt nafsihā ʿala maḍmūn-i-hā wa-dalālat-i-ha al-mustaqilla wa-l-lati tamnaʿ ʾaiḍan ʾiʿādat fahmihā wa-taṭwīr-i-hā. (…) hāḏihi-l-luġa lam taʿudd qādira ʿla-t-taʿbīr ʿan maḍāmīn-i-hā al-mutaǧaddada ṭibqan li-mutaṭallabat-il-ʿaṣr naẓaran li-ṭūl muṣāḥibat-i-hā li-l-maʿāni at-taqlīdiya aš-šāʾiʿa al-lati turī at-taḫalluṣ min-hā, wa-mahmā aʿṭīnā-hā maʿānī ǧadīda fa-ʾinnahā lan tuʾaddī ġaraḍa-hā li-siyyāda-t-al-maʿna-l-ʿurfī aš-šāʾiʿ ʿla-l-maʿna-l-iṣṭilāḥī-l-ǧadīd. Wa-min ṯumma ʾaṣbaḥat luġa ʿāǧiza ʿan al-ʾadāʾ bi-muhimmat-aī-hā fī-t-tʿabīr wa-l-ʾīṣāl.

‘The seminal disciplines in our ancient heritage are still expressed in the traditional words and terms in which these sciences originated, which, simultaneously, eliminates their independent content and meaning and prevents them from being understood and developed anew. […] This language is no longer able to express its renewed meanings88.As can be seen from this quote, Hanafi distinguishes between ‘new’ and ‘renewed’ meanings or contents. ‘Renewed’ here is meant to make clear that it is linked to something old. It is not something new and unprecedented but something renewed that has developed over time. Just as meanings have changed over time in response to sociopolitical circumstances, language needs to change accordingly in order to capture these renewed meanings. according to the requirements of the times due to the duration of its association with the common traditional meanings that it tries to dispose of, and no matter to what extent we provide new meanings, the language will not fulfil its purpose due to the predominance of common customary meanings over new idiomatic meanings. It has thus become a language unable to perform its tasks of expression in communication.’99.Unless stated otherwise, the translations of all Arabic and French quotations into English are mine.

Hanafi’s Heritage and Renewal project has received a great deal of attention in the fields of Islamic studies and Islamic philosophy in the West (see Hildebrandt 1998Hildebrandt, Thomas 1998 Emanzipation oder Isolation vom westlichen Lehrer? Die Debatte um Hasan Hanafis ‘Einführung in die Wissenschaft der Okzidentalistik’ [Emancipation or isolation from the Western teacher? The debate on Hasan Hanafi’s ‘Introduction into the sciences of occidentalism’]. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz.; Kersten 2008Kersten, Carool 2008 “Bold Transmutations: Rereading Hasan Hanafi’s Early Writing on ‘Fiqh’.” Comparative Islamic Studies 3 (1): 22–38. ; Abd El Aal 2022Abd El Aal, Ahmed 2022 “Studie zum Projekt ‘Kulturerbe und Erneuerung’ bei Hasan Hanafi‘ [Study on Hasan Hanafi‘s project ‘Heritage and renewal’].” In Rationalität in der islamischen Theologie. Band II: Die Moderne [Rationality in Islamic theology. Volume II: Modernity], edited by Maha El Kaisy-Friemuth, Reza Hajatpour, and Mohammed Abdel Rahem, 87–115. Berlin: De Gruyter.; Kersten 2022Kersten, Carool 2022 “Hermeneutics and Islamic Liberation Theologies: Hasan Hanafi and Hamid Dabashi.” In Philosophical Hermeneutics and Islamic Thought, edited by Sylvain Camilleri and Selami Varlik, 157–168. Cham: Springer. ), but the reception of his work has generally overlooked the fact that the formulation of this project was preceded by a process of translation that shaped his intellectual development.1010.One exception is Kersten (2022)Kersten, Carool 2022 “Hermeneutics and Islamic Liberation Theologies: Hasan Hanafi and Hamid Dabashi.” In Philosophical Hermeneutics and Islamic Thought, edited by Sylvain Camilleri and Selami Varlik, 157–168. Cham: Springer. who traces the origins of Heritage and Renewal back to Hanafi’s doctoral studies at Sorbonne, although he does not focus on the translational aspect of Hanafi’s project. This process of translation can be traced throughout Hanafi’s dissertation, which he wrote during his ten-year stay in France at Sorbonne University (1956–1966). In Section 3, I focus on Hanafi’s ‘French decade’, discussing his struggles in adapting to the French scholarly tradition, analysing the terminological translations into French that Hanafi undertook in his French texts, and examining their back translation into Arabic in Heritage and Renewal (2012 [1980]Hanafi, Hasan 2012 [1980] At-turāṯ wa-l-taǧdīd: Mawqifunā min at-turāṯ al-qadīm. [Heritage and renewal: Our attitude towards the old heritage]. 4th edition. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ǧāmiʿaiyya li-l-dirāsāt wa-n-našar wa-l-tauzīʿ.).

3.Following Hanafi’s path of academic migration: The ‘French decade’

It can be assumed that Hanafi’s decision to go to Sorbonne University to complete his doctorate was also motivated by strategic career reasons. Notably, many of the philosophers who occupy philosophical chairs at Arab universities today completed their doctorate in European countries or the US, including Mohamed Habib Marouki, Abdallah Laroui, Muhammad Arkoun, and Taha Abdurrahman at Sorbonne University; Hisam al-Alushi at Cambridge University; and Tayyeb Tizini at Humboldt University in Berlin. Going abroad to study for a doctorate is virtually a tradition in the Arab world.1111.Cairo University is a good example. After Cairo University was founded in 1908 as the first modern university in the Arab world, most of the professors were Europeans, mostly from France, Italy, and England, teaching either in English or French on subjects unrelated to the Middle East, or in Arabic on Arab and Islamic subjects. Postgraduate students of all disciplines were systematically sent abroad to study for their doctorates, so that upon their return they could teach at Cairo University and thus gradually Egyptianise and (linguistically) Arabise the university (Reid 1990Reid, Donald Malcolm 1990 Cairo University and the Making of Modern Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 99–100).

The decade that Hanafi spent in France (1956–1966) was fundamental in shaping his academic profile, with classes taught by historians such as Robert Brunschvig and Henri Laoust, and philosophers such as Jean Wahl and Louis Massignon. He was particularly inspired by the Catholic philosopher Jean Guitton, with whom he developed a close personal relationship, and it is through the lens of Paul Ricœur’s French translations that Hanafi read Edmund Husserl intensively and was taken with his phenomenological method. He also studied the representatives of the German Idealism movement, such as Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and most notably Lessing, in whose combination of religious belief and rational thinking he was interested. He was also intrigued by European philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially Leibniz and Spinoza, with whom he shared the conviction that freedom is a fundamental condition for faith.

Hanafi’s decade in France ended with the publication of a three-volume work, to which he later referred to as his “youthful French Trilogy” (Hanafi 2002Hanafi, Hasan 2002 “Phenomenology and Islamic Philosophy.” In Phenomenology World-Wide: Foundations — Expanding Dynamics — Life-Engagements: A Guide for Research and Study, edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, 318–322. Dordrecht: Springer. , 320): (1) Les Méthodes d’Exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Usul al-Fiqh” ‘The methods of exegesis: Essay on the sciences on the grounds of comprehension — “ʿIlm Usul al-Fiqh”’ (1965), (2) L’exégèse de la phénoménologie ‘The exegesis of phenomenology’ (1966a), and (3) La phénoménologie de l’exégèse ‘The phenomenology of exegesis’ (1966b). Hanafi’s dissertation is the first of the three volumes.

All three parts can be read as relatively independent works, but all three grew out of the attempt “to make an Islamic reading of phenomenology and a phenomenological reading of Islam” (Hanafi 2002Hanafi, Hasan 2002 “Phenomenology and Islamic Philosophy.” In Phenomenology World-Wide: Foundations — Expanding Dynamics — Life-Engagements: A Guide for Research and Study, edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, 318–322. Dordrecht: Springer. , 320). More than forty years after its publication in French, Hanafi produced an Arabic self-translation (in the general sense of the word) of the second and third parts of his ‘French trilogy’ (Hanafi 2013aHanafi, Hasan 2013a Taʾwīl aṭ- ẓāhariyyāt: Al-ḥāla ar-rahina li-l-manhaǧ aṭ- ẓāhariyāti wa taṭbīqu fī ẓāharat ad-dīn. Orig. L’Exégèse de la phénoménologie: l’état actuelle de la méthode phénoménologique et son application aux phénomènes religieux. Translated by Hasan Hanafi. Cairo: Maktaba madbūlī., 2013bHanafi, Hasan 2013b Ẓāhariyyāt at-taʾwīl: Muhāwila fī tafsīr wuǧūdī li-l-ʿahad aǧ-ǧadīd. Orig. La Phénomenologie de l’exégèse: Essai d’une hermeneutique existentielle à partir du Nouveau Testament. Translated by Hasan Hanafi. Cairo: Maktaba madbūlī.) and included them in the second part of his philosophical project formulated in Heritage and Renewal (2012 [1980]Hanafi, Hasan 2012 [1980] At-turāṯ wa-l-taǧdīd: Mawqifunā min at-turāṯ al-qadīm. [Heritage and renewal: Our attitude towards the old heritage]. 4th edition. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ǧāmiʿaiyya li-l-dirāsāt wa-n-našar wa-l-tauzīʿ.). An analysis of these two self-translations would also be a great fit for this special issue. However, the aim of this article, as already outlined in Section 1, is to focus on the cultural self-translation in the first volume, Les méthodes d’exégèse, of which Hanafi explicitly did not offer to produce a literal self-translation (Hanafi 2004aHanafi, Hasan 2004a Min an-naṣ ila al-wāqiʿ. Al-Ǧuzʾ al-awwal: Takwīn an-naṣ. Muḥawila li-iʿadat binaʾ ʿilm uṣul al-fiqh [From text to reality. Volume 1: Composition of the text. Attempt of rebuilding Islamic jurisprudence]. Cairo: Markaz al-Kitāb lil-našar., 5).

The fundamental concepts of classical Islamic teachings, which Hanafi aimed to re-express during his later philosophical project, were already translated into French in Les méthodes d’exégèse. In this article, I address these terminological translations, but before doing so, I briefly discuss the difficulties that Hanafi experienced in writing his dissertation in France and in French, on which Hanafi himself reflects in the introduction to Les méthodes d’exégèse. These difficulties stemmed not only from the foreignness of the French language, in which he was not used to writing, but also from the French scientific tradition. It was “l’étrangeté du milieu dans lequel le travail apparaît” ‘the unfamiliarity of the milieu in which the work was to be published’ (Hanafi 1965Hanafi, Hasan 1965 Les méthodes d’exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Préface de R. Brunschvig [The methods of exegesis: Essay on the science of the foundations of understanding — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Preface by R. Brunschvig]. Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales., XIII), that made it necessary to revise his French trilogy several times. The first challenge that Hanafi had to overcome, he says, was to distance himself from the Arabic language. As he reflects in the following quote (in which he refers to himself in the third person), the first draft of the text, although written in French, closely resembled an Arabic text:

La phrase était presque une traduction plus ou moins de la phrase arabe. Elle avait sa structure, ses caractéristiques et ses tournures. Peut-être, le long attachement aux traités traditionnels a-t-il pillé à l’auteur son autonomie et son indépendance de style. […] Donc, il fallait se débarrasser de l’emprise de la structure de la phrase arabe pour avoir la liberté d’expression. (XV–XVI)

‘The sentence was almost a translation, more or less, of the Arabic sentence. It had the same structure, characteristics and phrasing. Perhaps the long attachment to the traditional treatises robbed the author of his autonomy and stylistic independence. […] Therefore, it was necessary to overcome the grip of the structure of the Arabic sentence in order to have freedom of expression.’

Interestingly, Hanafi attributes these challenges not to writing in a foreign language, but to his long classical Arabic education, which had robbed him of his ability to express himself freely, one he now had to work hard to reacquire.1212.Hanafi’s criticism of the stultifying effects of classical language education recalls Poullain de la Barre’s (1674Poullain de la Barre, François 1674 De l’éducation des dames pour la conduite de l’esprit dans les sciences et dans les mœurs [On the education of women to guide their minds in science and morals]. Paris: Jean du Puts., 332–333) view, which presents classical Latin education as an obstacle to the development of one’s own judgement, and learning Latin as a burden on common sense.

It was necessary not only to adapt the text to French stylistic norms since Hanafi describes the text as lacking “de l’éloquence et de netteté” ‘eloquence and clarity’ (XIV) but also because the virtually incomprehensible text did not fulfil its communicative function:

Le style était fermé. Chaque phrase était recroquevillée sur elle-même. D’accord, elle était comprise de l’auteur, mais elle était presque une énigme pour le lecteur. […] Bien qu’elle [= la phrase] assumât sa fonction d’expression, elle manquait d’assumer sa mission de communication, comme si le travail été écrit pour son auteur! (XV)

‘The style was closed. Each sentence was curled up on itself. The author understood it, but it was almost an enigma for the reader. […] Although the sentence assumed its function of expression, it failed to assume its mission of communication, as if the work was written for its author!’

The text thus had to be revised linguistically, stylistically, and structurally, with the help of a colleague more proficient in French (XIV).

However, the difficulties were not only on the linguistic level, but also appeared in the disciplinary classification of Hanafi’s work. Hanafi’s dissertation falls somewhere between the historical sciences, the history of philosophy, pure philosophy and theology and was supervised by professors from all these disciplines. As a result, the work is not considered to be appropriate in any of the disciplines in question. For historians, the work consists of too much philosophy and too little history; for philosophers, the opposite is true (XVI).

These difficulties can be partly explained by the (re-)development of (modern) philosophy in the Arab world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and its establishment as a university discipline. The classical Arabic disciplines distinguish between فلسفة falsafa and كلام kalām. While falsafa refers to those Arabic and Persian philosophical currents that are based on the reception of Greek traditions of thought, kalām is one of the classical Islamic disciplines, often referred to as ‘theology’, in which Islamic beliefs are combined discursively with reasoned argument. In Arab countries, modern universities, founded in the twentieth century, include disciplines from the humanities and natural sciences in their curricula, but Islamic religious scholarship remains the responsibility of the institutions traditionally entrusted with this task (such as al-Azhar University). Therefore, unlike in Turkey (Hildebrandt 2007Hildebrandt, Thomas 2007 Neo-Muʿtazilimus? Intention und Kontext im modernen arabischen Umgang mit dem rationalistischen Erbe des Islam [Neo-Muʿtazilism? Intention and context in the modern Arab reception of the rationalistic heritage of islam]. Leiden: Brill. , 96–98), there is no discipline of modern theology established at universities that could modernise kalām. The tendency to modernise theological thought and critically examine kalām that nevertheless exists in the Arab world, is thus primarily to be found in the discipline of philosophy. The boundaries between kalām and falsafa are blurred in these philosophical disciplines, where both are encountered equally as forms of ‘philosophising’ or ordered and conceptually precise thought. Hence, within philosophy at Arab universities, there is a greater fusion of philosophy and theology, which is not found to the same extent in European university systems.

However, the fact that Hanafi’s dissertation is clearly classified as philosophical from an Arab perspective is connected with a second aspect: the concept of translation as a philosophical method that can be observed in the Arab tradition. Contemporary Arabic philosophy began, as Hanafi summarises, “with a triple mission: editions of texts, philosophical studies in different languages, and translations from Western philosophy” (Hanafi 1997Hanafi, Hasan 1997 “Contemporary Islamic Philosophy.” In Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy, edited by Brian Carr and Indira Mahalingam, 1025–1042. London: Routledge., 1208). Many Arab philosophers describe the reception of philosophical currents, in the form of editions, translations, interpretations or commentaries, as creative work and thus as part of falsafa (e.g., Meskini 2008Meskini, Fethi 2008 “Arabité et Philosophie [Arabism and philosophy].” Rue Descartes 61 (3): 116–122. ). Hanafi defines the function of falsafa as a critical examination of foreign cultures, an examination first fulfilled by translations (Hanafi 1965Hanafi, Hasan 1965 Les méthodes d’exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Préface de R. Brunschvig [The methods of exegesis: Essay on the science of the foundations of understanding — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Preface by R. Brunschvig]. Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales., 532–533). Therefore, there is a special relationship between philosophy and translation in the Arabic tradition, one that Hanafi expresses when he claims that philosophy has its beginnings in translation: “فالنقل بداية الفلسفة” fa-naql-u-bidāyat al-falsafa ‘translation/transfer1313.The Arabic word that Hanafi uses here for ‘translation’ is نقل naql. Literally translated into English, naql means ‘transfer’. Along with ترجمة tarjama ‘translation/re-expression’ and تعريب ta’rib ‘Arabisation’, naql is one of many Arabic words that express translation. In usage, however, frequently no distinction is made between the word’s underlying connotations of transfer and transformation. It would, therefore, be incorrect at this point to translate naql as ‘transfer’ and thus imply that Hanafi is deliberately resorting to a transfer-centred notion of translation here. As can be seen from the context of this sentence, Hanafi is trying to use the Greek–Arabic translation movement of the classical period as an example to infer that translation processes often precede or accompany the development of philosophy. is the beginning of philosophy’ (Hanafi 2021Hanafi, Hasan 2021 Min an-naql ila al-ʾibdaʿ. Al-Ǧuzʾ al-awwal: an-naṣ [From transfer to innovation. Volume 1: The text]. Windsor: Hindawi., 11). Hanafi’s understanding of translation is not primarily based on the idea of transfer, but on that of appropriation and examination. The purpose of a translation, for him, is not to preserve an original, but always to meet the needs of the target system. Against this background, Hanafi cannot understand those who criticise the Greek–Arabic translations of the ninth and tenth centuries on the grounds that they distort the Greek original (see Hanafi 2021Hanafi, Hasan 2021 Min an-naql ila al-ʾibdaʿ. Al-Ǧuzʾ al-awwal: an-naṣ [From transfer to innovation. Volume 1: The text]. Windsor: Hindawi.), since these critics fail to realise that the Greek–Arabic translators selected and translated these texts with the needs and interests of a particular time and place in mind. According to this understanding, translation is always creative work. The choice of texts to be translated alone is what makes a translator creative: “إنَّ اختيار نصوص بعينها للترجمة في حد ذاته تأليف غير مباشر، ويكون المُترجم في هذه الحالة مُؤلّفًا بطري غير مباشر” ʾinna iḫtiyār nuṣūs bi-ʿīn-i-hā li-l-tarǧaa fī ḥadd ḏātihi taʾlīf ġair mubāšir, wa-yakūn al-mutarǧim fī hāḏihi al-ḥāla muʾallifan bi-ṭarīq ġair mubāšir ‘Choosing certain texts for translation is in itself an indirect authorship/creativity, and the translator in this case is an indirect author’ (Hanafi 2020 [1971]Hanafi, Hasan 2020 [1971] “Muqaddamat al-mutarǧim [Preface of the translator].” In Risāla fī al-lāhūt wa-s-siyāsa, by Baruch de Spinoza, 11–112. Orig. Tractatus theologico-politicus. Translated by Hasan Hanafi. Windsor: Hindawi., 11).

Translation in this sense is seen (not just by Hanafi, but by many contemporary Arabic philosophers) as being an important part of philosophical work. The integration of translation into modern philosophical practice is evident not only in the fact that most contemporary Arab philosophers are also translators of important philosophical texts1414.Hanafi himself translated Spinoza (2020 [1971])Spinoza, Baruch de 2020 [1971] Risāla fī al-lāhūt wa-s-siyāsa. Orig. Tractatus theologico-politicus. Translated by Hasan Hanafi. Windsor: Hindawi.; Sartre (2005)Sartre, Jean Paul 2005 Tʿālī al-ʾana mawǧūd. Orig. La Transcendence de l’ego: Esquisse d’une description phénoménologique. Translated by Hasan Hanafi. Beirut: Dār at-tanwīr li-l-ṭabāʿa wa-n-našar wa-t-tauzīʿ. and Lessing (1981)Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 1981 Tarabiyat al-ǧins al-bašari. Orig. Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts. Translated by Hasan Hanafi. 2nd edition. Beirut: Dār at-tanwīr li-l-ṭabāʿa wa-n-našar wa-t-tauzīʿ., and the Christian philosophers Augustine, Anselm of Canterbury, and Thomas Aquinas (see Hanafi 1978Hanafi, Hasan 1978 Fī Fikrunā al-muʿāṣir [On our contemporary thoughts]. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ǧāmiʿaiyya li-l-dirāsāt wa-n-našar wa-l-tauzīʿ.). but also in the fact that in many Arab universities the study of philosophy includes not only the study of foreign languages (usually French and/or English) but also translation exercises. At the Lebanese University, for instance, two courses are scheduled in the third semester of study: الترجمة والتعريب لنصوص فلسفية at-tarǧama wa-t-taʿrīb li-nuṣūṣ falsafiya ‘translation and Arabization of philosophical texts’ (ʿOṯmān 2015ʿOṯmān, ʿAfīf 2015 “Tadrīs al-falsafa fī Lubnān [Philosophy teaching in Lebanon].” In Ḥāl tadrīs al-falsafa fī al-ʿālam al-ʿarabī [Situation of philosophy teaching in the Arab world], edited by ʿAfīf ʿOṯmān, 136–156. Byblos: al-Markaz ad-duwali li-ʿulūm al-insān., 152); likewise, at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Tunis, starting from the fifth semester of the bachelor’s degree, a course on الترجمة الفلسفية at-tarǧama al-falsafiya ‘philosophical translation’ must be taken every semester (Miṣbāḥ 2015Miṣbāḥ, Ṣāleḥ 2015 “Waḍaʿ tadrīs al-falsafa fī Tūnis [Situation of philosophy teaching in Tunisia].” In Ḥāl tadrīs al-falsafa fī al-ʿālam al-ʿarabī [Situation of philosophy teaching in the Arab world], edited by ʿAfīf ʿOṯmān, 385–409. Byblos: al-Markaz ad-duwali li-ʿulūm al-insān., 397–401).1515.This integration of translation exercises into philosophy studies is also interesting in that it parallels the function of translation in the rhetorical tradition of Latin antiquity, when translation exercises were part of rhetorical studies (Copeland 1991Copeland, Rita 1991 Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 34). As Hanafi’s dissertation consists of a philosophical translation process, the study fits perfectly within the disciplinary boundaries of the Arab falsafa. It is this philosophical process of translation in Les méthodes d’exégèse, as well as the back translations into Arabic in Heritage and Renewal that will be elaborated in Section 4.

4.Back and forth: Tracing terminological translations in Méthodes d’exégèse and Heritage and Renewal

In Les méthodes d’exégèse, Hanafi turns to the problem that he also addresses in his later philosophical project Heritage and Renewal: Muslims becoming increasingly alienated from their own cultural heritage. He also identifies the archaic Arabic language in which the Islamic heritage is formulated as the same main reason for this alienation. He identifies “une stagnation constante du langage sans renouvellement réciproque” ‘a constant stagnation of language without reciprocal renewal’ (Hanafi 1965Hanafi, Hasan 1965 Les méthodes d’exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Préface de R. Brunschvig [The methods of exegesis: Essay on the science of the foundations of understanding — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Preface by R. Brunschvig]. Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales., XCIX) in the Arabic language, which has buried the Islamic heritage in terminological archaisms. This, he argues, has led to a radical break in the Islamic culture and has hindered its modernisation.1616.Hanafi was by far not alone in being critical of the Arabic language and accusing it of stagnation and a lack of development. Another example is Ismāʿīl Maẓhar (1891–1962), who described the Arabic language as one that had gone through a long period of stagnation and, for this reason, (no longer) met the requirements of the sciences and literature (Maẓhar 2015 [1948]Maẓhar, Ismāʿīl 2015 [1948] Taǧdīd al-ʿarabiyya bi-haiṯu tuṣbiḥa wāfiya bi-maṭālib al-ʿulūm wa-l-funūn [Renewing Arabic to make it suitable for the demands of science and technology]. Beirut: Al-Kamel., 10).

Hanafi, therefore, saw the necessity of ‘transposing’1717.By ‘transposition’ he meant the expression of one culture (in this case, of the Arabic-Islamic culture) in the language of another culture (Hanafi 1965Hanafi, Hasan 1965 Les méthodes d’exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Préface de R. Brunschvig [The methods of exegesis: Essay on the science of the foundations of understanding — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Preface by R. Brunschvig]. Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales., XC). traditional Arabic-Islamic concepts into another language, one that “ne donne pas uniquement des moyens d’expression, mais […] ouvre aussi plusieurs aspects, différents domaines et une multitude d’horizons pour la pensée enfouie dans la torminologie [sic] ancienne” ‘not only offers ways of expression […] but also makes available numerous aspects, domains, and horizons for the thought locked in the old terminology’ (Hanafi 1965Hanafi, Hasan 1965 Les méthodes d’exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Préface de R. Brunschvig [The methods of exegesis: Essay on the science of the foundations of understanding — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Preface by R. Brunschvig]. Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales., XCIX), which he believed to have found not in Arabic but in French.

His choice of French seems to have been for pragmatic reasons: he was writing his thesis at a French university, where the use of the French was obligatory. What seemed important to Hanafi was that it was a European language that offered new terminology. According to Hanafi, a European language, because of its Greek roots, automatically invites rational, open, and free thinking and can thus help to liberate consciousness:

La terminologie sortante, suivant la trace de la terminologie grecque est rationnelle, ouverte, universelle, facile à comprendre et à utiliser, séduisante pour tout pensée libre, et aidant même à la liberté de conscience. (Hanafi 1965Hanafi, Hasan 1965 Les méthodes d’exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Préface de R. Brunschvig [The methods of exegesis: Essay on the science of the foundations of understanding — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Preface by R. Brunschvig]. Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales., XCVI)

‘The target terminology, following the traces of the Greek terminology, is rational, open, universal, easy to understand and use, attractive to any free thought, and even helpful for the liberation of the conscience.’

According to Hanafi, a successful transposition can lead to the modernisation, humanisation, and interconnection of the two cultures involved (CVI–CIX). He goes on to say that no project of modernisation and humanisation can succeed without transposition; in other words, without linguistic renewal. He therefore describes his dissertation as a manifesto of the Islamic modernist movement (XXV). Philosophical translation projects aimed at modernising or enriching one’s own culture are not unique to Hanafi’s work. Both Cicero and Schleiermacher call for translation into Latin and German as a means of cultural enrichment. With Hanafi, however, it is the opposite. He translates Arabic thought out of Arabic, and into another language in order to ‘liberate’ it from the archaic Arabic language.

According to Hanafi, a transposition concerns the level of term, meaning, as well as the thing itself. Accordingly, he distinguishes three possible ways of transposition, each of which emphasises one of these three aspects:

La transposition, [c’est] une prise en main de tous les aspects de la question: le terme, le sens et la chose dans les deux langues. Il existe donc trois manières de transposition ; la traduction du terme, l’expression de la notion et l’interprétation de la chose. (CXXI)

‘Transposition involves an understanding of all aspects of the issue: the term, the meaning, and the object in both languages. There are, therefore, three ways of transposition; the translation of the term, the expression of the meaning, and the interpretation of the object.’

In this tripartition of expression (Ausdruck), meaning (Bedeutung), and the thing itself (die Sache selbst), Hanafi largely adheres to Husserl’s conception of language, which the latter elaborates in Logische Untersuchungen ‘Logical investigations’ (2013 [1900]Husserl, Edmund 2013 [1900] Logische Untersuchungen [Logical investigations]. Hamburg: Meiner.). He was therefore convinced that pre-linguistic experiences structure our Lebenswelt ‘life world’. It is into this pre-linguistic experience, the thing itself, that Hanafi wished to penetrate in his translations. The third mode of translation (i.e., the reinterpretation of the object), is therefore the one he preferred, although he admits that this is not always possible.

The transposition that Hanafi undertakes in Les méthodes d’exégèse involves not only a translation from Arabic into French, but also a translation of religious concepts into philosophical concepts. In his translations, Hanafi is, therefore, careful not to use French expressions with strong religious connotations (such as ‘God’, ‘prophet’, etc.). The results of this linguistic work are often unusual translations of theological concepts. For instance, rather than translating الله Allah as ‘God’, and قرآن Qurʾān as ‘The Holy Book’ he translates Allah as “conscience anonyme” and the Qurʾān as “expérience anonyme.” Likewise, he translates رسول rasūl (usually translated as ‘prophet’) as “conscience humaine privilégiée” and سنة sunna ‘traditions and practices of the prophet’ with “expérience privilégiée.” These translations are only understandable with reference to Husserl’s concept of intersubjective experience. In his Cartesianische Meditationen ‘Cartesian meditations’ (2012 [1931]Husserl, Edmund 2012 [1931] Cartesianische Meditationen [Cartesian meditations]. Hamburg: Meiner.), he states that objectivity is only possible through intersubjectively agreed experience. It is not only objects that prelinguistically structure our perception, but also other people. Experiences in the life world (Lebenswelt) are always intersubjective experiences. It is in distinguishing from this notion of intersubjective experience that Hanafi seeks to express the special status of God and the prophet.

Another notable translation is in the title of the book itself: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Usul al-Fiqh.” ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh, (علم اصول الفقه) which is usually translated as ‘Islamic jurisprudence’, Hanafi literally translates as “La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension” ‘the science of the foundations of understanding’. The designation of Uṣul al-Fiqh as ‘science’ (علم ʿIlm) already indicates Hanafi’s transformation of classical Islamic teachings into modern scholarship. With “fondements de la compréhension” ‘foundations of understanding’, Hanafi emphasises the hermeneutic roots of the discipline, which has established itself as the discipline concerned with the methodological principles of norm-finding, and positions it as a discipline concerned with the foundations of understanding; 1818.In this context, Hanafi, in line with Ricœur, explicitly distinguishes between knowledge (معرفة ma’rifa) and understanding (فهم fahm). in other words, a discipline that seeks to understand the sources of revelation through rational methods and is therefore distinct from other methods of understanding revelation such as تصوف Tasawwuf, often translated as ‘mysticism’ but which Hanafi translates as “existential method” (Hanafi 1965Hanafi, Hasan 1965 Les méthodes d’exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Préface de R. Brunschvig [The methods of exegesis: Essay on the science of the foundations of understanding — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Preface by R. Brunschvig]. Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales., 509).

Hanafi remains aware of his multiple readerships throughout his translation work. He wrote his dissertation both for European readers and Islamic scholars. To address these two audiences, Hanafi often places the transcription of the Arabic word after his French translation. This also explains the inclusion of both translation and transliteration in the title of his dissertation. Therefore, Hanafi explains:

‘Usul al-Fiqh’ peut-être traduit par la science des fondements de la compréhension. […] Cette traduction a été mise à l’intention du lecteur européen avant la translittération, pour éviter toute impression d’étrangeté du thème dont les lecteurs auraient pu avoir de la translittération. Certes, la traduction est nouvelle. Elle a été choisie car elle est d’une part une traduction exacte, d’autre part elle est séduisante pour le lecteur européen et lui donne tant de suggestions à propos de ces fondements de la compréhension. (Hanafi 1965Hanafi, Hasan 1965 Les méthodes d’exégèse: Essai sur La Science des Fondements de la Compréhension — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Préface de R. Brunschvig [The methods of exegesis: Essay on the science of the foundations of understanding — “ʿIlm Uṣul al-Fiqh”. Preface by R. Brunschvig]. Cairo: Organisme Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales., XXXVI)

‘Usul al-Fiqh can be translated as the science of the foundations of understanding. […] This translation is offered to the European reader before transliteration in order to avoid any impression of the theme’s strangeness that the readers might have had from the transliteration. Certainly, the translation is new. This translation is chosen because it is, on the one hand, an accurate translation, and on the other hand it is attractive to the European reader and gives them numerous suggestions about these foundations of understanding.’

With these new translations of concepts from the Islamic tradition, Hanafi not only intended to liberate original meanings and therefore open Islamic culture to modernisation, but also to establish a new discourse in the West about Islamic culture. He deliberately avoids the use of already established translations of Arabic concepts, as these are already occupied by the Orientalist discourse, and the reader’s impartiality is no longer guaranteed. The question of how to reach a reader that is free of prejudices about the subject of research is one that he addresses at length in his introduction: “Comment le chercheur communique-t-il sa pensée aux autres? Comment peut-il arriver à éliminer tous les préjugés chez le lecteur sur l’objet de recherche?” ‘How can the scholar communicate his thoughts to others? How can he eliminate all of the reader’s prejudices about the research object?’ (LXXXVI).

Hanafi’s new translations are, therefore, also an expression of his criticism of previously established translations, which he considered inadequate. One example is the Arabic term إجماع Iǧmāʿ which, after the Qur’an and Sunna, is the third source of law-making in Islam. Iǧmāʿ has so far mostly been translated as ‘consensus’. However, Hanafi considered this translation to be incorrect, since it

… ne désigne du tout ni le contenu de cette source, ni sa fonction, ni son essence. Le terme ‘consensus’ est un terme stagnant et archaïque qui étouffe son contenu et qui empêche son apparition. (XCIX)

‘… does not at all describe the content of its source, nor its function, nor its essence. The term “consensus” is a stagnant and archaic term that stifles its content and prevents its appearance.’

By contrast, the translation Hanafi chooses, “expérience intersubjective” ‘intersubjective experiemce’ (XCIX), allows for a new reflection on the meaning of the Arabic term. Unlike ‘consensus’, which implies that the opinion of the majority is sought, “intersubjective experience” refers to a common experience achieved during the reciprocity of consciousnesses (C). In an analogy with Husserl’s concept of intersubjective experience, Hanafi shifts the focus from an external to an internal perspective.

An examination of Hanafi’s project of linguistic renewal in Heritage and Renewal reveals that many of Hanafi’s Arabic–French translations in Les méthodes d’exégès have been back-translated into Arabic. Hanafi’s sensitivity to the communicative function of language, which he acquired during his experience of writing in French, seems to have strengthened his belief in a need for a renewal of the ‘old’ Arabic-Islamic language. Consequently, the main criticism that he levels at classical Arabic-Islamic terminology is its inability to fulfil the communicative function of language. This is particularly evident in his criticism of the expression الله Allah (Hanafi 2012 [1980]Hanafi, Hasan 2012 [1980] At-turāṯ wa-l-taǧdīd: Mawqifunā min at-turāṯ al-qadīm. [Heritage and renewal: Our attitude towards the old heritage]. 4th edition. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ǧāmiʿaiyya li-l-dirāsāt wa-n-našar wa-l-tauzīʿ., 112–116). The term Allah has, Hanafi argues, such a large conceptual scope and is loaded with so many different meanings depending on who is using it, that it no longer has any meaning (113). It was the inadequacy of this term to fulfil its communicative function that led Hanafi to seek a renewal of classical Arabic-Islamic terminology, adapted to the new historical circumstances of the present. Many of the renewed terms he then proposes are back translations of the terms translated into French in Les méthodes d’exégèse. For instance, Hanafi speaks of Iǧmāʿ as “ التجربة المشتركة ” at-taǧruba al-muštaraka ‘shared/mutual experience’ (Hanafi 2004bHanafi, Hasan 2004b Min an-naṣ ila al-wāqiʿ. Al-Ǧuzʾ al-ṯāni: Buniyyat an-naṣ. Muḥawila li-iʿadat binaʾ ʿilm uṣul al-fiqh [From text to reality. Volume 2: Structure of the text. Attempt of rebuilding Islamic jurisprudence]. Cairo: Markaz al-Kitāb lil-našar., 223), using the adverb مشترك mushtarak ‘shared/mutual’ to emphasise the intersubjectivity of experience. Moreover, he speaks of أصول الفقه Uṣul al-Fiqh as “مَنهَج عقلي” manhaǧ ʿaqlī ‘mental, reasonable or rationalistic method’ and of تصوّف Taṣawwuf as “منهج وِجداني” manhaǧ wiǧdānī ‘affective or emotional method’ of understanding (Hanafi 2012 [1980]Hanafi, Hasan 2012 [1980] At-turāṯ wa-l-taǧdīd: Mawqifunā min at-turāṯ al-qadīm. [Heritage and renewal: Our attitude towards the old heritage]. 4th edition. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ǧāmiʿaiyya li-l-dirāsāt wa-n-našar wa-l-tauzīʿ., 185), thus emphasising the differences in the rational and emotional epistemic approaches. To put it another way, in Heritage and Renewal, Hanafi sought intralingual translations in order to adapt classical Arabic Islamic terminology to the new historical circumstances of the present. He achieved this intralingual translation by way of interlingual translations into French in Les méthodes d’exégèse.

5.Conclusion

The case of Hasan Hanafi allows us to observe translation processes under the changing linguistic conditions of the academic system. As I noted at the beginning of this article, the current language (and translation) ‘policies’ of the academic system are characterised not only by the increasing dominance of English as the language of scholarship, but also by an increasing focus placed on the scholar as author in order to make their work understandable for other scholars, and thus to translate their work into dominant languages. Under such conditions, Translation Studies needs to not only pay attention to published translations marked as translations (only to find that published translations are becoming increasingly rare in the academic system), but also to look at traces of translation that either precede the publication of a text or are found in academic texts at a lower level of translation units (quotation, phrase, term). In this article, I attempted to find such traces of translation in Hasan Hanafi’s works, deliberately not in the texts he labels ‘translations’ or ‘self-translations’, but in those that appear as ‘original texts’. An examination of Hanafi’s translations at a terminological level shows that the (forced or voluntary) change to another language can be beneficial for academic (and in the case of Hanafi, philosophical) work and can be used productively in philosophical practice. The translation of key concepts of the Arabic-Islamic tradition into French, although prompted by his move to Paris for educational reasons, seems to have helped Hanafi to examine these concepts from a greater (linguistic) distance, to rethink these concepts, and to discover their foundational function, which he sought to preserve by translating them back into Arabic. It seems that the experience of writing philosophy in a foreign language sharpened his awareness of the communicative function of language and the need for a precise philosophical language, which encouraged him in his efforts to renew the Arabic language. Viewing Hasan Hanafi as a self-translator allows us to observe these terminological translations and reveal the influences of Hanafi’s experiences of academic migration and ‘self-translation’ on his later work in philosophy.