The NY Times has an interesting article about translating the Koran. Apparently the literal word of God contains lots of words with multiple meanings. A good example is Chapter 4, Verse 34. According to the NY Times, “The verse says that a rebellious woman should first be admonished, then abandoned in bed, and ultimately “beaten” — the most common translation for the Arabic word “daraba” — unless her behavior improves.”
What about those other translations for “daraba”?
The story explains “There are at least 20 English translations of the Koran. “Daraba” has been translated as beat, hit, strike, scourge, chastise, flog, make an example of, spank, pet, tap and even seduce.”
You can see the big problem here: A good number of wives might enjoy being spanked, petted, tapped and even seduced. If any of those last four definitions are the ones Allah intended, it means big trouble for Muslim men. You’re going to get a lot of this:
Wife: “Hey, Abdul, I spray painted the Star of David on your Mercedes because I’m rebellious! Now God says you have to seduce me! I like chocolate!”
I think we can all agree that the funniest translation of “daraba” is tap. I can imagine the conversation between a Muslim man and his spiritual leaders:
Man “My wife gave away my golf clubs. What should I do?”
Spiritual Leader: “Dude, you gotta go home and tap that.”
After reading about the Koran’s multiple translation problems, I started wondering if the Islamic terrorists might be misinterpreting the Koran. Perhaps the holy book doesn’t say to kill the infidels at all. Perhaps the Arab word for kill has lots of other interpretations including idolize, adore, wax their backs, fellate, and sell oil below cost. Maybe the terrorists just picked the easiest one.
This gives me a good idea on how to stop terrorism. All we have to do is print about 10 billion Korans with one or two words about the infidels altered, list some famous Islamic scholar as the publisher, assassinate him so he can’t talk, and give away the books for free. It will take a while for anyone to notice the few altered words and get the word out. By then it will be too late. The altered Korans will outnumber the correct ones, and in time the more common interpretation will seem right. In this future world, the biggest complaint that infidels will have about Islamic terrorists will be “He was nice, but his beard tickled, if you know what I mean.”
Here’s a link to the NY Times article: