Page 26 - The_Sun_Rises_in_the_West

CONTENTS

PRELIMINARY INFORMATION

I always make my best effort to employ Old, Classical and Modern
French in my French-language translation of the Qurân, in order to
produce a literal translation of the Quranic source text. With a few
exceptions, I was unfortunately not able to do the same for the
1
English version of Le Soleil se lève à l’Occident . I do not quite
possess an adequate command of the language in order to permit
myself to follow a similar approach. As a result, the translated
Qurân verses of this edition of The Sun Rises in the West, for the
most part, will be conventional and, consequently, roughly
equivalent to the source.

- In Arabic, the words "world" and "scholar" ( âlam and âlim)
Σ
Σ
have the same root (Σ-L-M, م ل ع): science, knowledge,
understanding. The world is closely linked to knowledge, to the
objective understanding we have of it; it only exists through this
vital information. The real world can only be perceived through
scientific knowledge - any way-out is subjective; this results in
myths and legends, synonyms of fetishism and superstition. This is
how, with some exceptions, the ancients speculatively devised
fabulous and imaginary worlds, with no true scientific basis.
Nevertheless, and to their credit, they had this specifically
intelligent awareness that the world has a meaning and a raison
d'être. It is this established fact that is at the origin of scientific
research and the results thereof we observe nowadays and every
day.

1
For my French translation of the Quranic verses cited in the book, cf. Farid
Gabteni, Le Soleil se lève à l’Occident (volume 3), ed. SCDOFG, 2016; or Au
cœur du Qorân, ed. SCDOFG, 2016.