PhD Candidate in Translation Studies, Department of English Translation Studies, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran
Historical Translation Studies (HTS) stands on unstable ground when it analyzes pre-modern translations without philological verification. This article examines a case from Persian Qurʾān translation. Since 1982, a rendering of Q. 15:22, va mā bād-hā rā ba dāmādī-yi gul-hā va diraxtān firistādīm (“And We sent the winds as bridegrooms to the flowers and trees”), has been debated in Persian translation theory as a model, or a breach, of fidelity. All participants assumed it came from a 5th/6th-century AH Persian translation of al-Ghazālī’s J̌awāhir al-Qurʾān, which the modern editor ascribed to Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar Nasafī. Comparing its verses with Tafsīr-i Nasafī and its prose with Nasafī’s Persian passages in al-Taysīr fī al-tafsīr shows the ascription is unfounded and the text dates no earlier than the 7th/8th century AH. Second, the unique manuscript contains only al-Ghazālī’s nineteen introductory chapters, not the verse anthology; the editor compiled the printed Q. 15:22 from Tafsīr-i Nasafī, a bracketed gloss of Sūrābādī’s commentary, and his own words, and its celebrated wording first appeared on the back cover. None of the witnesses examined (the J̌awāhir manuscript, the critical edition of the Sūrābādī tradition, and 142 manuscripts in Farhangnāma-yi Qurʾānī) contains it. A four-decade debate thus concerned a ghost translation. HTS should treat authorship, dating, and manuscript verification as preconditions of analysis.
Bigdeloo, M. (2026). When the First Brick is Crooked: The Philological Imperative in Historical Translation Studies. Translation and Interpreting Research, 3(11), 41–54. https://doi.org/10.22054/tir.2026.96233.1099
MLA
Bigdeloo, M. "When the First Brick is Crooked: The Philological Imperative in Historical Translation Studies", Translation and Interpreting Research, 3, 11, 2026, 41–54. doi: 10.22054/tir.2026.96233.1099
HARVARD
Bigdeloo, M. (2026). 'When the First Brick is Crooked: The Philological Imperative in Historical Translation Studies', Translation and Interpreting Research, 3(11), pp. 41–54. doi: 10.22054/tir.2026.96233.1099
CHICAGO
Bigdeloo, M., "When the First Brick is Crooked: The Philological Imperative in Historical Translation Studies." Translation and Interpreting Research, 3 11 (2026): 41–54, doi: 10.22054/tir.2026.96233.1099
VANCOUVER
Bigdeloo M. When the First Brick is Crooked: The Philological Imperative in Historical Translation Studies. TIR. 2026;3(11):41–54. doi: 10.22054/tir.2026.96233.1099
