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1.3 DOCUMENT CONVENTIONS
I describe below some of the documentation conventions I have followed in this document, mainly the ones
that I think need some clarification.
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In
transliterating Arabic and Urdu terms:
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I use double English vowel letters to indicate the long Arabic/Urdu vowels. I do realize that this is not
accepted practice but it has the benefit of relying only on the availability of the English alphabet text
characters (in the word processing and printing device) rather than on special characters or fonts. Also, I
think that using the double vowels provides, intuitively, a rendering closer to the intended Arabic/Urdu
pronunciation than using single vowels or special characters. For example, the spelling “Rahmaan”, in my
opinion, gives a better rendering of the pronunciation than does “Rahman” and its intended pronunciation
may be more obvious than is from “Rahmän” or “Rahmán” since not all readers may be familiar with the
special character ‘ä’ or ‘á’. (It is also much easier to type two regular characters than to type or insert a
special character.)
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However, where a word is part of a proper noun or title, such as “Islam” in “Ahmadiyya Movement in
Islam”, I use the established spelling. Similarly, since the Ahmadiyya Movement spells Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad’s name as such, I have retained this spelling, rather than “Mirzaa Ghulaam Ahmad”.
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I usually enclose text that contains a transliteration, in single quote marks. However, once I have introduced
a term and then use it as if it were a regular word, or if the term is a title or proper noun, I may not thus
enclose it. (For example, after having introduced the term “khaleefah”, I use it as if it were a regular term.)
Also, if I need to enclose a transliterated term in double quotation marks, to point to it in a special way, as I
would even for an English term, then I only use the double quotation marks and not the single quotes.
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To render the Arabic letter “`ain”, I use the grave accent mark. If the “`ain” needs to be capitalized in the
English transliteration, I capitalize the vowel following it. For example, I capitalize the “A” in `Abdullaah.
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To render the Arabic and Urdu letter “hamzaa”, I generally use a hyphen, for example, ‘bhaa-ee’, the Urdu
word for “brother”.
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Arabic and Urdu share many words but do not always share the pronunciation. In particular, the sounds of
some of the common letters of the alphabet differ between the two languages. In transliterating such words,
I have tended to render the Arabic sound of the letters if the word is a known Islaamic term but the Urdu
sound otherwise. In some cases my decision may have been wrong or arbitrary.
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References to verses of the Quraan
follow the Ahmadiyya system of counting the verses, which always counts
the ‘Basmalaah’ (the “bismillaah” formula, invoking the name of God), at the start of a chapter, as a verse of the
chapter. (I am using this because I expect most of my readers to be Ahmadee and therefore more familiar with
this convention.) Therefore, if you are consulting a Quraan not printed by the Ahmadiyya Movement, you will
have to subtract one from the verse number I mention (except for Chapter 1, for which everyone counts the
basmalaah, and for Chapter 9, which does not start with this invocation).
I will use the notation “n:m” to refer to verse m of Chapter n of the Quraan.
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In
referring to persons
I will not always follow the Western convention of simply using the last name. This is
because one of the major referenced persons in this document is Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. On the front cover of
the volumes of Roohaanee Khazaa-in, a collection of his books, his name is printed (in Urdu) as Hadrat Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad Qaadiyaanee. But using Qaadiyaanee as the last name, to refer to him, may be considered
derogatory by members of the Ahmadiyya Movement (since opponents of the Movement use this term to refer
to members of the Movement). The other choice is “Ahmad” but that too causes a problem. The reason is that
the name “Ahmad” is so common in the Ahmadiyya Movement that by using it one loses some clarity.
Furthermore, in the culture to which Mirza Ghulam Ahmad belonged, and where he is most known, the first
word in the name is usually the family or tribal name, equivalent to the last name in the Western culture.
Therefore, “Mirza” seems a better choice to use as the last name for this person. (Hadrat, the first word in the
name as printed on the cover of the Roohaanee Khazaa-in volumes, is a title of respect, not part of the name.)
However, just using “Mirza” might seem impolite to some readers. In view of all these considerations, I will use
the full name, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. (I am not using the title “Saahib” because, firstly, titles are not used in
referencing authors in the Western tradition and, secondly, “Saahib” is not a word recognized as a title in
English.)
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In listing
references
and in providing
citations:
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I have used identifiers enclosed in square brackets for labeling each reference. References, with annotated
descriptions in some cases, are listed in Section 6.2.
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For works published by the Ahmadiyya Movement I have departed from the standard practice of using the
first few letters of the author’s last name to build this identifier. Instead, I have used identifiers that give an
intuitive indication of the work that is being referenced. For example, the identifier for Roohaanee Khazaain
is “RK”. The main reason for this is that the major cited works are by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and
referencing just by his name would not provide an intuitive indication of which of his works was being
cited. Also, there is the problem of the ambiguity about his last name. And, in the case of publications of
the Ahmadiyya Movement, it is not very relevant who the specific author is; what is relevant is that I am
quoting from a publication of the Ahmadiyya Movement.
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Inside quoted text I have used square brackets to enclose interpolations, as follows: [interpolated text].
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For many of the citations of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s books, in addition to indicating the page number of
the referenced work, I have provided an approximate location on the page where the cited passage starts or,
in some cases, both where it starts and ends.
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In references to Roohaanee Khazaa-in [RK], a collection of books spanning multiple volumes:
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When I provide a page number, it should be assumed to be the page number of the Roohaanee Khazaa-in
volume, not the page number of an individual book in that volume. If I want to mention the book page
number, I will make a clarification.
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In general, assume that the Roohaanee Khazaa-in page number is in the top margin (header) of the page.
Please note that although in most volumes of Roohaanee Khazaa-in, the volume page number is in the top
margin and the book page number is in the bottom margin (footer), in some volumes it is the other way
around. I will try to provide a clarification when the Roohaanee Khazaa-in page number is not at the top.
There is also a third variety of page number, which is the page number of the original publication of the
book; this is usually in the side margin. The reason I cite the volume page number rather than the book
page number is that the volumes do not contain tables of contents so that there is no easy way to find out
where in a volume a book starts and ends.
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In many cases I have used highlighting (with transparent shading) to mark important portions of a quotation.
This is particularly needed in cases where I have a long quotation and there is a need to point out the most
relevant parts. (In many cases I have provided rather long quotations to include useful context and to avoid the
suspicion that I am quoting out of context.) In a few cases, I have also marked some words with boxing, to
point them out within a quotation.
Except for shading and boxing, all the formatting within a quotation – for example, bold and/or large font,
underlining, or center justification – is meant to depict the formatting of the original; it is not for emphasis
added by me.
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Whereas I use shading (and sometimes boxing) to point out key portions of quoted text, I use
bold italics
to
mark key elements of my own text.
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Some points pertaining to
translations
, worth mentioning, are:
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I have generally refrained from correcting grammar or imposing English writing style when translating
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s Urdu writings or other Ahmadiyya literature; my objective is to provide you with
as faithful a rendition of the original as I can. In some cases, however, I have added punctuation to help you
make sense of very long and convoluted sentences.
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In most cases the citation or my words about a quotation will not indicate that the quotation is a translation;
however, if you refer to the reference description, in Section 6.2, you will be able to see whether or not the
original was in English.
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I have generally translated ‘wahee’ and ‘ilhaam’ as “revelation” and ‘kashf’ as “inspiration”.
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I have generally translated ‘jannat’ and ‘behisht’ as “Heaven” but have usually translated ‘aasmaan’ –
where it meant a transcendent/heavenly place rather than the physical sky – as “the heavens” (i.e., plural
and not starting with a capital letter).
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The term ‘Aan Hadrat’ is customarily used in Urdu to refer to Muhammad
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It means, literally, something
like “That Sir” or “That Respected Person”. I have translated this as “His Holiness”. The reason I do not
translate it as the Holy Prophet or the Messenger is that I want to make the English translation reflect the
Urdu original as closely as possible. So, if the Urdu word used for Muhammad is ‘nabee’, I translate that as
“Prophet” and when the Urdu word is ‘rasool’, I translate that as “Messenger”. Therefore, I wanted to
translate ‘Aan Hadrat’ such that the reader would know from the translation that that was the term in the
original Urdu text.
A point related to this one is that I use the word “Prophet” – starting with a capital “P” – only for
Muhammad; in the general sense of the word, I write it as “prophet”. However, in the case of the word
“Messenger”, to mean an apostle of God, I always capitalize the first letter since without that it does not
necessarily mean an apostle of God (given that “messenger” also has a general everyday sense).
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The word ‘saahib’ is used in Urdu as a conventional title of courtesy. (It is found in English dictionaries
spelt as “sahib”.) The word is usually suffixed to a man’s name, e.g., Hakeem Saahib, similar to what in
English would be Mr. Hakeem. It is also often suffixed to a man’s official or professional title, e.g.,
President Saahib, similar to Mr. President. Therefore, I have translated it as “Mr.” in many cases. However,
in some cases the translation as Mr. would have been awkward. For example, if a man is a doctor, he could
be referred to in Urdu as Doctor Saahib, but translating this as Mr. Doctor is not suitable. Also, the word
can be suffixed to relationship nouns, e.g., ‘Waalid Saahib’, where waalid means “father”. Obviously, Mr.
Father is not a suitable translation. In such cases, I have either left the word as is or used the word
“respected” in the translation, e.g., translating Waalid Saahib as Respected Father.
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Terms related to the name “Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam”:
The international religious organization that believes in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a Divine apostle, and is
headquartered in Rabwah
3
, Pakistan, refers to itself by several different names in its literature. In Urdu, a
common term they use is “Jama`at-e-Ahmadiyya”. In English, in the USA, two terms commonly used by them
are “Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam” and “Ahmadiyya Muslim Community”. In this document, I have used the
term “Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam”, mostly abbreviated as “Ahmadiyya Movement”.
I use the term “Ahmadiyya” mostly as an adjective but sometimes also as a noun, meaning the Ahmadiyya faith
or system of doctrines. In this latter usage, the term “Ahmadiyya” is akin to “Christianity” rather than to
“Christian”. The Ahmadiyya Movement itself uses the Urdu term “Ahmadiyyat” (with a “t” at the end) for this
latter usage. However, I did not wish to use this Urdu term to avoid over-burdening my English readers with
foreign terminology.
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I assume that most readers of this document are Muslims. Even so, I usually explain Islaamic terms (often in
footnotes or in parentheses) when I use them for the first time.
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