Prevod Kur'ana od Hadži Ali Riza Karabega

Translation of the Qur'an by Hadži Ali Riza Karabeg

Ali Riza Karabeg's translation of the Quran

Hadži Ali Riza Karabeg (1872 – 1944) is a prominent Herzegovinian scholar. His father, Mustafa Sidki Karabeg, was the mufti of Mostar. Immediately before the entry of Austro-Hungarian troops into Mostar in 1878, he was executed because he refused to issue a fatwa to fight against said troops. Mufti left behind two sons: Hadji Ahmed Karabeg, a graduate of Karađoz-bey's madrasa in Mostar, and Hadji Ali Riza Karabeg, who continued his education in Constantinople after Karađoz-bey's madrasa. After returning to his homeland, he taught religious education for a while at the Mostar gymnasium, and then retired to mosques and elsewhere gave lectures and worked to enlighten the broad Muslim masses. In addition, he also engaged in scientific work. He collaborated in our newspapers Behar and El-Hidaja. He also engaged in translation work. He also wrote two smaller works in the field of cultural history of Islam: Discussion on the hijab (covering) of Muslim women and Short biography of Muhammad, peace be upon him, from a social point of view.

As for the translation of the Qur'an by Ali Riz Karabeg, critics state that his translation is actually just a copy of Ljubibratić's translation. Mehmed Handžić pointed out in the text "Translation of the Qur'an by Hadža Ali Riz Karabeg" that this is a "superficial reworking of Ljubibratić's translation" (Ibid., p. 24). Muhamed Pašić says that this translation is nothing more than an unskilled reworking of Ljubibratić's translation from Cyrillic to Latin. (Dž. Latić, Glasnik, no. 9–10, 2003, p. 831.) Thus, for example, the translation of surah El-Fil in Karabeg's translation differs only in two words from Ljubibratić's translation. It is the same with Surahs El-Felek and An-Nas. In Surah Al-Maun, this difference comes down to replacing one word with another. Karabeg replaced the word "offensive" with the word "pushes" etc.

Karabeg was also reproached for uncritically accepting and appropriating Ljubibratić's solutions, for example, prophet instead of prophet, Lord instead of God, or resurrected, right hand of God, etc. Karabeg is also accused of not knowing the German language, although he stated that he allegedly used Ullman's translation of the Qur'an. In his response to criticism, Karabeg admits that he used Ljubibratić's translation, but only, as he says, "what I liked and was right" (Jusuf Ramić, Takvim, 1976, p. 22), and also states: "I do not deny that it helped me to have Ljubibratić's translation and to take a lot from it that is good and beautiful, but it offends me a lot that it is only or a superficial reworking of Ljubibratić's translation" (Ibid, p. 22).