[Abdullah al-Ansari]

Assalamu alaikum,

Having recently obtained a copy of the Mafahim of the esteemed and respected Sh. Muhammed bin Alawi al-Maliki, may Allah illumine and perfume his resting place, I was pleased to see an English copy of the original Arabic text, may Allah recompense all those involved plenty.

However, I realised that the text lacked something which many would feel is very important, especially in our times, the need for detailed footnotes, detailed biography, well referenced index and relevant/related appendices - a prime example would be the translated works of Sh. Gibril Fouad Haddad, may Allah preserve and ennoble him.

As much as it is heart warming to see these translations being rendered into English, we need to also realise the need to maintain quality and high academic standards, especially for such texts that will always be centrally placed in current religious and intellectual discussions and debates.

I hope and pray that Sunni Publications will continue to endeavour to the highest standards, being a leader in not only disseminating traditional Islamic knowledge from our much prized scholarly heritage, but to the best possible standards - Ihsan, we are its people, insha’Allah.

Al Da’if,

Abdullah al-Ansari.

This post has been edited by Abdullah al-Ansari: 30 October 2008 - 09:47 PM

[Hamoudeh]

Wa-`alaykum salam wa-rahmatullah

Thank you for your kind words and feedback. I think it is every publisher's ideal to release books in the most extensive editions possible. Such editions include all sorts of additions, such as new introductions, bibliographies, biographies, indexes, appendices and additional commentary and notes.

However, this remains an ideal and I disagree that it should be considered necessary. For as far as publishing translation is concerned, then what is absolutely necessary lies in exactly that: producing a good translation of the book as published by the author. Anything added to it, is additional and not what is required in producing a good translation. One could argue that a basic translation does not suffice, but the question is why? If the answer is because it does not meet academic standards, then this implies that the original work does not meet them either. Bare in mind that these books have been written by contemporary authors, they are not classical texts. A further question is, what kind of academic standards are we exactly speaking of? The same applies to standards of quality. When they concern additions, they have to be applied to the original works that lack these additions as well. I don't believe anyone would think this, so what should be sought for are reasons why it only applies to translations. Perhaps one may say that the English reader requires different standards than the Arabic reader, but when it comes down to actual additions to the content itself then it will have to be explained why that would be the case.

These additions are extra's to the works, and especially for beginning publishers such as ourselves quite a luxury. This is another side of things that should be considered as well, one has to be able to produce such extensive editions in the first place. For as far as Sunni Publications goes, we are still in our first year and have to set priorities to be able to continue with what we are doing and then further expand. In practice, one extensive edition equals two or more basic editions of the same book in terms of time and cost. And that is if those capable of doing these things are available to begin with, which is not always the case either. Especially when it comes to additional notes and commentary, certain qualifications are required which are beyond those required in terms of translation.

Up to this point, we have already added biographies of the author including their photograph, increasingly extensive bibliographies as well as new introductions. We hope to expand upon this in new editions and are currently looking to do so. We pray we will one day be able to publish all of our books in the most extensive editions possible, and ask everyone to pray for us. There is so much that can be done in publishing traditional Islamic books in English, and with Allah is all success.

Wassalam

[Abu Haneefa]

Assalamu^alaykum

I would like to say that i recently purchased this book and read it unlike other books i normally sometimes find myself going through the topics as its of interest etc. However with this book i read everything from preface to the end and would recommend that people acquaint themselves with this wonderfull piece of work...as the ronseals advert says
It does exactly what it says on the tin...

This book does correct the notions that do need to be corrected amongst many people (which included myself)..Alhamdulillah its given me a different perspective to some issue on which i had reservations before.

Please do read and recommend inshallah.