حاجی‌بابا در جهان عرب: واکاوی مقابله‌ای تصویر ایرانیان در «مغامرات الحاج بابا الأصفهانی» و «سرگذشت حاجی‌بابای اصفهانی»

Abstract

Introduction

Much has been said about the novel "The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan" and its Persian translations, especially the famous translation by Mirza Habib Isfahani. Meanwhile, what has remained out of the sight of literary critics and translation activists is the Arabic translation of this work, entitled "The Adventures of Al-Hajj Baba al-Isfahan" by Muhammad Effendi Lotfi, which was published more than a century ago, in 1891. In this study we decided to examine the image of Iranians in the Arabic translation of Morier’s novel.
 

Methodology

The current research is qualitative and library and its approach is case study. For this purpose, first, parts of James Morier's descriptions in the English text that depict the negative aspects of the personality and beliefs of Iranians during the Qajar era were identified and notes were taken. These descriptions were placed in several subcategories according to category and topic. Then, the Arabic translation of the aforementioned parts was compared with the Persian text of the work to clarify whether the Arabic translator maintained Morier's satirical view of Iranians or, like Mirza Habib, attempted to modify and soften the original text.
 

Discussion

The results of the current study indicate that the two translators used two main strategies in translating Morier's expressions: sometimes they translated Morier's expression literally into the target language and created a similar image of the author's image of Iranians, or they modified Morier's expression in various ways and removed or reduced Morier's ironic expression. The Arabic translator mainly employed literal translation in cases where Morier ridiculed Iranian religious prejudices (for example, regarding the need for men to have virtues) or Iranians' use of religious expressions during trickery. The Arabic translator brought such descriptions into Arabic without changes. In contrast, the Arabic translator resorted to modifying Morier's words in cases where Morier used the names of religious figures respected by Muslims (such as the Prophet or Imams) or made ironic remarks about the requirements of the Islamic religion.
Mirza Habib's artistic prose has made the satirical words of Morier appear as pleasing humor to Iranians. Previously, Azarang (2006) pointed out the distinctive features of Hajji Baba's Persian prose such as liveliness, rhythmic structures, simplicity, melodiousness, and use of idioms, proverbs and literary devices, as well as artistic features, poeticity and grandeur of the prose of the work and considered all these distinctive features to be inspired by the tradition of Persian literature. On the other hand, Ahmadi and Karami Chameh (2019) showed in their analysis that the distinctive features of major Persian prose such as the use of poetry in prose, the use of metaphors and common words in the language of the people, the use of Arabic language and literature, and the smoothness and solidity are seen in Mirza Habib's translation, features which have made this translation resemble canonical Persian literary texts.
     Modarres Sadeghi (2005) also considered Mirza Habib's translation of Hajji Baba a successful example of the flourishing of the translation tradition in the golden age of Persian language and literature; a period when literary translation was not simply a translation of the original text but rather its artistic recreation. According to him, the novel Hajji Baba is the link between traditional Iranian literature and contemporary literature. In addition, Samiei Gilani (2005), referring to the role of narrative literature in enriching the Persian language, considered Mirza Habib's translation a brilliant and noble example of creative literary translation in contemporary Iranian history. This creativity has led, according to Bahri (2024), to Mirza Habib's translation being in line with literary taste and expectations of readers, including writers, critics, and researchers, and continues to be widely welcomed by readers.
 

Conclusion

The findings of this study indicated that the Arabic translator, like his Iranian counterpart, modified and reduced the intensity of most of Moriyeh's ironic descriptions of Iranian religious beliefs, but in translating the author's ironic interpretations of negative traits of Iranians, unlike his Iranian counterpart; he used accurate translation and narrated most of these descriptions exactly for the Arabic-speaking reader.
These results indicate that the strategy of the Arabic translator was different from that of his Iranian counterpart. Although the Arabic translator also manipulated Morier's negative descriptions of Iranian religious beliefs, unlike his Iranian counterpart, he did not have a desire to extensively rewrite and change the perspective of the English text and, in particular, he brought Morier's negative depiction of Iranian traits and behaviors into Arabic without much change. This is while Mirza Habib Isfahani, by extensively modifying and manipulating the original text, has been able to produce a translation that is an example of the creative recreation of the Brazilian de Campos.