A flourishing translation revives the cultural exchange between Turkey and the Arab world

Khalil Mabrouk - Istanbul

The Arab cultural and political circles in Turkey have shown great interest in issuing a collection of books for the Turkish writer and politician Yassin Aktai in Arabic, and a number of publishing houses are working on translating other books between the two languages.

Thousands of Arabs and Turks are engaged in the tasks of mutual translation and professionalize them as professions to support them in the markets, educational, commercial, health and medical institutions, but it is striking that the activity of the knowledge and cultural translation movement that has recently evolved with the presence of the Arab community has expanded to form joint Turkish-literary and cultural bodies such as the Anatolian Literature Association that brings together Poets, critics and writers from the Turks and Arabs.

Dozens of double-tongue publishing and publishing houses that take upon themselves to publish Arab publications in Turkish and vice versa are also active, creating a concrete rapprochement between the Arab and Turkish cultures.

And the shelves of libraries in Istanbul are filled with Arabic works that have been translated into Turkish, and other Turkish products have become available to the Arabic reader in the language of Dad.

Translation developments
Dar Al-Fikr for Publishing in Beirut announced in early October its intention to publish Arabic literature for the late Turkish poet Naguib Fadel Qaisa Cork, known as Sultan of Poets.

The announcement came as part of an agreement with the Turkish "Akdem" agency for translation and intellectual property rights on the sidelines of the Istanbul International Arab Book Fair.

Recent decades have witnessed serious endeavors to enrich the Arab Library with literary literature on Turkish poets such as Muhammad Akif, Nazem Hikmat, Sezai Karakog and Ismat Ozal.

The academic and lecturer at the University of Sabah Al-Din, the leader of Muhammad Harb, is considered one of the pioneers of the cultural and knowledge exchange movement between Arabic and Turkish.

Among the developments in the translation movement are coordination, acquaintance and cooperation activities organized by the Turkish Publishers Federations between Arab and Turkish publishers to display and market their products and purchase translation rights.

Various translations
The Syrian publisher Abdullah Al-Shallah is preparing books that have been translated by Dar "Horizon Nashiriyat", which he owns in various fields of thought, politics, humanities, development and the children's sector, explaining that they include books by Dr. Abdul Karim Bakkar, including "objective thinking, the foundations of administration in Islam, and the dismantling of the culture of exaggeration" as well as " The Rational Education Series "consisting of eight books and the book" Stances of Mind and Spirit ".

The house was also translated by Dr. Yasser Al-Aiti, "The Emotional Intelligence Series", by Dr. Abdul Majeed Al-Zindani, the book "Al-Burhan Explanation of the Book of Faith", and by Dr. Muslim Tasabahji, the book "Our children are jewels, but we are blacksmiths".

Al-Shallah, who spoke at length to Al-Jazeera Net, is considered the religious factor one of the important vehicles in creating a current of cultural exchange between Arabs and Turks, explaining that recent years have witnessed translation of the mothers of Arab religious books into Turkish, including the books of the Sahih and the books of new Arab thinkers such as Jassem Sultan, Al-Shanqeeti and other pioneers. Makassed school.

As for Turkish from Arabic, many books have been translated, such as "The Displacement of Armenians ... Documents and Facts" written by Yusef Halajoglu and translated into Arabic by Orhan Muhammad Ali, and the book "The Last Chance" by Orhan Muhammad Ali by Junaid Saawi, which is an anecdotal collection of contemporary Turkish literature. Translated by Professor Abdullah.

Al-Shallah, who is also the owner of the Arab Family Library in Istanbul, indicates the keenness of the Turkish reader with a conservative approach and Islamic thought to read heritage and religious books - which classified most of their sciences in Arabic - which contributed to stimulating translation of religious books into Turkish.

Encouraging factors
The Syrian publisher believes that the desire of the Arab and Turkish peoples for rapprochement, cross-fertilization and coexistence that fulfills the interests and needs of the two societies, and the calls - which started to appear in Turkish society to consolidate the merger - contributed to strengthening the translation movement between Turkish and Arabic.

He also believes that the Turkish government's support to transfer culture and thought to other languages, and the desire of the Arab author and publisher to enter new markets far from the restrictions of monopoly and monopoly of thought, value and opinion, contributed to stimulating translation.

It is interesting to note the great interest of the Turkish government in transferring works, intellectual, cultural and literary works to Arabic, and allocating grants for this through an approved mechanism known among the publishers.

In Turkey, there are no bodies concerned with monitoring the book before it is printed, but any book containing a violation of laws is reviewed if an official judicial complaint is submitted after its publication.

According to Al-Shallah, Turkey has great and exemplary efforts to protect intellectual rights. It has enacted many laws to ensure the fight against pirated and illegal books in a way that serves the process of publishing and thought and encourages the book to the authorship process.

Translation Renaissance
For his part, the academic and writer Ramadan Omar Nahdah returns the translation movement between Arabic and Turkish to about 2000, coinciding with Turkey’s orientation towards the east and the expansion of convictions that the idea of ​​integration in Europe is no longer realistic, indicating that this rapprochement increased after the Arab Spring, during which Ankara’s relationship with Arab world.

The lecturer at the Department of Arabic Language at Harran University in Urfa said that there are about ten official Turkish institutions operating in the system of magazines concerned with translation between the Arab and Turkish cultures, as well as a good number of academic conferences that adopt Turkish, Arabic and English as official languages, especially in the coming Istanbul and the capital, Ankara And the states of the South, such as Gaziantep, Urfa, Kleis and Mardin.

Omar also indicated in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net that the last decade witnessed the emergence of a number of Turkish universities to teach in Arabic in various fields such as political science, international relations and social sciences.

Literary translations
But Omar, who is one of the founders of the Euphrates Writers Association, believes that translating literature between Arabic and Turkish did not get the luck it deserves from this renaissance, explaining that Turkish literature is still unknown between Arabs and vice versa.

The Palestinian writer believes that translation between Arabic and Turkish has become an urgent necessity, noting that agreements were concluded during visits to the Writers Union and the Union of Turkish Translators in Istanbul, stipulating the need to start a direct translation of quality literary works.

It indicates that among the Arab literary works that have been translated into Turkish are the works of the poets Darwish and Jibran, in addition to an activity in translating modern Syrian literature such as the writings of the writer Ibtisam Shakush and some poems of Syrian poets who caught the attention.

The Turkish Writers Union translated the poem Umar and "Jerusalem remains" and published it in the Journal of the Union, and the poem "Thank you Turkey" which was published in the Journal of Harran University, and translated historical and intellectual works by Amin Maalouf, Sayyid Qutb and Edward Said, and literary works by Fadwa Touqan and Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab.

Recently translated poems for the Syrians and some novels, and there is a project signed to translate the works of Jordanian writer Ayman Al-Atoum.