Sudanese translator Sir Khader Sayed Ahmed died on Sunday in the city of Wad Madani in Gezira state.
Sudanese professor and writer Ali Al-Mak has called Professor Al-Sir Khader Sayed Ahmed the "Sheikh of Sudanese Translators", because of his extensive knowledge of Arabic and English, and superior technical skills in reverse translation between the two languages. Critic Ezzedine Mirghani described him as having a "high talent" and a "unique and rare" in translation, the culmination of which is the translation of narrative poetry and activation poetry.
As described by the poet Alam Abbas by saying, "If we were in the era of Al-Ma'mun, the secret Khidr would have been Sunwa for Ibn Al-Muqaffa, and we would have masterpieces of translations such as Kalila and Dimna, a creative creative work, we hardly care or know the original from which it was translated, and perhaps the secret was Khidr of those who translated us Rubaiyat al-Khayyam, in which the translators competed with the pedantry of Safi Najafi, Ahmed Rami and others."
So who is the secret Khidr Sayed Ahmed that we are talking about and how long he sold in translation? And to which generation does he belong? What are the main works he published in the field of translation that did not reach a wide audience of readers and researchers? When the poet Muhammad Najib Muhammad Ali asked him: Who are you? "One of the most difficult things is to talk about yourself, so let's let things say what you like to say, without going back to oneself, in short, I am a simple man from a simple and beautiful city, I received my education in the city of Wad Madani and (University) Khartoum, then I practiced teaching, and during the student and professional life I practiced translation until now. I am passionate about translation, I love it, and I devour books."
It seems that the University of Khartoum has enhanced the motivation to read and translate, as he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English at the end of the sixties of the twentieth century, and the first work translated into Arabic completed by Al-Sir in the years of the University of Khartoum was one of the poems of the prestigious American poet and playwright Conrad Potter Aiken (1889-1973), who became famous as the poet of the United States of America in the first half of the fifties.
After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in English, Al-Sir worked in secondary schools as a professor of English, and progressed in secondary education until he reached the rank of educational mentor, and was abroad for a short time in the Sultanate of Oman, and finally concluded his working life as a lecturer in English language and translation at Wad Madani National College. In the end of his life, he tended to Sufism and the literature of the people, and followed the Qadiriyah way on Sheikh Al-Rih Sheikh Abdul Baqi.
The secret is green and the art of translation
There has been an old debate about translation in academic circles: is it science or art? If we look at it academically, it is a science that has its rules, foundations, and theories related to linguistics, but the outputs of the translated work are affected by the translator's linguistic faculties, his literary and cognitive culture, and his ability to generate synonyms in languages, and therefore it is said that the translator is a second writer of the text, because he assumes the spirit of the author, and is accurate in conveying his sense of words and meanings.
Sir Khidr looks at the art of translation from this angle, and this is evident in his dialogue with the poet Muhammad Najib when he asked him: Is translation based on language, meaning or suggestion? "On meaning, translation is the basis for transferring meaning from one language to another, and the translator must be familiar with the culture of both languages," he replied. Therefore, Abbas's scholar describes the translations of the secret as creative translations, which permeate the meaning and its spirit.
In another question posed by Muhammad Najib: "Tell me to what extent can the reader in English absorb the poetry of Imru' al-Qays, for example?"
Unique secret translations
Among the most important English translations issued by Al-Sir are "Diwan of Return to Sennar", and "Diwan of Al-Samandal Sings", by his friend Dr. Muhammad Abdul Hai. The poem Return to Sennar formed the thread regulating the poems of the Diwan, which bore her name, and wove a new dimension of the literature of the forest and the desert, as well as the sea bird salamander, which flew a name and symbol in the Diwan that bore his name.
The secret translated these two books sober translation penetrated the purposes and spirits of meanings, as seen by the scholar of Abbas, and mastered the translation with sincere love for his friend Muhammad Abdul Hai. When the poet Mohamed Najib Mohamed Ali asked him why he chose to translate the poet Mohamed Abdel Hai's diwan, he replied, "I love Mohamed Abdel Hai very much, and he is not only a poet, but he is a thinker, and one of the greatest translators from English to Arabic in the Arab world, in addition to being a playwright. Abd al-Hay writes in his perspective, and this reader looks forward to certain things he likes, which he can only find with Mohamed Abdel Hay. The return to Sennar is the return to the spring, and it is like the novel Roots (by Alex Healy), which goes back to African origins in the ethnic self, and Muhammad went beyond that, because he talks about the collective self and the sexual self, and talks about the homeland in all its geographical and human dimension, Abdul Hai in returning to Sennar reflects his return to Sudan, and the salamander sings from the same dimension from a cultural perspective."
In an interview with Sudan Now magazine, Al-Sir was asked about the retranslation of the Diwan al-Awda to Sennar, and he replied, "The ancient violin produces a captivating tone," meaning if he had the opportunity to re-translate the Diwan al-Awda to Sennar, he would produce a more creative translation than the first one.
Sir Khidr published many poetic translations in Sudan Now magazine, which dazzled Abbas's world, and prompted him to describe the secret as the pioneer he has known since the seventies, and describes the translations of Sir Khidr for the poems of contemporary poets such as Muhammad Abdul Hai, Mustafa Sanad, Muhammad Al-Makki Ibrahim, Abdul Rahim Abu Zekra, and Al-Nour Othman Abkar, as they were "very beautiful and accurate, and when you find a text translated by Sir Khidr, know that this is a wonderful text ... The secret can only be translated into pearls, so any text he translated shines in a garment of beauty, and the owner of any text wishes that he had expressed through his pen the secret Khidr."
In addition to these poets, Al-Sir was fond of the writings of Issa Al-Helou, describing him as the most distinguished Arab and African intellectuals and writers, and that he possessed high narrative techniques, wide imagination, and attractive retrieval, as well as that he used to choose his novelist characters from real life, and weave from some of their behaviors and interactions with life an excellent and captivating narrative plot. Al-Sir translated a collection of short stories by Issa Al-Helou, which he described as representing a model of Sudanese novels that surpassed their African counterparts in quality and creativity.
In the nineties of the twentieth century, Al-Sir translated a collection of works by prominent poets, such as Muhammad al-Mahdi Majzoub, Muhammad al-Makki Ibrahim, Mustafa Sanad, Kamal al-Jazouli, the scholar of Abbas, and Fadili Jama', and published them in a book entitled "Modern Sudanese Poetry: An Anthology and Evaluation". Critic Professor Majzoub Aidarous described the introduction to the book as "an additional introduction to Sudanese poetry, in which a summary of the translator's vision, and his introduction to the English reader of the creative march of Sudanese poets," and Dr. Ahmed Al-Sadiq, professor of linguistics at the University of Khartoum, described the translation as "pure and fresh", and the selected texts as having represented an adult awareness of "poetic memory (Sudanese, language conquests and revelations, and question breaks, and our professor (the secret) has remained for nearly half a century faithful to his project and did not limit it."
Sir Khidr and the Association of Island Writers
The Association of Writers of the Island was established in 1960, and its founding meeting was attended by Mohamed Abdel Hai, Fadlallah Mohammed, and Siddiq Muhaisi, and later joined by Al-Zain Abbas Emara, Abdul Majeed Abdul Rahman, Othman Jaafar Al-Nasiri, and Al-Nour Othman Abkar. The Association held its first meeting at the home of Abdelhamid Boushi, who was chosen as the first President of the Association, Mohamed Abdel Rahman Chaibon as Secretary-General and Mohamed Abdelhay as Cultural Officer. Since that date, the Association has become active in the field of cultural work with civil affection. In addition to the association's cultural and literary role, Professor Siddiq Muhaissi mentions that the five libraries of Wad Madani were a cultural tributary.
It was in this cultural environment that Sir Khidr arose, and Maysam regained his literary and cognitive gain. After a period of community literary giving, the Al Jazeera Writers Association withheld itself from the cultural theater, and was replaced by the Al Jazeera Association for Literature and Arts in 1973, headed by Professor Muhammad Al-Haj Muhammad Saleh.
This is the secret Khidr, who witnessed a constellation of Sudanese writers, poets and critics with his humility, high literature, and his distance from the spotlight, and therefore said about him the world of Abbas "If the secret was in a place other than this country, to erect statues for him, and institutions were established, and may the day come when we honor this monk translator by establishing a translation house, worthy of him and us, if we really seek righteousness in this homeland," and adds a scientist: "The secret is a treasure Khidr ... But there is no dignity for a prophet in his people, and what a cruel thing at this time."