Dear Veronica,

I have left a space at the beginning of the phrase for you to insert "God" or whatever other term of deity you want to use. I did that specifically because you left it out yourself, and I did not want to impose anything upon your sentence that was not intended.

The Arabic phrase literally means "with me wherever I walk." Another way of saying the same thing would be:

[...] MA'EE AYNAMA SIRT.

معي أينما سرت

That is the closest wording I could construct without doing violence to the meaning. Let me explain a little bit more.

Because of my theological training, I would avoid attributing the "walking" to God himself, preferring to attribute the "walking" to "me," while attributing the togetherness or companionship to Him. I walk, and He remains with me in my walk.

If you prefer to attribute the walking to God himself, the phrase would be:

[...] SA'RUN MA'EE

سائر معي

which is acceptable in itself, but my bias is towards the other two (forgive me).

Wishing you a blessed Lenten season,

Fuad

Of course, the literally translation won't do good, cause God is not like His creatures. But He is there with whom who ask help from Him.
So the right translation would be:
kun ma?ee. "Be with me".

In the Holy Quran (Muslim's Holy Book), Allah says: "Truly, Allah is with those who fear Him (keep their duty unto Him) and those who are good doers"

The phrase cannot be literally translated , for God is not considered equal with his creation. The translation above is the most commonly used amongst people when wishing their friends and loved ones a safe journey, stressing the presence of God to protect them from all that is evil. This actually would indicate God's "presence" wherever they should go.

If "walk with me" is an invocation, not a statement, then the proper translation would be:

KUN MA'EE AYNAMA SIRT (literally, "Be with me wherever I walk").

or

KUN MA'EE HAYTHU AKOON (literally, "Be with me wherever I am").

If you want to attribute the walking to God Himself, then you would say,

SIR MA'EE HAYTHU ASEER ("Walk with me wherever I walk").


The last two are my favorite. I am even beginning to like the idea of a peripatetic God.

Fuad

The meaning is:

" ... and He is with you wherever you may be. And Allah sees well all that you do."

But the meaning is incomplete without the rest of the verse. In fact, the meaning could be misunderstood without verses 3:21, 6:60, and 6:153.

I am certain that this should help.

- Alaa Zeineldine

The meaning is:

" ... and He is with you wherever you may be. And Allah sees well all that you do."

But the meaning is incomplete without the rest of the verse. In fact, the meaning could be misunderstood without verses 3:21, 6:60, and 6:153.

I am certain that this should help.

- Alaa Zeineldine

This is my third and, I hope, last posting in this thread.

I am repenting of my two prior postings and proposing a shamelessly literal translation. I say, “shamelessly,” because translators typically abhor literal translations, especially when the original text involves metaphors and multiple layers of meaning, as is the case here. After a good night sleep, however, I have come to realize, that a “literal” translation in this case is not only a saner approach, but perhaps the only honest rendition of “walk with me.”

In proposing this translation, I am assuming that “walk with me” is a full sentence, not a fragment, as I first thought. If my current assumption is correct, then the sentence is imperative, not declarative. It was Mueen’s answer that alerted me to this possibility, which I did not consider at first. Thank you, Mueen.

In prayers of petition, there are several traditional forms in which to cast imperative sentences addressed to God. Some of these forms are commonly used in some confessional traditions, but not in all. I chose the most direct form, because that is the one used in the original sentence. I would not hesitate to suggest other forms if I were given a larger context.

The metaphor of walking, with its implied anthropomorphism, is the one element in the sentence that would understandably cause many translators, myself included, to hesitate and stumble. Needless to say, I stumbled royally. In my two prior postings, I arrogated to myself the role of questioning the theological soundness of the metaphor of walking. In doing so, I compromised my role as a translator, offering no better than poor paraphrases, mostly variations on the theme of “be with me,” as a substitute for “walk with me,” on the pretext that in monotheistic traditions, the essence of God is “being,” and that God is not subject to spatiotemporal vicissitudes. By doctoring up the original sentence, I obliterated an integral element in it and cheated you out of your beautiful prayer. It all goes to show that a little theology is a dangerous thing.

ومن العلم ما قتل

“Walk with me” is a beautiful sentence and should be respected and translated as such. I have erred twice by failing to do so. I am now correcting myself.

Fuad

I beleive Fuad's last version is right.
Christian, as such as Muslims, do not beleive in spatiotemporal vicissitudes.
Therefore, your sentence is a metaphor, and it can be translated in this way without any hesitation.
In moderate Sufism (Mystical approach), a Sufi would use this term in his invocation of God. Notions as such are also used in the Holy Quran. When talking about Moses, Allah says: "ولتصنع على عيني" "... in order that you may be brought up under My Eyes". Of course in this very text, it is very dangerous to translate it literally, but the concept is there in Islamic literature.
That's it

Mueen

I had hoped that my third contribution to this thread would be my last, but with Mueen’s latest contribution, my hopes have been dashed.

Mueen’s posting confirmed what I had always feared, that lucidity is a gift I do not have. Having failed to clearly state my views in my previous posting, I can only promise to give it another try.

The one viewpoint that I wish to clarify here is that, as a matter of principle, the intrusion of theology into the translation of Veronica’s short sentence is an abuse of theology, “displeasing to God, and disrespectful to the children,” to paraphrase T.S. Eliot. I am as guilty of this sin as anybody.

It matters not whether “walk with me” was intended literally or figuratively. The translator’s role is to restate in another language all the cognitive content of the source text, no matter how objectionable it may sound. The translator who finds the source text too odious should simply stay away from it. For my part, I find Veronica’s sentence the very model of monotheistic orthodoxy, but that is beside the point. The point, as medieval Arab translators put it, is:

ناقلُ الكُفر ليس بكافر

There is no question that texts with multiple layers of meaning call for special handling. Metaphors that work in certain languages may fall flat in others. The same thing is true with jokes, puns, idioms, slang, rhyming couplets, and allusions. The sentence at hand, however, suffers no loss of meaning or rhetorical effect when faithfully restated in Arabic.

Veronica or any other asker has the right to expect a faithful translation of the original text – the way it is, and not the way it is “supposed” to be. I have no right to dress Veronica’s sentence in a longer skirt to make it conform to my code of decorum. Since I do not own the text that has been entrusted to me, it is not my place to veil its provocative parts. If I do not like what I see, I should simply avert my eyes and walk away.

The Qur’an represents the quintessence of authentic Arabic discourse. Therefore, Qur’anic citations are appropriate when they are intended to defend or dispute the meaning of a particular word or the grammatical soundness of a particular construction, assuming they are relevant to the text at hand. But Qur’anic or Biblical citations are out of place when they are marshaled to question the theological or political correctness of the original text or to absolve it of the charge of blasphemy. It is not the business of the translator, qua translator, whether “walk with me” is consonant with the view of God presented in the Qur’an, in the Song of Songs, or in the Bhavagad Gita.

Once again from the top:

I evinced an arrogant, paternalistic attitude when I replaced the verb “walk” with the verb “be,” based on preconceived extra-textual notions of propriety, not on intrinsic linguistic considerations. “Walk with me” is to be faithfully translated, not because it is an innocuous metaphor, but because it is a text entrusted to the intellectual honesty of a translator. To translate the sentence faithfully only after certifying that it was not meant literally gives me no comfort. The outcome may look different from the censored version, but the approach is the same. The principle at stake here is the integrity of translation, not only as a profession, but also as an intellectual discipline founded on trust and trustworthiness.

Fuad

"milazimny" is in the context of "being there next to you", and not the literal translation of walking.

‎I have to admit that the statement ‎‏ "ناقل الكفر ليس بكافر" ‏‎has always ‎‎confused me, but not any more.‎

‎My argument here is based on three dimensions: context, perspective and ‎‎perception.‎

‎Context: what is the fine thread that comes between good and bad ‎‎translator? In context and content relation, there are four situations:‎
‎1- Good context and good content: no translator argues that he would ‎‎hesitate to translate any text this good.‎
‎2- Good context and bad content: a good example for it is the translation ‎‎of a website or a book about sex but in a scientific perspective. I ‎‎would not hesitate to translate it.‎
‎3- Bad context and bad content: the most horrible example for is the ‎‎book “Satanic Verses”. If I translated this book and consequently ‎‎published it, them I am contributing in distributing this man’s ‎‎thoughts. And in this case I have to say that ‎‏"ناقل الكفر كافر"‏‎ I would not ‎‎do it.‎
‎4- Bad context and good content: a very outrageous example for it is ‎‎what some western media broadcast, showing that a fragile Palestinian ‎‎boy is killing the heavily armed Israeli soldier with a stone. How ‎‎come?‎

‎Perspective: there are two points of view, descriptive and prescriptive. A ‎‎descriptive linguist describes the Arabic Language is it IS spoken and ‎‎written nowadays. In this case, we have to write books about each Arabic ‎‎dialect’s grammar, syntax and semantics. This will eventually lead to the ‎‎independence of each dialect and to becomes a separate language itself, ‎‎just like what happened to the Latin Language. A prescriptive linguist, on ‎‎the other hand, prescribes the language as it should be spoken and ‎‎written. ‎
‎Now the old Arabic translators in the medieval ages translated the Greek, ‎‎Roman and Persian books to Arabic in Arabic context. This is called ‎‎Arabization or Islamization of knowledge, which we should advocate.‎

‎Perception: how does a translator perceive himself? Is he a nonbiased, ‎‎nonselective, translation software or machine and slave to the text at ‎‎hand? Is he not a human being that can think and reason the text he has? ‎‎Should he lose his freedom before the text? I do not believe so.‎

‎That’s it‎
‎Mueen‎

Gog accompanies me in arabic