6. The Official Translation and Ideological Vocabulary of the State

Chapter Six attempts to understand the way in which the committee behind QT comes to decisions on verses bound up with ideological problems and how tafsīr might work with it. It considers five specific cases: the the words aḥad–wāḥid that are related to God, the translation of khalīfa, awliyāʾ in Q 5:51, akābir mujrimīha in Q 6:123, and ūlu al-amr in Q 4:59 and 83. This chapter, again, shows that QT essentially relies on the tafsīr tradition, which relatively limits the politicization of the translation. It is not to say that this translation is completely free of any political and ideological interest. However, even in those cases where the politicization of the translation is identified, the committee seeks solutions through existing Qur’an commentaries.