Investigating the Equivalents of ‘Aṣbaḥa’ with the Present Tense in Persian Translations of the Holy Quran

One of the basic conditions for understanding the Quran is comprehending the language of the time of revelation. Then, only referring to the interpretations or translations of the Quran, which are based on such an understanding, is acceptable. Accordingly, among the conditions of understanding, interpreting, and translating the Quran, attention should be paid to its syntactic implications. Without having proper knowledge of syntactic implications, the process of understanding, interpretation, and translation may not be completed. Hence, the semantics of the syntactic construction of the Quran and finding their equivalents in various languages, including Persian, are the prerequisites of understanding, interpreting, and translating the Quran. The present study aims at investigating the syntactic semantics of the structure of ‘Aṣbaḥa + the present verb’ in the Holy Quran and its equivalent in Persian. Therefore, the study reviews the verb ‘Aṣbaḥa’ in Arabic as well as the structure of ‘Aṣbaḥa + the present verb’ in Quranic exegeses and translations. Finally, through examining about 150 exegeses and more than 50 translations, this construction is modeled in two positive and negative aspects in Persian. The verb ‘Asbaha’ is one of the semi-mutisarrif verbs. This verb and its similar verbs (adhha, zalla, amsa, and bat) have two functions in Arabic grammar: 1) Tamma (complete): when it means entering one of these five times (morning, noon, during the day, evening or the beginning of the night, and during the night), in this case, it suffices to take the subject and does not need a noun and a predicate; 2) Naqisah (incomplete): when these verbs are incomplete, they have two states (i.e. attribution of the predicate to the subject in one of the five tenses, and attribution of the predicate to the subject without indicating the five tenses). In the second and third cases, these verbs are considered as linking or attributive verbs and are translated as ‘became, made, turned’, with the difference that in the third case, they no longer have the meaning of time. The verb ‘Asbaha’ before the present verb is an auxiliary (definite) verb. This structure is used 3 times in the Holy Quran. In two verses, the present verb, which is the predicate of ‘Asbaha’, are positive and in one verse is negative. Through the grammatical analysis and the study of the interpretive context (combination), the present study proves that when ‘Asbaha’ is used as an auxiliary verb and its predicate is a verbal sentence (fi'liyah) accompanied by a present verb, it is emptied of the concept of time and has only the meaning of becoming (sayrourat). Also, the Quranic applications of this syntactic structure by examining the context of the verses show that ‘Asbaha’ in these cases lacks the meaning of time. There is no indication of the combination of the verses. It concludes that the special event happened in the morning. Most interpretations are silent about the time of occurrence of these verses. Among 150 interpretations, only a few have specified their occurrence in the morning, of which one or two interpretations have suggested the existence or non-concept of time as a probability. By examining the translations of the Holy Quran, in general, the translation of the verb ‘Asbaha’ in these verses may be divided into 4 categories based on their frequency including the concept of time, the concept of becoming, the scattered concepts, and the equivalent. As there is no reason in the interpretations for the existence of the concept of time. It seems that the adverb ‘digar’ (no longer) is an appropriate equilibrium for the verb ‘Asbaha’ in this structure, which indicates the concept of becoming and evolution and is used for both positive and negative aspects.