Translator of Rumi's poem in Malay passes away

Professor Seyyed Mohamed Ajmal bin Abdul Razak Al-Aidrus, a professor of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) at University of Malaya, Malaysia, who translated “Masnavi-Ma’navi” in Malay for the first time, passed away on Saturday September 16th, 2017.

He received his Ph.D. in world literature from Indiana University in Bloomington, USA, and studied several literary texts in various languages such as Arabic, Japanese, Indonesian, Hindi, Chinese, and Persian for the elaboration of his treatise; and through this, he acquainted with some of Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi’s poems and found their moral content rich.

Masnavi is an extensive poem written in Persian by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi also known as Rumi, the celebrated Persian poet. It is one of the best known and most influential works of the ancient Persian literature. The Masnavi is a series of six books of poetry that together amount to around 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines. It is a spiritual text that teaches how to reach the goal of being truly in love with God.

Professor Ajmal began the translation of Masnavi on the first day of Ramadan in 2008 and completed all six volumes in 9 months and 23 days. During this period, he worked continuously for more than six to ten hours and sometimes up to thirteen hours per day. This priceless book of Persian literature was published in six volumes (like the original version of the book) for the first time in a bilingual format, in two Farsi and Malay languages, by his efforts and the support of the Malaysian National Institute of Translation (ITNMB) in 2012.

To translate Mowlana’s poems into Malay, professor Ajmal mainly used the English version of the work translated already by Nicholson. Although in many cases, the Persian version was also referred to in order to find suitable words, many of which are common in Malay-Persian and Malay-Arabic languages.

The Cultural Consultation of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Malaysia condolences the death of this great figure to his respectable family and the scientific and cultural community of Malaysia; and it wishes the Divine grace and mercy for the deceased as well as patience for his family and friends.

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