Muslim Scholar Binds Islam and the Holocaust
伊斯蘭與猶太人大屠殺
By Samuel G. Freedman

In the summer of 2007, a doctoral student named Mehnaz M. Afridi traveled from her California home to a conference in southern Germany. Her official role was to deliver a paper on anti-Semitism in Egyptian literature, a rather loaded subject for a Muslim scholar. Some 100 kilometers away, she had another appointment, and an even riskier agenda.
2007年夏天，住在加州的博士生美荷納茲．阿弗利迪到德國南部開會。她的正式任務是發表一篇有關埃及文學中反猶太主義的論文，對穆斯林學者而言，這是一個暗藏陷阱的主題。約莫100公里之外，她有另一個行程，議題風險更高。

After the conference concluded, Ms. Afridi drove to the former concentration camp in Dachau, Germany. As she stood before the dun bricks of a crematorium, she prayed. “Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un,” she said in Arabic, meaning, “Surely we belong to God and to him shall we return.”
會議結束後，阿弗利迪開車到德國達紹的前集中營。站在火葬場灰褐色磚牆外，她用阿拉伯語唸禱詞，意思是「我們確是真主所有，也必將歸於真主。」

“I didn’t know that moment would be defining my role,” said Dr. Afridi, 44. “I didn’t even realize then that I was at a crossroads. People see the Holocaust and Islam as two separate things, but these stories of faith and catastrophe are not opposites. They are companions.”
「我不曉得那一刻竟讓我弄清楚自己的角色，」44歲的阿弗利迪博士說：「我甚至沒察覺自己站在十字路口。人們將猶太大屠殺和伊斯蘭教視為不相干的兩件事，但是有關信仰和大禍的故事並非針鋒相對，反而是相輔相成。」

Dr. Afridi has made these seeming irreconcilables into companions in her life’s work.
阿弗利迪已在她的終身志業中，將這些似乎不相容的東西兼容並蓄。

She is an assistant professor of religion at Manhattan College who was raised in Pakistan, Dubai, England and Switzerland before coming to the United States in 1984 for high school.
阿弗利迪在曼哈坦學院擔任宗教學助理教授，1984年到美國讀高中前，先後在巴基斯坦、杜拜、英格蘭和瑞士等地長大。

Dr. Afridi teaches courses about both Islam and the Holocaust, and she is director of the college’s Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center. Her book “Shoah Through Muslim Eyes,” referring to an alternative term for the Holocaust, will be published in July, and she is a member of the ethics and religion committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
阿弗利迪教授有關伊斯蘭教與猶太大屠殺的課程，也是該校「猶太大屠殺、種族滅絕與多宗教教育中心」的主任。她的作品《穆斯林看猶太大屠殺》將於七月出版，shoah是猶太大屠殺的希伯來文。她也是美國猶太大屠殺紀念博物館倫理與宗教委員會的委員。

Such roles have made Dr. Afridi both a valued intermediary and a visible target in the troubled relations between Muslims and Jews.
在穆斯林和猶太人的關係紛亂動盪之際，這些角色讓阿弗利迪同時成為重要的中間人和明顯的攻擊目標。

While Dr. Afridi is an observant Muslim, she is seen by Muslim critics as disloyal for putting her scholarly work at least partly in the service of chronicling a Jewish tragedy, rather than the defeat and dispossession that Palestinians call the Nakba. Moreover, she has studied in Israel and expressed support in her writings for a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.
雖然阿弗利迪是虔誠的穆斯林，批評者卻視她為不忠，因為她至少把部分學術工作用於處理猶太人的悲劇，而不是巴勒斯坦人戰敗流離失所，稱為浩劫的歷程。尤有甚者，她曾去以色列進修，並在文章中表達支持以色列人和巴勒斯坦人各自建國的解決方案。

Dr. Afridi’s resilience received a thorough field test after she joined Manhattan College in 2011. In the subsequent months, she said, some Muslims called her a “Jew lover.” More troubling to her are the persistent rumors in Muslim circles that her scholarly work is being secretly funded by Jews.
阿弗利迪2011年加入曼哈坦學院後，韌性受到徹底的檢驗。到校後的幾個月內，她說，有些穆斯林稱她為「愛猶太人的人」。更困擾她的是穆斯林的圈子裡流傳，她的學術工作接受猶太人秘密資助。

Nothing, however, had led to self-censorship in her role as a public intellectual, she said.
然而，她說，身為公眾知識分子，這些事情都沒有讓她因此自我審查。

“We are commanded by God to speak the truth,” she said.
「真主令我們講真話，」她說。

In her role as author, lecturer and director of a genocide center, she encounters Jews and Muslims, some supportive and others antagonistic, yet all, in her view, reachable.
身為作者、大學教授和種族滅絕中心的主任，她遭遇猶太人和穆斯林，有人表達支持，也有人敵對，不過在她眼中，都可以溝通。

“If a Muslim asks me why I’m not teaching about the Nakba, then I’ll say we already know about it, and what we need to learn about is the Holocaust,” she said. “And if a Jew tells me, ‘Muslims are Nazis,’ I’ll say, ‘Can we have lunch?’ These are the people we have to engage.”
「如果穆斯林問我為何沒教巴勒斯坦人的浩劫，我會說我們穆斯林已經知道這段歷史了，現在需要學的是猶太大屠殺，」她說。「如果猶太人告訴我，『穆斯林是納粹，』我會說，『我們可以共進午餐嗎？』這些人都是我們必須交往的對象。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/21/us/muslim-scholar-looking-to-speak-the-truth-teaches-about-holocaust-and-islam.html

2015-03-31聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 張佑生譯 原文參見紐時週報十一版右