The Rule for the Translation of Common Persian and Arabic Words and Examining them in Contemporary Translations of the Holy Qur an

The importance of translating the Holy Qur’an is still making this task in need of serious scrutiny and research. In this paper, by taking into consideration one of the very important areas of translating the Divine Words, we intend to take a constructive step toward upgrading the methodological level of this area. “Translation of common Persian and Arabic words” which is a subdivision of “the lexical structure of the Holy Qur’an”, like other discourses of translation, needs regulations as well as more competent attention so that the translation objectives would become more and more achievable.
Since the common Persian and Arabic words are divided into three types (the first enjoying semantic unity, the second having semantic difference, and the third containing semantic aspects), this paper studies those common words that are semantically different. Sīmā, shā‘ir, ṭūfān, mithqāl, midād are examples of the words being analyzed. After examining the literal meaning and the Qur’anic application of the words, the writer has used a descriptive-analytical method to touch upon the pathology of selected Persian translations of the Holy Qur’an of the above five words. The finding of this paper is a 40 to 50 percent error reporting of the present translations of the Qur’an due to negligence of the rules for understanding common Persian and Arabic words.