An Analysis of the Effect of Intratextual Factors on the Dissimilarity of the Holy Quran's Translations

Throughput history no text or book like the Quran has ever received the attention of human societies nor has been translated, explained and interpreted. A glimpse of Quranic translations reveals extensive disparity among them. Muslims all over the world have the same Quran with the same text, but they see hundreds of Quranic translations with different contents. Analyzing the causes and grounds of difference in Quranic translations leads us to two major extratextual and intratextual factors. Intratextual factors mean those factors arising from essential and intratextual properties of the Holy Quran, which cause dissimilarity and diversity of Quranic translations. Factors like Mutashabihat, different metaphors such as the application of injunctive sentences meaning as predicative sentences, mentioning an object with its former name, and also different kinds of mujmalat in the Quran like homonyms, the possibility of referring a pronoun to multiple antecedents, the possibility of conjunction or Istinaf in "waw". The impacts of such factors on the dissimilarity of Quran translations arising from its internal properties are unavoidable. Extratextual factors, however, are largely controllable and limitable. In this regard, Quranic translations can be coalesced and prevent content disparity. In addition to classifying internal and external factors of this dissimilarity and their contexts, this paper merely discusses intratextual factors of dissimilarity of Quranic translations due to the discussion extent.