Precedence and Delay and their Reflections in Quranic Translations

Every language has principles for ordering words in sentences. However, observing these principles is not always mandatory, but they are sometimes mandatory, sometimes abstained, and in cases permissible. The permissibility of precedence and delay depends on the text's context where authors depending on their mastery attempt at employing them. We can observe this mastery's artistic apex in the Quran. Although in Quranic ayahs similar words have been repeated several times, their various orders and arrangements in each context has led to their semantic distinctions.
The present article, using a descriptive-analytic method, made an attempt to investigate this phenomenon from an aesthetic perspective. The study indicates that the beauty of this art can be appreciated in the light of a theory of context and vocabulary order. Consequently, it is difficult to translate literary texts, especially the Quran that enjoys a superhuman order. Although in the two translations analyzed most of the cases of precedence and delay have been ignored by translators, it is possible to find appropriate equivalents in the target language in order to offer translations for some instances of precedence and delay.