Antoine Berman’s Deforming Tendencies in Daruish Shahin’s Translation of the 31st letter Nahj-al-Balaqe

Despite the common consensus that Dariush Shahin’s translation of Nahj-al-Balaqe is one of the first contemporary translations, it has been less welcomed by researchers. Based upon a descriptive-analytic method, a contrastive approach, and Antoine Berman’s deforming tendencies, the current research endeavours to investigate the frequency and the rationale of deforming tendencies in the translated version of Imam Ali’s letter to Imam Hasan. The study revealed that Shahin’s translation involves seven deforming tendencies that has significantly changed the meanings of the original text: Rationalization, Clarification, Expansion, Qualitative impoverishment, Quantitative impoverishment, Destruction of rhythms, and Destruction of linguistic patternings.