Investigating the equivalences of the word "’athaab" (doom) in Persian translations of the Holy Quran

The translations of the Holy Quran are one of the most important sources behind formulating the mentality of non-Arab audiences of Quran about the concepts within this scripture. The word " عذاب’athaab" (doom) is one of the most widely used words of the Holy Quran which plays a key role in the construction of the Qur'anic schema of resurrection and life after death. The present study aims at examining what equivalents the Persian translators of the Quran have suggested for this term. A study of 50 Persian translations of the Holy Quran over different time periods, using analytical-descriptive methods together with statistical procedures, showed that the Persian translators have not sufficiently tried to find proper Persian equivalences for this term, and thus in most of the cases have used the word itself in their translations. However, throughout the middle centuries of AH, the use of the word itself for translation has been slowly but steadily declining, but this downward trend has been stopped in the contemporary centuries and most of the contemporary translators have followed their antecedents again. In the few cases where the word itself has not been used for translation, the words "مجازات (punishment), شکنجه (torture), کیفر (punishment), عقوبت (retribution), آزار (persecution), گرفتاری (plague), بلا (plague) and ‘عقاب (retribution)" have been used as the equivalent by the order of the frequency of their usage. Among the above, the word "کیفر (punishment)" seems an appropriate Persian equivalence for the the word "’athaab" in the Holy Quran.