Rethinking the Structure of “wadda” and “law” in the Qur’an and How to Translate Them in Persian Translations of the Qur’an

One of the important services that Qur’anic scholars have provided for a long time, especially in the contemporary period, was the translation of the Qur’anic verses for public understanding. Despite all efforts, mistakes have sometimes appeared in translations due to lack of attention to literary rules. Among them is the translation of the structure of “wadda” and “law”, which are occurred 12 times in the Qur'an. Based on literary-Qur’anic rules, in this structure “law” is a masdar (simple verb), which has been changed to mafūl (object) for the verb “wadda”. According to many famous Arabic dictionaries, the desire (tamannā) in the combination of “wadda” and “law” refers to “wadda” and not “law”. The examination of thirteen famous translations of the Qur’an shows that they have often chosen either incorrect equivalents for “wadda”, with expressions such as “he/she loves” and “he/she wants”, or have mistakenly translated “law” with interpretations such as “wish” and “I wish”, or have presented a wrong translation of the combination structure. In the translation of these twelve verses; Rezaei has translated correctly five times, Makarem four times, Haddad Adel twice, Saffarzadeh and Ghomshei once.