International Journal of Textual and Translation Analysis in Islamic Studies
Volume:1 Issue: 2, Spring 2023

The translation of cultural items from the Qur’ān and Islam can be challenging. This study investigated the strategies used by male and female translators to translate Qur’ānic cultural items, as well as the consistency of these strategies. The researchers first identified Qur’ānic cultural items from the preface to Ali Quli Qara'i's English translation of the Qur’ān. They then searched the Qur’ān for these items and extracted the verses that contained them. The researchers found that the most common strategy used to translate Qur’ānic cultural items was to replace them with a more general word. The second most common strategy was to paraphrase the item using a related word. None of the translators used the strategies of cultural substitution or illustration. The researchers also found that the three translators used similar strategies that were similar to other. Ali Quli Qara'i was the most consistent translator, using a single strategy in 82% of the cases. Tahereh Saffarzadeh was the second most consistent translator, using a single strategy in 80% of the cases. Muhammad Ahmed and Samira Ahmed were the least consistent translators, using a single strategy in 62% of the cases. The findings of this study suggest that there are a limited number of effective strategies for translating Qur’ānic cultural items. Translators are advised to be aware of these strategies and could use them consistently in order to produce accurate and faithful translations.

The present study investigated the translation shifts and most frequent types of translation shifts according to Catford’s model in the translation of Sayings 1-30 in the Nahj al-balagha from Arabic into English. The researcher selected the first thirty sayings of the Nahj al-balagha for the analysis. Throughout the analysis, each shift strategy was traced and manually counted to determine the most frequent type of translation shift. The findings revealed that unit shifts were the most frequent type of shift (59.70%), followed by structure shifts (23.30%), then level shifts (10.70%), intra-system shift (4.50%), and finally class shifts (1.50%). Both translators used unit shift and structure shift with the highest frequencies in their translations. The results also indicated that, unlike Sayyid Ali Reza, Sayyid Muhammad Askari Ja’fari went beyond the surface structure and translated words into phrases and explained them in some cases, thus providing an understandable translation. Sayyid Muhammad Askari Ja’fari used unit shifts more frequently than Sayyid Ali Reza. Sayyid Muhammad Askari Ja’fari most of the time used unit shift to convey the message to the target language reader in a comprehensible way. The translator who used unit shift was successful in conveying the message of the source language text to the reader of the target language. Using unit shift made the target language's readers understand the material better.

In reciting the verses of the Holy Qur’ān, making pauses at appropriate places is one of the important issues of Tajwid, neglecting which can potentially distort the meanings of the verses and reverse their intended purpose. The present study seeks to analyze how translators have dealt with the concept of inappropriate pause by investigating four English translations of the Holy Qur’ān through answering the following questions: Has the concept of inappropriate or impermissible pause been observed in the English translations of the Holy Qur’ān? Is it possible to express the concept of inappropriate pause using English punctuation? If yes, is it possible to achieve a standard to convey the concept of inappropriate pause? If not, how can this gap be filled? Through a comparative analysis of all 68 cases of inappropriate pause in the Holy Qur’ān and their corresponding translations into English, it seems that English lacks equivalent punctuation to convey the concept of inappropriate pause. Based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that colon is the most appropriate punctuation in English to convey the concept of inappropriate pause. However, the findings of this research show that the translators used commas in 43.7% of the verses with impermissible pauses. The authors presented a “standards table” by examining the function of English punctuation marks, and by observing the approach taken by the translators when facing an inappropriate pause, a “descriptive table” was also presented to illustrate these observations. Then, considering the relationship between these two tables, the closest English punctuation mark for conveying the concept of inappropriate pause was introduced.

Theme/rheme structure plays a crucial role in conveying meaning and facilitating effective communication and comprehension. Moreover, foregrounding is an issue that has attracted much attention from researchers and theorists. Several studies have investigated the translation of marked structures of the Holy Qur’ān into different languages from various perspectives, such as semantics or stylistics, but few have focused on foregrounding in English translations by Iranian translators of the Qur’ān. The present study aimed to examine the challenges that Iranian translators encountered in their renditions. To this end, English equivalents of eighteen Ayahs featuring foregrounding were extracted from four English translations by Iranian translators and the translators’ strategies in rendering foregrounding cases were analyzed. The findings revealed that the Iranian translators were inconsistent in their renditions but performed better in cases where marked structures were less complex and aligned with the normative structure of English prose. The translators faced the most difficulties in rendering specification and emphasis, which are two main categories of foregrounding. Interestingly, the translators who had native-like proficiency in English outperformed their peers in rendering foregrounding into English.

This research delves into the intricate art of translating cultural elements and identifying appropriate equivalents for Quranic words. The primary objective is to investigate the strategies employed in the translation of Qur’ānic and religious terms, while also shedding light on the main sources of mistranslation. The study examines four renowned English translations of the Holy Qur’ān, namely those by Muhammad Shakir (1976), Abdullah Yusuf Ali (1987), Marmaduke Pickthall (1986) and Arthur Arberry (1955). The dataset comprises terms derived from the original Arabic text of the Holy Qur’ān and their corresponding equivalents in the aforementioned English versions. Consequently, this study identifies and compares the religious and culture-specific terms within these translations, aiming to ascertain the underlying causes of mistranslations. The findings of this research reveal that the process of finding accurate equivalents for Qur’ānic and religious terms is inherently complex. Furthermore, it highlights that the challenge of finding suitable equivalents arises from translators' lack of awareness regarding the culture of the target language as well as the intricacies involved in transferring the source language's essence to the target language.

The translation of eschatological terms and concepts related to the Resurrection Day has always sparked heated debates among individuals with diverse ideological trends and religious beliefs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of the translator’s religion on the English translation of eschatological terms in the Holy Qur’ān by three renowned Muslim, Christian, and Jewish translators. To achieve this, relevant eschatological terms in the Holy Qur’ān were examined and analyzed, along with their translations by Tahereh Saffarzadeh (2014), Arthur John Arberry (1996), and Nessim Joseph Dawood (2003), using Newmark’s procedures (1988) as a framework. Thirty eschatological terms from thirty verses in the Holy Qur’ān were selected for analysis. In order to enhance the understanding and interpretation of each term, the Persian interpretation of the Holy Qur’ān by Naser Makarem Shirazi (2010) and Allameh Tabataba’i’s (1987) Tafsir Al-Mizan were consulted as supplementary materials. The English equivalents used in each verse, as well as the translation strategies employed by the translators, were compared, classified, and analyzed based on a revised model of Newmark’s procedures to determine which procedures were more or less frequently utilized by the three translators. The findings revealed that the “through-translation” strategy was the most commonly employed procedure, while the “synonymy” and “transference” strategies ranked last in translating the selected eschatological terms in the Holy Qur’ān.