A Study of Qur’ānic Proverbial Verses and Their Translations in English

Document Type : Original Research

Author

Department of English, Marvdasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht, Iran

Abstract

The Holy Qur’ān, considered a miracle of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), is rich in stylistic and rhetorical structures, figures of speech, and cultural references that convey its profound concepts in the Arabic language. This sacred scripture employs a distinctive rhetoric, specifically proverbial expressions, which can present challenges in translation. This study aimed to examine various English translations of proverbial verses from the Qur’ān based on Baker’s (1992) model. Out of 245 proverbial expressions in the Qur’ān, 100 were randomly selected and analyzed along with their English translations by Pickthall (1930), Irving (2011), Saffarzadeh (2010), Asad (1980) and Shakir (1980). The findings indicated that the most commonly used translation strategy was the omission of idiomatic play (literal translation), while translating an idiom with a similar meaning and form to the source language was the least frequent. Additionally, it was found that a literal translation with added explanatory notes was the most suitable strategy for translating proverbial verses. However, overall, the study revealed that due to various factors, including cultural disparities, the translators struggled to capture all the aesthetic and captivating elements of the Qur’ānic proverbial verses in their translations

Keywords

Main Subjects

©2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.

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International Journal of Textual and Translation Analysis in Islamic Studies
Volume 1, Issue 4 - Serial Number 4
October 2023
Pages 327-350

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History

  • Receive Date: 25 July 2023
  • Revise Date: 30 August 2023
  • Accept Date: 26 September 2023

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