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AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 6, Number3. August 2022                              Pp.99 -112

The Phenomenon of (Un)translatability Dilemma of Translating the Qur’anic Heart Words into English in( Repentance) Sūrat Al-tawbah

Ali Albashir Mohammed Alhaj

College of Sciences and Arts
King Khalid University, Dhahran Aljanoub Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract:

Translating the Qur’anic heart words into English has always been a strenuous and immense challenging task. Being the most rhetorical text, the Quranic heart words operate with clear-cut intent and cannot be replaced by what may be reflected as the corresponding word. The recent research paper mainly studies the (un)translatability phenomenon and the dilemma of translating the Qur’anic heart words into English in Sūrat Al-tawbah(Repentance)  and investigates their rendition losses The key significance of this study is how the translators had attempted to attain cultural equivalence when rendering implied meaning and hidden meaning of Quranic heart words into English in Sūrat Al-tawbah. The main question of this study is: what is the phenomenon of (un)translatability dilemma of translating the Qur’anic heart words into English in Sūrat Al-tawbah? Moreover, three selected English translations of the Holy Qur’an are used by the researcher to accomplish this purpose: Marmaduke Pickthall’s (1996), Muhammad Muhsin Khan’s, Muhammad Taqiudin Al Hilali’s (1996), and M. A. S Abdul Haleem’s (2004). Furthermore, the research purports to identify the apt translation procedures and methods manipulated in translating these intended words. The study evinces that persistent, existing challenges and untranslatability dilemma, and translation loss were found. The study also reveals that translation of untranslatable Qur’anic heart words into English may cause translation losses which is a common occurrence and prevalent in the English translation of the Holy Quran in general and Sūrat Al-tawbah in particular.

Cite as:

Alhaj, A. A.M.   (2022). The Phenomenon of (Un)translatability Dilemma of Translating the Qur’anic Heart Words into English in( Repentance) Sūrat Al-tawbah. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 6 (3) 99 -112.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol6no3.7

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Dr.Ali Albashir Mohammed Alhaj received his first Ph.D./in English literature/ from the University of Khartoum, in 2003, his second Ph.D., in translation / from Omdurman Islamic University, in 2014, and his third Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics / Sudan University of Science and Technology 2018. His 4th Ph.D. in Pure linguistics from Bahri University 2021. Dr.Ali published a lot of papers in ISI, DOAJ, GOOGLE SCHOLAR, EBSCO, and SCOPUS Journals, and45 books, and 9 books of his books were translated into 9 international languages https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4845-176X.