QURAN HADITH TRANSLATION STUDIES
Year:2019 | Volume:5 | Issue:10 |Papers Count:7

The theory of the translation quality assessment of Mrs. Carmen Valero Garces (1994) is one of the most important theories in the field of linguistics that is organized in order to recognize the quality of the translations and analyze the quality of literary translated texts. This theory can be an effective framework for criticizing the quality of Holy Qur'an translations due to the factors that determine the amount of functionality and quality of translation texts and their correspondence with the source text. Garces offers four levels for evaluation of translation that are: semantic-lexical level, syntactic-morphological level, Discursive-Functional Level and Stylistic-pragmatically level. By specifying paradigm for each one, he tries to provide information on the bottlenecks and possibilities of translators in order to evaluate translation with a better and more accurate quality. The current study, relying on the undeniable importance of this combined model in the qualitative assessment of translations, intends to evaluate the quality of selected translations of Surah Al Baqarah by Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi of the Holy Quran. For this purpose, first and briefly, we introduce the theory of Garces, and then mentioned the applicable cases of this theory that are cited on the Examples extracted from the translation of this Surah. The most important findings of this research that have been written based on Descriptive-analytical and statistical methods, expresses that firstly: the Yandi's translation from the perspective of components of Garces's theory can be criticized and evaluated qualitatively. Secondly, this translation is also an interpretive and explanatory, and there is many data for the subcategory of creative definition and expansion, as well as is included countless data that can be adapted to the Garcos theory and its various subcategories, such as: Similarity, syntactic reduction and expansion, Syntactic complexity, and transmission of ambiguity.

Despite the common consensus that Dariush Shahin’ s translation of Nahj-al-Balaqe is one of the first contemporary translations, it has been less welcomed by researchers. Based upon a descriptive-analytic method, a contrastive approach, and Antoine Berman’ s deforming tendencies, the current research endeavours to investigate the frequency and the rationale of deforming tendencies in the translated version of Imam Ali’ s letter to Imam Hasan. The study revealed that Shahin’ s translation involves seven deforming tendencies that has significantly changed the meanings of the original text: Rationalization, Clarification, Expansion, Qualitative impoverishment, Quantitative impoverishment, Destruction of rhythms, and Destruction of linguistic patternings.

The phrase of “ min dū n Allā h” , in this structure or by adverbs instead of Allah, is one of the most used phrases in holy Quran, which is mentioned in holy Quran for 113 times. Studying the meaning and translation of this phrase is important because any misleads in understanding the meaning of this phrase would impact on the Islamic theology. 10 translations of those 7 verses which have involved this phrase are studied in this research. This is showed that almost all translators used those words in their translations which imply on exception, and they have translated “ min dū n-i Allā h” as “ except Allah” and “ other (Gods) than Allah” ; while refer to dictionaries and scrutinize in the meaning of the word of “ min” and attention to difference between “ min dū n” and “ min ladun” shows that true translation of this phrase should involve the meaning of separation from God besides “ except God” .

The proper translation of sentences from one language into the other is of utmost importance and, in order to accomplish this, the translator should not merely translate the words directly to the target language. Rather it is necessary to consider the concept of conditional sentences in the source language, then the closest structure that makes the same sense in the target language has to be chosen. This is important in translation of the conditional sentences of the Holy Quran into English, due to some differences in the structure of the two languages and the capacity of the target language, and it requires more precision from the translator. In this research, it has been tried to use the descriptive-analytical method to study the various conditional sentences forms in the Holy Qur'an and their exact equivalence in English. Then the most important mistake positions in translation of the conditional sentences of the Quran into English such as the attention to the time of the verbs, the concept of unrealness and unlikeness, the concept of requirement of if clause for the accomplishment of the main clause etc, is mentioned and eventually the function of five translations Arberry, Rodwell, Pickthal, Yusuf Ali and the Saheeh International is analyzed. One of the results of this research is the expression of specific priciples in the translation of Quranic conditional sentences, which improves the translations, and criticizm of the performance of the five translators in question.

The purpose of the revelation of the Quran is human's guidance, excellence and evolution; since The Qur'an has called itself the guidance book, all verses that have directly or implicitly pointed to scholarly topics. Therefore, all verses are in direction to this goal. Hence, in the translation of these verses, it is necessary to transfer these to audiences as much as possible because the ignorence or error in translation, deprives them of the correct understanding. On the other hand, the contradiction between science and religion occurs more likely as a result of the opposition to the emergence of the elemental with the experimental intellect. Therefore, the exact translation of the scientific verses has a role in understanding the Qur'an, besides it steps along pace in resolving the misgiving of the conflict between religion and science, as well as the discovery of the scientific secrets of the Qur'an. This paper which is organized by analytic and descriptive approach, has tried to translate the scientific verses of the Qur'an in the field of human creation correctly and study five chosen translations. Explaining errors in the translations of these verses is one of the most important result of this research like error in the mention of the equivalent and the referent, also unbeleiving in the existence of scientific material in the Quran, not referring to the interpretation of scientific verses and natural sciences.

One of the greatest difficulties Quran translators have been faced with is rendering those verses in which, at least on the surface, material, anthropomorphic qualities have been attributed to Allah. Given the wealth of theological dimensions of the concepts relating to God, this challenging area, which has always been the center of attention and diverse opinions by philosophers, theologists, and exegetes, can have direct implications for Quran translation. The present study has been aimed at investigating English and Persian translations of those Quranic verses containing the terms “ Yad [Hand]” and “ Sā q [Shin]” in connection with God so as to find out how they have been dealt with in under the influence of the translators’ dominant theological conceptions. To this end, all the verses containing these words were extracted and then their rendition in 18 English and 12 Persian translations was scrutinized. The results indicated that in 79% of the cases, an anthropomorphic translation has been produced while in the remaining 21%, a non-anthropomorphic translation has been opted for. In addition, an interesting difference found between the English and Persian translations with regard to their preference for (non-)anthropomorphism in the translation of such verses. These findings suggest that the dominant theological conceptions of the translator, as well as those of the receiving community, play a considerable part in the process of decision-making when faced with such challenging parts of the text.