Manipulation in the Twenty First Century English Translations of Qur’anic Verses About Jihad, Warfare, and Martyrdom
Abstract
One of the best ways for people, including those wishing to convert to Islam, to get familiar with Islamic teachings is to read the translation of the Qur’an. Throughout the history, however, Qur’an translations have seen multitudinous instances of manipulations, including gross distortions of the Arabic text. The present study investigated manipulation in 76 direct, 21st-century English translations of 80 Qur’anic verses on jihad, warfare, and martyrdom, with a concentration on the translators’ religious ideology. To this end, drawing on Dukāte’s (2007) manipulation typology, an ad-hoc typology was developed. The results showed that Unmarked Complementary Addition and Attenuation were the most and the least frequently used strategies in the renditions, respectively. Furthermore, the translations by Muslim translators of different denominations exhibited significant similarity in the frequency of employing the main manipulative strategies.
Keywords:
Jihad, Manipulation, Religious ideology, Qur’an translationReferences
Abdul-Raof, H. (2001). Qur’an translation: Discourse, texture and exegesis. Routledge.
Abdul-Raof, H. (2018). New Horizons in Qur’anic linguistics: A syntactic, semantic and stylistic analysis. Routledge.
Afrouz, M. & Mollanazar, H. (2017). On translating the Holy Qur’an. Tehran: Tarjomeh-pazhouhan.
Amin, E. M. A. (2010). Terrorism from a Qur’ānic perspective: A study of selected classical and modern exegeses and their interpretation in the modern context [Doctoral dissertation, The University of Birmingham]. eTheses Online Service. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.525776
Bielsa, E & Bassnett, S. (2009). Translation in global news. Routledge.
Dukāte, A. (2007). Manipulation as a specific phenomenon in translation and interpreting [Doctoral dissertation, University of Latvia]. https://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/bitstream/handle/7/4984/6969-Aiga_Dukate_2007.pdf?sequence=1
Herrag, E. H. (2012). The ideological factor in the translation of sensitive issues from the Quran into English, Spanish and Catalan [Doctoral dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona]. https://www.tesisenred.net/bitstream/handle/10803/123359/ehh1de1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Kidwai, A. R. (2018). God’s Word, man’s interpretations: A critical study of the 21st century English translations of the Quran. Viva.
Mahasneh, A. A. (2021). The translation of jihad verses after the emergence of ISIS: Distortion or reality. Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 10(5), 129–140. https://doi.org/10.36941/ajis-2021-0128
Mustafa, B. K. (2019). Ambiguity, ideology, and doctrine propagation in Qur’an translation. Journal of Qur’anic Studies, 21(1), 21–49. https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2019.0367
Philips, A. B. (2005). Usool at-tafseer: The methodology of Qur’anic interpretation. International Islamic Publishing.
Qudah-Refai, S. (2014). Dogmatic approaches of Qur’ān translators: Linguistic and theological issues [Doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds]. White Rose eTheses Online. https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9013/
Quran made easy (I. Ebrahim, Trans.). (2002). ZamZam.
Rubenstein, R. L. (2010). Jihad and genocide. Rowman & Littlefield.
Sabry, D & Saleh, I, (2008). The role played by Qur’an translations in steering public opinion against Islam in non-Muslim communities: Counteracting antipathy against islam - Insights ironically inspired by two non-Muslims and more. https://milunesco.unaoc.org/mil-resources/the-role-played-by-quran-translations-in-steering-public-opinion-against-islam-in-non-muslim-communities/
Shaffi, S. (2019). The Quran translations: Issues and challenges-An interview with Waleed Bleyhesh Al-Amri. Aligarh Journal of Quranic Studies, 2(2), 45–60.
The contemporary Qur’an with contextual translation (M. Mannan, Trans.). (3rd ed.:2021).
The Holy Qur’an: Translation with commentary (T. Saffarzadeh, Trans.). (2007). Alhoda.
The Koran: Saint Gaudens modern English version (K. Ready, Trans.). (2016). Saint Gaudens.
The Majestic Quran: Guidance and good news for the mindful (M. Hussain, Trans.). (2020). Invitation.
The plain translation of the Holy Qur’an (H. El-Essawy, Trans.). (2014). THC-UK.
The Qur’an: A chronological modern English interpretation (J. Howk, Trans.). (2017). Old Stone.
The Quran: A reformist translation (E. Yuksel et al., Trans.). (Rev. 2015). Brainbow.
Ubaid, V. C. (2014). The Qur’ân and its translation: An analysis of discourse on jihād in selected English translations. International Journal of Quranic Research, 6(2), 19–38. https://ejournal.um.edu.my/index.php/quranica/article/view/5162/2972
Williams, A. (2004). New approaches to the problem of translation in the study of religion. In P. Antes, A. W. Geertz., & R. R. Warne (Eds.), New approaches to the study of religion: Textual, comparative, sociological, and cognitive approaches (Vol. 2, pp. 13–44). Walter de Gruyter.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
DOR
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Hussein Mollanazar, Muhammad Eskandari
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright Licensee: Iranian Journal of Translation Studies. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0 license).
