Genealogy of Quran Translation and the Meaning of the Word “Translation” in the First Quran Persian Translation

Abstract

Genealogy of Quran Translation and the Meaning of the Word “Translation” in the First Quran Persian Translation The first Qur'an translators were Iranians, the biggest non-Arab Muslim nation with an ancient culture. In order to transfer the Qur'an and Islamic teachings to the east Iranian population (Khorasan), Iranians began to learn Arabic and excelled so much in Arabic that they wrote the first lexico-morphological and rhetorical books on Arabic mostly needed to understand the Qur'an. From the second half of fourth century after hegira, following the order of Amir Nouh-e- Samani and consensus of east Iranian Ulama, the Qur'an was translated into Persian. In those days the word “Translation” did not mean finding the synonym word in the target language. At first the words “commentary”, “narration” or sometimes “paraphrase” were used, but from the second half of the third century after hegira Jahiz al-Basri used it with its today's usual meaning for the translation of literary and historical texts and from the fifth century after hegira this word was used for Qur'an translation too.