Techniques of Translation in an Old Translation of the Qur’an in the Manuscript of Jame’ al-Qisas

Abstract

Understanding the revelation language in the Holy Qur’an is necessary for every Muslim or non-Muslim who is the addressee of this language. Understanding through exegesis and translation, from the very early days of the revelation of the Qur’an, would be done by the holy Prophet (PBUH) and his companions and the innocent Imams (PBUT). Probing into the methods of exegesis and translation of the Qur’an is a significant issue in the research into the Qur’an, especially for Iranian Muslims who, besides exegeting the verses of the Qur’an, have embarked on translating the Qur’an into Persian. The book of Jame’ al-Qisas is an eleventh-hegira-century manuscript that narrates the prophets’ stories. To narrate the stories of the prophets’ lives, the author has made frequent references to the Qur’an and has benefited from an old translation of the Qur’an which is very close to the language of the translations of the Qur’an in the third and fourth centuries. In this paper, the Quranic verses and their Persian translations are extracted and analyzed to identify the translation techniques used by the translator in earlier centuries. The results of the study showed that the translator has followed the structure and content of the source text closely.