Academic literature on the topic 'Quran'

This study aims to investigate the challenges of translating metaphors of the Quran. It examines English speakers' understanding of a number of Quran metaphors which are selected from three well known English versions of the Quran translations. In addition, the study highlights the root causes which may be deemed to be a source of misunderstanding Quran metaphors. The study also aims to find out to what extant metaphors of the Quran can maintain their sense in today's context. Translation in today's globalised world is gaining relevance as a means to enhance communication among multicultural nations. Translation studies have contributed significantly in bridging the linguistic and the cultural gap among languages. However, the key literature of this study suggests that, translating metaphors and translating metaphors of the Quran in particular have been under researched as they are very often overlooked in translation studies. The conclusion that can be drawn from the predominant literature related to translation studies is that the on-going debates over the faithful, loyal approaches of translating vs. the free and dynamic methods have generated in parts insightful explanations and interesting and useful, but they have fallen short of providing a general consensus. This study takes the view that there is no master plan for translating and that a word for word approach often leads to stilted translation particularly when dealing with metaphors. Given the nature of the topic under consideration, this study combines both qualitative and quantitative methods. The advantage of the use of both methods for collecting data is highly considered and recommended. Utilization of this combination enhances the trustworthiness of findings as well as reduces limitations. The qualitative method in this study represents scholars' interpretations and views and a questionnaire as a data collection instrument is adopted to enhance the result of this study. The findings suggest that the three selected English versions of the Quran have fallen short of conveying the meaning of Quran metaphors. The findings also indicate that the meaning is often mistranslated or misleading or misunderstood by English readers.

This thesis is an extensive analysis of commercial arbitration within Islamic Jurisprudence, clarifying its rules starting with the fundamentals of its origins which are based on the Quran, Sunna, Consensus and Analogy. The opinions of scholars from various schools of Islamic Jurisprudence are discussed so that the most appropriate ones can be used in support of the thesis in relation to the current epoch. These opinions will be linked to modem arbitration legislation, both international and local, in an attempt to discover the similarities and differences between them and the extent to which international and local legislation is related to the acceptance of arbitration from the perspective of Islamic Jurisprudence. The thesis will also analyse the legal aspects of the 1983 Saudi Arbitration Law and its 1985 Implementation Rules so as to discover the extent of the role of Islamic Commercial Arbitration in the Saudi Arabian context. It will also show the need for further ratification in this sphere in order to develop the Saudi Arbitration Law so as to encourage more foreign investment and achieve more efficiency and harmony within international commercial arbitration. Chapter one will deal with the definition of arbitration and its legality within Islamic Jurisprudence. Chapter two will discuss the pillars of the arbitration contract and endeavour to answer the question of women's role in arbitration and also to what extent non-Muslims can be arbitrators in various situations. Chapter three will focus on Islamic arbitration proceedings. Chapter four will deal with arbitral awards, their definitions, interpretations, components and corrections. It will also clarify some misunderstood points and concepts about Islamic Jurisprudence. Chapter five will explain the system of challenging arbitral awards and the extent to which they can be examined within Islamic Jurisprudence. It will also focus on challenges in Saudi Arbitration Law. Chapter six will explain the recognition and enforcement of national and foreign arbitral awards as they pertain to Islamic Jurisprudence and Saudi Arbitration Law. Suggestions resulting from this analysis will be outlined in the conclusion of this thesis.

The study of gender as an analytical tool in Translation Studies has highlighted women's position as translators and creators of meaning and has opened the way for questioning established realities, "truths" and norms created by the dominant male voice. The aim of this research is to study four English translations of the Quran by women: The Quran, Arabic text with Corresponding English Meaning (1995) by Umm Muhammad, The Light of Dawn (1999) by Camille Adams Helminski, The Holy Quran: Translation with Commentary (2006) by Taheereh Saffarzadeh and The Sublime Quran (2007) by Laleh Bakhtiar, in order to determing whether these women translators are challenging or reproducing patriarchal gender hierarchies through their renditions of the Sacred Text of Islam. An important second thread is to investigate the assumption that a translator's feminine gender automatically results or leads in/to a woman-centred or feminist reading of the source text. Considering that scholars working on gender and translation have focused on various elements of the translation process, in this study, my research questions revolve around four main areas, namely (1) the role of paratexts, (2) the extent of interventions in the Sacred Text (3) linguistic choices, and finally (4) interpretation of gender-related terms. In order to address these questions, I will adopt a critical and comparative analysis between the four individual English translations of the Quran by women, the original Arabic text, and, occasionally, other English versions translated by men. The main findings reveal that there is a deep divide between translations produced by women translators living in Muslim majority countries and those living in the United States. Finally, this research suggests that the study of women's role as translators of religious texts in different cultural, social and religious settings could help produce a more nuanced and critical view of the impact of the translator's gender on his/her work.

This study looks at Laleh Bakhtiar´s ambitions when it comes to The Sublime Quran, her English translation of the Quran. It also contains a look at how it was received in English and American media, and how Bakhtiar and her like-minded defend her interpretation and translation against critics, focusing on verse 4:34.

This study investigated the accuracy and quality across five different translations of the Quran from Arabic into English, focusing on euphemism. It evaluated the degree of faithfulness or deviation in meaning from the original and corroborated whether this is due to the translating approach or inadequate understanding of the meaning of Quranic text. It assessed the main features of euphemistic expressions in the Quran, how euphemistic expressions have been translated, and provided recommendations on how to improve the translation of euphemistic expressions in the Quran. Throughout its long history, translation and translation studies have never been free from conflicting views. Translation is one of the most researched topics and no other issue has preoccupied theorists and practitioners as much as the translation debate which has brought about a split of views, specifically into those who claim that translation is an art and those who believe that translation is a science. Each camp puts forward unrealistic expectations of what translation is and what it can achieve. Despite the boom in translation studies over the last decades which has provided interesting and fresh insights, it remains an area which has little theoretical base and very few research landmarks. Translation has rarely managed to rise above mere comparative analysis of language pairs, examining their cross linguistic and cultural differences. Translation approaches, procedures and techniques are not one size fits all. They may work well for Indo-European languages but may not for Semitic languages, for instance. They are often prescriptive, abstract and lack practical implications. Highly expressive and colourful components of any language are often deliberately substituted by euphemistic expressions. Euphemism is thus a purposeful act of softening existing terms or expressions with neutral, courteous and ‘clean’ words. Euphemism is said to be a form of deception. This study examined the translation of euphemism in the Quran focusing on the English versions of the Quran by Abdel Haleem, Khan and Al-Hilali, Yusuf Ali, Arberry, and Pickthall. It was found that translators often underestimate the complexity of translation, particularly the translation of euphemism in the Quran Based on the nature of the problem and the research questions, the method adopted in this study used a qualitative approach starting with text based analysis of a broad sample of euphemistic expressions from the five selected versions of translations of the Quran. This was supported by semi-structured interviews with professional translators to gauge their views and perceptions regarding the meanings of euphemism in the Quran. The key findings suggest that there is no single method which will address all of the challenges faced by the translators of euphemisms of the Quran. Moreover, many Islamic concepts and cultural bound items are untranslatable, thus loss of some meaning is inevitable. Findings revealed that straightforward and mechanical transfer of euphemisms from the Quran produces meaningless or clumsy utterances because there is no direct correspondence between Arabic and English euphemistic expressions. Therefore, translating euphemism in the Quran goes beyond mere linguistic transfer. This study has several practical implications. Firstly, it will benefit translators of the Quran by providing fresh insights into dealing with some of the challenges of translating euphemism from the Quran. Secondly, it will provide a platform for further research on translating euphemism as it has expanded the existing literature on translating euphemistic expressions from the Quran to benefit future researchers.