A Study of the Translation of Figurative Language in the Qur'an

The focus of study in this book is the analysis of the problems faced by translators in rendering figures of speech in the Qur’an specially the culture-specific ones. To achieve this aim, Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary (1938), Arthur J. Arberry’s The Koran Interpreted (1955), N. J. Dawood’s The Koran (1956) and Muhammad Mahmud Ghali’s Towards Understanding the Ever Glorious Qur’an (1997) have been chosen. The four translations have been selected because of their objectivity, accuracy and adoption of the traditional order of suras. In this research, an analysis of the functions of figures of speech in the Qur’an is given plus the major problems that translators face in rendering such figures of speech. In other words, translating figures of speech is one of the hardest tasks that a translator may encounter due to the culture-bound nature of some images. To perform this task properly, translators resort to different strategies such as transliteration, paraphrase, cultural substitution … etc. in the hope that adopting such strategies helps the translator to opt for successful and appropriate choices.