Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on Translation No.4 May, 2015 Pp.182-193
Translation of Religious Texts: Difficulties and Challenges
Rachid Agliz
Faculty of Letters, University Ibnou Zohr
Agadir, Morocco
Abstract:
Throughout history, people have always tried to get through many different spheres. Their incessant thirst for knowledge brought them in close contact with other cultures and provided them with means to transfer their opinions to other cultures and civilizations that are different or similar to them. One of the effective means of ensuring this cultural exchange is translation. This paper is mainly concerned with the difficulties and the challenges that Arab translators are confronted with when they deal with religious texts. A case in point here is Shalabi’s insightful book, Islam Between Truth and False Allegations: A Response to the False Allegations against Islam.(1997) This religious book is full of instances which demonstrate clearly the diverse difficulties that Arab translators face while translating source texts which encompass very sacred religious terms. It seems that grammatical equivalence, redundancy and paragraphing are the most important key elements that ought to be taken into account in order to produce an accurate and appropriate translation. The main objective in this paper is to draw the reader’s attention to the difficulties and challenges that I encountered while translating some religious extracts from Shalabi’s book.
Keywords: Grammatical Equivalence, paragraphing, redundancy, religious texts