Comparison of Translations by Orientalists, Format, Factors, and Distinctive Features of their translations

Abstract

Muslims believe that the Holy Qur’an is inimitable and its translation in any language cannot be equivalent to the original text which is Arabic. At the beginning of the 12th century, some efforts to render the Quran were taken place in different languages. And in the 17th century, the first English translation by Ross took place and drew the attention of English scholars to the translation of the Quran into English.

Later on, many translations emerged till the end of the 20th century and such efforts are going on by Muslim as well as non-Muslim scholars. Their efforts are analyzed and evaluated by scholars from different perspectives and dimensions such as interpolations, additions or deletions, etc.

In this paper, we will evaluate the translations of the Holy Qur’an by early orientalists and evaluate the format and distinctive features of their renditions and key factors that played a role in setting their trend to translate the Holy Quran. We further will highlight an example of their translations to evaluate how far or closer they are to the source language.