Some challenges in the translation of the Qurʾān: A study of the rendering of four polysemantic words in five English translations The Translation of Four Polysemantic Words in The Qurʾān

Abstract: The relationship between the source text and target text is a topic of ethical importance when it comes to translating holy books, in this case the Qurʾān. This study compares five translations of the Qurʾān with its original Arabic text and investigates the English equivalents of four polysemantic words which have been chosen from Qurʾānic verses. Each of these words has more than one meaning and hence understanding the context is the key to quality translation. These Arabic words .)ایھ( and āya )كتاب( kitāb ,)عبد( abd’ ,)بروج( are burūj The purpose of this paper is to investigate how various translators manage polysemy within selected Qurʾānic verses. It aims to analyze the strategies used to navigate the complexities of multi-layered meanings and demonstrates how the challenges of lexical ambiguity are addressed and resolved in the transition from Arabic to English. The material used was five English translations of the Qurʾān from two different periods in time: two were from the 1930s and three were from the 2010s. The theoretical frameworks used were Nida’s (1964) Formal/Dynamic Equivalence and Toury’s (2012) source-oriented Adequacy Norm and target-oriented Acceptability Norm. The results showed that whereas the two older translations tended towards Formal Equivalence and Adequacy, the more recent translations favoured Dynamic Equivalence and Acceptability. It is noteworthy that the translator’s role remains significant, regardless of the era to which they belong or the cultural background they represent.