Orientalism and Periods of Translating the Qur’an: Types and History of Oriental Translations

Abstract

This study aims to build bridges of thought between the East and the West and to correct the fallacies and negative ideas claimed by the West against the Eastern thought, especially Islam, as an adversary and enemy. The West claimed it as a reactionary thought. The translation movement from Arabic into English, especially Islamic texts, faces great difficulty because English vocabulary is limited to covering Arabic vocabulary, not to mention Islamic vocabulary and expressions that have not yet been adequately translated into English, such as the terms: the unseen and the Day of Resurrection, and their names such as “al-Qāriʻah, al-ṭāmh, al-ṣākhh”. Even the word Ṣalāt  ‘prayers’ is translated by most English translators barring in mind the same concept of prayer in Christianity which is not appropriate and which refers to a lack of English morphological roots. The English morphological roots are about 6000, while the Arabic roots are more than 600,000. In addition to the lack of translated references into Arabic that are related to the research subject.