The untranslatability 

of the Qur’an 
Mina Elhjouji

MA Student at the Islamic College

Middlesex University

Abstract 
The aim of this paper is to raise awareness of the untranslatability of the
Qur’anreligious text and to suggest some solutions that can help the translator in
the process of transferring the meaning from the source text to the target text as
much as possible. After the introduction, the miraculous character of the Qur’an
shall be illustrated. Then, the difficulty of translating religious texts will be
shown in terms of different causes; thematic, cultural, and linguistic. Each type
of these difficulties shall be illustrated by some examples. Finally, some
strategies that can help in translating the Qur’an meanings will be suggested. 
Keywords: Translation – religious text – untranslatability – The Qur’an
miracle – rhetoric – communicative theory

Introduction 
The translator of Qur’anreligious texts translates textsverses that
related to may contain legal rulings from Arabic into another language. He
transmits the Sharia speech from its original language to non-Arabic
speakers.  Since the source of Sharia in the Islamic faith is Allah, and the
ruler is Allah, then, the translator becomes a mediator between the Creator
and his creatures. Here appears the seriousness of the task undertaken by
the translator of this type of text since he bears the responsibility of
communicating the meanings of revelation to a group of those addressed by
it because of their inability to understand the Arabic language. the Prophet,
peace and blessings of Allah be upon him , said: “Ascribing false things to
me is not like ascribing false things to anyone else. Whosoever tells a lie
against me intentionally then surely let him occupy his seat in Hell-Fire.”
(Al-Bukhari, Book 23, Hadith 49) 
We mean by “religious texts” in this essay the sacred texts of revelation,
namely the Quran. That is to say, the words of Allah Almighty. 
The translation of religious textsQur’an poses many problems. To
begin with, the difficulty of this translation results from
the miraculous nature of this type of text. Al-Harahsheh (2013,
p:108) considers the translation of religious textsQur’an to be one of the most
problematic types of translationtranslation, because it deals with a very
sacred and sensitive text. It deals with the words of God. Sometimes the
translator, no matter how competent he is, cannot transfer the meanings from the
source text to the target language at the required accuracy due to the difference
between the two languages. The director of the British Center for Literary
Translation Daniel Hahn expressed these difficulties resulting from the
difference between languages, saying:
“There’s not a single word in any of the languages I translate that
can map perfectly onto a word in English. So it’s always
interpretative, approximate, creative. Anything that is, itself, a
‘linguistic’ quality will by definition be anchored in a particular
language — whether it’s idiom, ambiguity, or assonance. All
languages are different.”(Brooks, 2017)
The difficulty lies in the fact that the transfer of the meaning of these
sacred words from the source text to the target language is accompanied by a
high probability of losing the meaning or part of it.  
 Secondly, the unique miraculous linguistic characteristics of the
Qur'an pose several problems for the translator. In his book Quran
Translation Discourse, Abdul-Raof asserts that the specificity of the
language and style of the Qur'an outweighs the ability of man to reproduce
the Qur'an in translated form. A translator can make a crude
approximation of the language, meaning, and style of the Qur'an to help
non-Arabic speakers understand its message, but the unique linguistic
nature of the Qur'anic discourse makes its translatability severely limited.
(Abdul-Raof, 2001, p: 2) This can be understood if we take into account the
miraculous nature of the Qur’an. If people are not able to produce a similar text
to the verses of the Qur’an in Arabic, how can they translate them with the
required accuracy into another language? If the miracle of the Qur’an is
linguistic, then its transmission from its original language to another language
makes it lose the character of the miracle associated with its Arabic language.
Furthermore, some theorists argue that the act of translation involves
manipulation and violence. (Faiq, 2004, p: 2) Venuti, for example, believes
that the activity of translation represents violence. Anglo-American
translation over the past centuries, for example, sought to achieve the effect
of normalization, which led, in Venuti's view, to muffle the voice of the
original texts in return for reproducing the values of foreign culture in a
familiar manner that accepts the dominant Western culture. Venuti says: 
The violence of translation resides in its very purpose and activity: the
reconstruction of the foreign text in accordance with values, beliefs, and
representations that pre-exist in the target language, always configured
in hierarchies of dominance and marginality, always determining the
production, circulation, and reception of texts.... The aim of translation
is to bring back a cultural other as the same, the recognizable, even the
familiar; and this aim always risks a wholesale domestication of the
foreign text, often in highly self-conscious projects, where translation
 serves an imperialist appropriation of foreign cultures for domestic
agendas, cultural, economic, political. (Venuti, 1996, p:196) 
Consequently, the reliability of translation depends on the objectivity of
the translator and his good intentions. Thus, The translation work is often
affected by the translator's ideology and intellectual trends, which requires
assessing the credibility of the translation to be certain of its conformity with the
original text. translation work is often affected by the translator's ideology and
intellectual orientations, which makes us face major problems related to the
extent of the translation's credibility and to what extent is the translated text
considered faithful to the original text? Then, if it comes to the Qur’anreligious
text, how do we prevent distortion of its meanings and exclude the possible
subjectivity of the translator as much as possible? What are the factors that
can be considered as limits of translatability to the religious textQur’an?
These are some of the questions that this paper aims to answer. 
The Qur'an is a miracle 
Muslims believe that the Qur'an is a timeless linguistic miracle that
exceeds the human ability to come up with a verse like the smallest verse of
it. Allah Almighty challenged the Arabs at the height of their eloquence to
produce a text like the verses of the Qur’an, and they were unable to do so.
Allah said: “Say: 'If men and jinn banded together to produce the like of
this KoranQur’an, they would never produce it's like, not though they
backed one another.'” (Surah Al’Israe, 88) The meanings of the Qur’an are
endless and whenever one returns to its verses, he/she discovers new
meanings and fresh ways of interpreting it. (Abdul-Raof, 2001, p:39). 
Moreover, the Qur'an contains many scientific facts that man was only
able to discover in recent centuries. It also included many prophecies that were
fulfilled and proven true, in addition to historical facts. Therefore, if this is the
case of the native people with the Qur’an, then it is inevitable to question the
ability of the non-native translators to transfer meanings of this heavy
discourse. 
Consequently, dDue to this miraculous characteristic, the Qur'an
shows a kind of untranslatability. In this sense, no translation of the Qur'an
can claim to be a substitute for the original text, and this is the difference
between translating a "normal" text, which is produced by humans, and a
religious text. In the case of translating normal texts, the target text can replace
the source text. However, in the case of a religious translation, the target text can
never replace the source text.. Thus, the target reader must be aware that
what he is reading is not a substitute for the Qur’an, but rather an aid that
enables him to comprehend and understand it. (Zahid, 2020, p: 9) 
1. Problems of translating religious texts 
The language of Quranic discourse is a rainbow of grammatical,
semantic, discursive, phonetic and cultural features. All these features
combine to reveal a unique linguistic texture that cannot be replaced
because most of these features are foreign to the linguistic standards of
other languages. (Abdul-Raof, 2004, p:92) 
In the following, we introduce the most important difficulties faced by
the translator of the Qur’anic text. These difficulties are due to thematic
and cultural characteristics on the one hand, and linguistic ones on the
other hand. the linguistic difficulties may be lexical, syntactic,
morphological, or rhetorical. 
1.1. Cultural and thematic difficulty 
There is a close relationship between language, thought, and culture.
The cultural characteristics of a text are either universal or private. The
first type is easier for the translator to transfer from the original text to the
target text because of its identical connotations for almost all people. The
second type of cultural peculiarities, which are specific to a
people, are more difficult for the translator to convey. Among the well-
known examples in this regard is the translation of the famous Arabic
expression  
  ”...‫“ لقد أثلج صدري معرفة‬
to “It warmed my heart to know”.  
This is because what makes a European person, who grew up in a very cold
environment, happy is warmth, not snow. While the Arab who grew up in
the hot Arabian Peninsula expresses his happiness with the coldness of his
heart. (Taoufiq, 2013 p:21) 
Understanding the cultural background and theme of the source text
is very important in the success of the translation process since any
misunderstanding of the text subject necessarily leads to distorting its
meaning. Consequently, some texts require that the translator have some
knowledge related to the field to which they belong, and to be accustomed
to the language of this field. Furthermore, some texts may require a
specialized translator in the science to which the text belongs.  
Religious The religious translation is not an exception to this rule,
since translating the Qur'an requires a deep understanding of its verses,
otherwise, the meanings are mistranslated. In general, the translation
process can be divided into three stages: The analysis stage in which the
message is analyzed as it is in the original language in terms of the
grammatical relationship and the meaning of the words. At this stage, the
translator decomposes the meaning into units, and resorts to all the
information surrounding the source text, such as explanations and exegeses,
to help him understand. Next comes the transfer stage, where the analyzed
material is transferred in the mind of the translator from the source
language to the target language. The third stage is the restructuring of the
transmitted material to make the final message acceptable to the target
language. (Zahid, 2020, p: 12) 
 The translator of the specialized texts finds him/herself in front of
complex contents and cultural peculiarities that are difficult to deal with
without resorting to in-depth research. In some cases, it may be necessary
to resort to specialists for the purpose of understanding the contents in the
first stage before trying to transfer them to the target language.
Let us take, for example, the translation of the fourth verse of Surat
Al-Ahzab: 
”‫اه ُرو َن ِم ْن ُه َّن َُّأم َهاتِ ُكم‬
ِ َ‫”وما جعل َأ ْزواج ُكم الاَّل ِئي تُظ‬
ُ َ َ َ ََ ََ
In this verse, Allah forbids “Zihar”, which means the saying of a
husband to his wife: “You are like my mother's back”. The Arabs used to
divorce their wives during the “Jahiliyyah”; before Islam with this
expression, but when Islam came, this became forbidden. 
Let’s see how this culture-bound verse was translated:  
Arberry  Yusuf Ali  Asad  Ahmed Ali 
“nor has He made “nor has He made “He has never “nor made your
your wives, when your wives whom made your wives wives, whom you
you divorce, ye divorce by whom you may pronounce
saying, 'Be as my Zihar your have declared to "mothers" (in
mother's back,' mothers”  be “as unlawful to order to divorce
truly your you as your them), your real
mothers”  mothers’ bodies” mothers” 
[truly] your
mothers, so” 
 

We notice that: 
 The four translations show the state of extreme confusion among the
translators, due to this new concept called “Zihar” which has no
equivalent in the target language.  
 To solve this cultural dilemma, some translators used the word
“divorce” as it was mentioned in the translation of Arberry, Yusuf Ali,
 and Ahmed Ali. They did so because they believed that the target reader
would easily understand the word divorce. 
 Yusuf Ali combined the word divorce with writing the word “Zihar”
in English (a method called transliteration). 
 Adopting a literal translation of the word “Zihar” as it appears in
Arberry’s translation. 
All these efforts are commendable by the translators, but they do not
accurately and specifically convey the original meaning. (Taoufiq, 2013
p:41) 
1.2. Linguistic difficulties 
1.2.1 Lexical difficulties 
This kind of difficulty relates to the nature of the lexical terms used in
the Arabic language, which may have meanings closely related to the Arab
environment and context of the Arabian Peninsula during the early
centuries of Islam. These words are the keys to Arabic civilization, and the
translator often does not find an equivalent to them in the target language. 
Some lexical gaps arise due to the presence of Qur'anic concepts that
cannot be matched to the target language. For example, the word “Taqwa”
in the Almighty’s saying:  
 " َ‫ْب ۛ فِي ِه ۛ هُدًى لِّ ْل ُمتَّقِين‬ َ ِ‫" ٰ َذل‬
َ ‫ك ْال ِكتَابُ اَل َري‬
It was translated by Yusuf Ali as follows: 
 “This is the Book; in it is guidance sure, without doubt, to those who fear
Allah.” 
The word “Taqwa”, as Abdul-Raof confirms, “does not mean ‘fear of
God’ only, but it is a Qur’anic notion which combines many spiritual
aspects including fear and love of God.”. (Abdul-Raof, 2001, p:95)  
Another example of lexical difficulties faced by Qur’an translators is
Allah’s saying in Surah Ali-Imran: 
 "‫ص ِّدقًا لِّ َما بَ ْينَ يَ َد ْي ِه َوَأنزَ َل التَّوْ َراةَ َواِإْل ن ِجي َل‬ ِّ ‫َاب بِ ْال َح‬
َ ‫ق ُم‬ َ ‫"نَ َّز َل َعلَ ْيكَ ْال ِكت‬
 Arberry  Hilali and Khan  Ahmed Ali  Asad
He has sent It is He Who has He has verily Step by step has
down upon  sent revealed to you He bestowed
thee the Book down the Book (the  this Book, in upon thee from
with the Quran) to you truth and on high this
truth, (Muhammad SAW) confirmation of divine writ,
confirming with truth, the Books setting forth the
what was confirming what revealed before, truth which
before it, and came before it. And as indeed He confirms
He sent down he sent down the had revealed the whatever there
the Torah and Taurat (Torah) and Torah and the still remains [of
 the Gospel  the Injeel (Gospel)    Gospel earlier
   revelations]: for
it is He who has
bestowed from
on high the
Torah and the
  Gospel
Both words: “Nazzala” and “Anzala” were translated in the first two
translations by “sent down”. In the third translation they were both
translated by the verb: “revealed”. Whereas Asad used the verb
“bestowed” for both verbs, but he restricted the occurrence of the act of the
first revelation by adding a very important description: " Step by step”. 
The word “Nazzala” here creates a lexical problem for the translator
because it refers to a fragmentary descent of the Qur’an that lasted 23
years. By contrast, the word “Anzala” means “to reveal at once.”
Consequently, a distinction should be “made between the two kinds of
revelation: the piecemeal revelation of the Qur’an and the singular
revelation of the Torah and the Gospel.” (Abdul-Raof, 2001, p:95)  

1.2.2 Syntactic and stylistic difficulties 

Linguistic structure and style stand side by side to produce a specific
communicative goal that was not meant to be achieved through a simple,
ordinary structure. Style and meaning are closely related, as they
contribute to each other.
The order of words in the Holy Qur’an is not absurd and has a
special semantic and rhetorical function in each position. The
foregrounding, which is a syntactic operation that places one or more
components of a sentence at the beginning, has a special communicative
function. What is often unknown is that word order can in itself convey
meaning. That is why some translations of the Qur’an try to adhere to the
structure of the sentence as in the verses, so they keep the foregrounding as
it is to convey the same intended meaning. (Abdul-Raof, 2001, p:97) 
Let’s take the example of the verse 19 of Surah Abassa: 
 " ُ‫" مِن ُّن ْط َف ٍة َخلَ َق ُه َف َق َّد َره‬
Most of the translators who translated this verse to English
maintained the word order of the source language.  
 Arberry  Hilali and Khan  Ahmed Ali  Asad
Of a sperm- From Nutfah (male From a single Out of a drop of
drop He and female semen sperm He sperm He creates
created him, drops) He created created, then him, and
and determined him, and then set proportioned thereupon
him  him in due him    determines his
proportion  nature  
  
 As we can see, none of the translators started the sentence in the usual
word order of the target language (TL); Subject+verb+Object. In the above
example, the foregrounded element is the prepositional phrase “min
nutfatin” "from a sperm-drop". The translators tried to preserve the
Qur’anic text tone and its stylistic specialty, since the intentionality of the
verse can be echoed by the stylistic variations through foregrounding to
highlight a particular notion. They managed “to render the Qur’anic
structure but at the expense of the syntactic norms of English.
Consequently, his translation sounds formally biased and the patterns
archaic... Generally, the syntactic norms of the target language fail to
match those of Qur’anic discourse.” (Abdul-Raof, 2001, p:97) 
1.2.3 Difficulties related to the Qur'an tense system 
This difficulty is related to verbs and tenses. There is a big difference
between Arabic and English in terms of how verbs denote time. The past
tense, for example, may be used in the Arabic language to mean the future,
as in the Almighty’s saying in Surah An-nahl: 
 " َ‫سبحانَهُ َوتَعالى َع ّما يُش ِركون‬ ِ ‫" َأتى َأم ُر هَّللا ِ فَال تَست‬
ُ ُ‫َعجلوه‬
Moreover, the present tense may be used to indicate the past, as in the
words of Allah the Almighty in Surat Al-Saffat: 
 "‫"إني أرى في المنام أني أذبحك‬
There are many such examples in the Qur'an. The Arabs use the
present tense to refer to the past if it is related to something important, so
they make the listener evoke its image as if his eye sees it while it is
happening. (Hassan, vol. 1- p. 61) Thus, the verses expressed the dream of
the prophet Ibrahim, peace be upon him, in the present tense, due to its
importance and to make the listener see it as if it was happening in front of
his eyes. Add to this that Ibrahim's dream was repeated, as he did not see it
just once, and he expected it to recur in the future, so he expressed that by
saying: “‫" ”أرى‬I see" as if he was still seeing it. 
 Hence, how should the translator deal with these formulas? Should he
translate the sentence into the past or present tense? Does transferring the
text to the present tense in the target language express the same meaning? 
Let us take, for example, the translation of the verse of Surat Al-
Saffat, in which the Prophet Ibrahim narrates what he saw in his dream.
This verse has been translated in some translations of the Qur’an as
follows: 
 
 
 
 
 
 Asad  Hilali and Khan  Ahmed Ali   Arberry
“O my dear "O my son! I have "O my son! I 'My son, I see in
son! I have seen seen in a dream have seen in a a dream that I
in a dream that that I am dream that I shall sacrifice
I should slaughtering you   am thee 
sacrifice thee  slaughtering
  you  
We notice that: 
 The first three translations translated the verb "‫ "أرى‬using the present
perfect “I have seen”, which is normally used in English when talking about
unfinished events that began in the past and continue in the present. 
 Arberry translated the verb "‫ "أرى‬using the present tense, thus he
preserved the tense of the verb as it is in the source text. 
 As for the second verb “‫ ”أذبحك‬Asad translated it by “I should sacrifice”,
and Arberry “I shall sacrifice”. Whereas the two other translators used the
present continuous “I am slaughtering”. 
 Actually, the use of present perfect in the first verb is the closest to
the meaning of the verse since the dream of the prophet Ibrahim started in
the past and the experience is still lived by Him. However, the use of the
present tense, as in Arberry's translation, does not inform the reader that
the dream-vision experience occurred repeatedly for Ibrahim in the past
and may continue in the future. (Mina, 2023) 
The use of present continuous for the second verb, on the other hand,
is the closest to the meaning of the verse, because it kept bringing up the
image in front of the recipient as if he was seeing the scene of slaughter. 
This syntactic richness in the Arabic language limits the possibility of
translating the meanings of the Quranic verses to the intended reader as
they are in the original language. Consequently, this requires the translator
to think carefully about the meanings of the text he wishes to translate to
identify its hidden connotations and try to convey them to the target
language as much as possible. (Mina, 2023) 
1.2.4 Rhetorical difficulties 
The Arabic language is characterized by its eloquence and its ability
to express the same meaning in more than one way. This poses a difficulty
for the translator who must understand the intended meanings to convey
them correctly into the TL. Understanding the meanings of some Quranic
verses depends on realizing some Arabic rhetorical styles such as similes
and metaphors... 
Let us take an example the metaphor in the Almighty's saying in
Surat Al-Inshiqaq: 
ٍ ِ‫ب َأل‬
“ ‫يم‬ ٍ ‫“فَبَش ِّْرهُم بِ َع َذا‬
In this verse, Allah Almighty used the verb “‫( ”بَش ِّْرهُم‬which means in
English “to convey good news”), instead of the verb “‫( ”أنذر‬which is used in
the case of bad news) although the news in the verse is related to the painful
torment that awaits the infidels on the Day of Resurrection.   A metaphor
was used here, so the verb used here is “Bachara”, which is normally used
in the case of delivering good news, instead of “Anzara”, which is normally
used in warning, as a matter of sarcasm and mockery. (Al-Hashemi, 1986,
p. 326) 
Let's see how this verse was translated: 
 Ahmed Ali  Hilali and Khan   Asad   Arberry
So give them So announce to Hence, give them the So give them
news of painful them a painful tiding of grievous good tidings of a
punishment,    torment.  suffering [in the life to painful
  come]  chastisement, 
 
Looking at these translations, we notice that the intended rhetorical
meaning is completely absent in the first and second translations. The verse
was emptied of the meaning of sarcasm and mockery, which is intended in
the original text. 
2. Some helpful strategies 
Because of its properties, words, structure, style, eloquence, and
poeticity, the Qur’an is believed to be miraculous and untranslatable. Thus,
the Qur'an translator must think of some creative methods that can
facilitate conveying the source text meaning to the target reader. Based on
this fact, Zahid et al. suggest the Religious Communicative Theory
(RCT) in Qur’an translation. According to RCT, the translator has to
convey the Quranic religious meaning as a substance and not the Quranic
structure as a form. In this way, the translator's task becomes a
continuation of the prophet's mission. The difference between them is time
and space. RCT believes that the source text must be kept sacred and the
target reader should access the information.  (Zahid, 2020, p: 11) 
The essence of the RCT is drawn from Goethe's approach in which he
said:  
 “There are two maxims in translation: one requires that the
author of a foreign nation be brought across to us in such a
way that we can look on him as ours; the other requires that
we should go across to what is foreign and adapt ourselves to
its conditions, its use of language, its peculiarities" (as cited
in Venuti, 1995, p:87). 
Accordingly, one of the most effective translation strategies is the use
of footnotes and comments in explaining the inner meanings of the verses to
the target reader. Furthermore, those footnotes help to replace the heavy
loss caused by the process of transferring meaning from one language to
another. 
Moreover, since most cultural expressions are untranslatable, the
translator should resort to transliteration to incorporate culture-bounded
phrases into the TL. Then, the target reader gets acquainted with new
expressions from the culture of the source language through footnotes and
explanations. In this way, the target reader becomes engaged in the process
of deciphering the original text. 
Conclusion
Qur’an Translation poses many difficulties because the Qur’an
translator deals with a sacred miraculous text. This text is untranslatable
because of its special characteristics. In terms of content, the Qur’an
translator finds him/herself in front of complex contents and cultural
peculiarities that are difficult to deal with, which necessitates a certain
degree of specialization in the field of Sharia and Jurisprudence. In
addition, the Quranic text poses some linguistic difficulties which may be
due to its lexical, syntactic, grammatical, or rhetorical properties.  
In front of these difficulties, the adoption of the Religious
Communicative Theory in translating the Qur’an was suggested.
Accordingly, the translator communicates with the target reader through
footnotes and explanations to help him to discover the culture of the source
text and decipher the inner meanings of the sacred words. 

References

 Abbas, Hassan. Al-Nahw Al-Wafi, fifth edition, Dar Al-Ma'arif,

Egypt.
 Abdul-Raof, H. (2004), “The Qur’an: Limits of Translatability”, Cultural
Encounters in Translation from Arabic, edited by: Said Faiq, Multilingual
Matters Ltd, Canada. 
 Abdul-Raof, Hussein. (2001). Quran Translation Discourse. Routledge. 
 Al-Harahsheh, Ahmed (2013). Translation of Islamic Texts and
Ideology. Arab World English Journal, Special Issue on Translation,
2.
 Al-Hashemi, Ahmed. (1986), Jawaher Al-Balaghah, Dar Al-Fikr,
Beirut.
 Brooks, Richard, (2017), The Challenges of Translating Literature,
available in: https://www.k-international.com/blog/the-challenges-of-
translating-literature/, accessed : 28/02/2023 17:33
 Faiq, Said. (2004), Cultural Encounters in Translation from Arabic,
Topics in Translation: 26, Multilingual Matters Ltd, Canada.
 Imam Muhammad al-Bukhari (1997), Asahih, translated by Dr. M.
Muhsin Khan. Riyadh: Darussalam.
 Mina, Elhjouji. The problems of translating Islamic jurisprudential
texts and the necessity of imposing scientific oversight on it, a
scientific paper presented at the Ninth International Conference on
 Translation and Problems of Acculture, 28-29 January 2023, Doha,
Qatar.
 Taoufiq, Khalid. (2013), Anecdotes of translation and translators,
Hala for publication and distribution, Giza.

 Venuti, Lawrence. (1995), The Translator's Invisibility: A History of

Translation, Routledge, New York.
 Venuti, Lawrence. (1996), The violence of translation. In M.G.
Rose, Translation Horizons Beyond the Boundaries of Translation
Spectrum (pp. 195–214). State University of New York, Binghamton. 
 Zahid, Abdelhamid, et al. (2020), "Re-thinking Quran Translation:
Towards a Religious Communicative Theory", Translation studies
and Qur'an translation, Knowledge and Translation series: N 15,
Modern Book’s World, Jordan.