فصلنامه پژوهش و حوزه
سال دهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 37، پاییز 1390)

The present article studies two subject related to translation. Firstly, it studies the meaning and the usage of the word 'translation' in earlier texts and explores its etymology. It then studies the background of translation. It also briefly looks at the earlier period of translating religious texts, its beginnings, as well as the evolutions and developments taken place in the course of translating religious texts; this ranges from the prohibition of translating religious texts to its absolute allowance.

In translating the sacred texts, we may take a few points into consideration. First, we may consider and study the style of the text, in which the standard style, approaches to translation, traditionalism and modernism in translation, and lexicology may be taken account of. Second, the usage of translation and various level of knowledge of the readers, which must be considered by the translator in choosing the text and the type of translation. Third, the semantic and the meaning levels, linguistic evolutions in language, and the interpretations of the texts must be taken into consideration. Fourth, morphology in translation, that is considering all the elements constituting a text. And fifth, the translator's attitude and his taste and motivation, which may affect the translation.

The present article deals with the aspects of religious translation in eight axes. In the beginning, the paper mentions the goal and the necessity of translation, considering it as an essential device in the collective life for lingual communication among nations. The translation types include literal, verbal, free, conceptual, and interpretive translation. The next discussion is on the translation of religious texts. Taking into consideration the text chosen for translation, its level and its format are among the next topics discussed. Sketching from the source language and translating the structure, or changing the destination language and adding to the translation to clarify it are the other topics discussed here. The conditions of translation and the translator's abilities such as his/her taste and scientific stock of information are among the next topics discussed in this paper. It also deals with the subject of loyalty to the text in translation, its possibility, its method and its meaning. The difficulties in religious translation, the standard translation, and the standard of translation are the final topics discussed here.

The translators of religious texts are expected to present a trustable and precise translation of the text, though this may be to the cost of losing some of the delicacies of the main text. Nevertheless, some of these translators, while observing the formal and literal meaning of the text, present a translation governed by the translator's attitude and belief, in which the text has undergone some delicate changes not observable at the first glance. These changes can be classified into three main groups: a) making the text consistent with the translator's beliefs; b) extending the semantic range of the text to the translator's interests; and c) cultural edition of the text to make it favorite for the reader. The present paper tries to explain these changes and present some examples in translation of religious texts to draw attention to the importance of this issue.

The present paper introduces and investigate some of the internal and external issues of translation to restate some of the probable impairments of translation. Among the most important external issues of transation are reducing it to a hobby, its being harmful for the translator, and the crisis of having readers in most subjects. The internal issues are as follows: 'What is the unit of translation, the word or the sentence?', 'What is fundamentalism in translation?', 'finding equivalents or modelling?', 'status of the text', and some other writing or linguistic issues restated in more detail here.

The deficiencies and drawbacks of the Persian translations of the Holy Quran may be classified into two main groups: first, the deficiencies resulted from understanding the source language, and second, those deficiencies related to conceptions reflected in the form of the words in the destination language. Some of the deficiencies of the first group are related to the problem in understanding the single words, including the word structure (negligence of the word roots, negligence of the precise meanings of the words, negligence of the linguistic rules as regards intransitive or transitive verbs, disregarding the literal similarity of words, carelessness in references of the pronouns), morphological structure of the words, misreading the words, translating the uncommon readings, syntactic or structural and rhetoric problems, and not finding out the precise relationship among the words and their usages. Some of the deficiencies in the second group are as follows: not observing the demands of the Persian language including neglecting the usages of feminine and masculine or singular and plural in adjectives and the related nouns, subject and predicate of the nawāsikh, as well as disharmony and inequality in similar cases or carelessness in using morphological, syntactical and rhetorical structures of passages and verses, interpretive add-ons, and usage of the similar signs. In addition to these two groups of general problems, some others can be mentioned as well, such as the following ones: not using punctuations, type-cast errors, using unfamiliar words, and omissions.

To improve the translation of the religious texts, the present paper tries to enumerate the reasons for necessity of retranslation, while dealing with the existing concerns about a commercial treatment of translating the religious texts. While admitting the problem of commercial treatment of translating religious texts and its being inescapable, the writer offers some solutions to prevent or – at least – to reduce the problems of retranslation. He regards the cultural growth of the society as a ground for presenting solid and secure translation of religious texts.

The present paper studies 572 articles in the sphere of translating Islamic texts to determine their thematic and linguistic tendency, types of the articles, year of publication, period and type of the related magazines, and other parameters taken from the website of the Nur specialized magazines. The findings show that in the period studied, the greatest number of article were in 1385 and the least were in 1375. 60.8% of them were compiled articles and 14.2% were translated articles. The articles in Persian language with 46.3%, in English with 5.2% and in French with 3.2% were the the highest in number respectively. The number of articles on general subjects were 45 (52.6%), those on difficulties of translation were 56 (9.8%), and those on literature, history and methodology were the greatest in number among various subjects. 95.5% articles were published in specialized magazines and 4.5% in scientific-research magazines. 245 articles (42.8%) were published in monthly journals, 161 articles (28.1%) in two-quarterly journals, and 149 articles (26%) in quarterly journals. 93.7% were written by men, 2.5% by women and 3.8% by organizational writers. 93.99% of the writers worked individually and 35 (6.1%) of the articles were written by group writers

The present paper is a report on the knowledge and information given and the suggestions made by some authorities in the sphere of translating religious texts. The questions and answers posed here center on the following topics: translation and proselytizing the religion, the difficulties of translating religious texts and the ways to reduce them, the literary characteristic of translating religious texts, the scope of translating religious texts, the role of translating religious texts in spreading religious thought and belief, the way of transferring religious culture through translation, signs of loyalty or disloyalty to the text, signs of successful translation, and levels of translation. Based on the abovementioned axises of discussion, the learned masters have opened new horizons to the religious translation

The present paper is a report of a dialogue with Dr. Azartash Azarnush, which has been rewritten by himself. It delas with the background of the translation of religious texts, including the Quran, and the type of the translations by earlier translators, especially scholars of the transoxania. Besides, it deals with the role of translation from Arbic into Persian in durability and eloquence of the Arbic literature. Stating some of the difficulties of the Quran's translation and presenting some ways to arrive at a standard translation of the Quran is another topic discussed here. The doctor believes that the standard translation of the Quran calls for a detailed research on the Quranic words, and must be based on the findings of such a research.