Abdalati M. Ali
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Chester
1430671@chester.ac.uk

Abstract
Translators of the Quran often face significant challenges when attempting to render the sacred text into English, as the classical Arabic in which it is written is not only lexically complex but also has unique linguistic features. In this study, I examine a number of these lexical and semantic problems. I argue that because literal translation may sometimes deform the implicit meaning of the lexical items, metaphors and metonymic words found in the Quran, free translation is a more suitable way of conveying their connotative meaning.
For the purposes of this study, I have used Nord’s model of text analysis in translation (1991) to compare and evaluate the strategies adopted by the authors of three English translations of the Quran when faced with a sample of lexical items, metaphors and metonymic words. The comparative analysis focuses on selected extracts that that often difficult to grasp from translations by Abdullah Ali (1975), Muhammad Pickthall (1938), and Al-Hilali and Khan (1996). In addition, I have consulted Quranic exegeses by Ibn Kathir (1300-1373), Al-Qurtubi (1214-1273), Al-Razy (544-604) and Al-Tabari (839-923); the Arabic-English Quranic Dictionary (DAEQU) by Abdel-Haleem and Badwi (2008) and Omar’s Dictionary of Contemporary Arabic Language (DCAL) (2008); as well as related works by prominent Muslim theologians, such as Al-Tha’ālibi’s Philology and Secrets of the Arabic Language (1998), in order to gauge the translators’ level of accuracy and identify the advantages and disadvantages of their different approaches. The study reveals that the translators faced difficulties in rendering the sample of lexical items into English, and recommends that future translators should be aware of the unique qualities of the Quran’s classical Arabic and avoid using a literal translation method if they wish to convey its message informatively to the target audience.

Introduction
The Quran needs to be interpreted and translated into other languages, including English, if non-Arabic speakers are to understand the words of Allah enshrined in the text that lies at the heart of the Islamic faith. Rendering the meaning of the Quran into English is therefore an essential task, but it is also an especially difficult one due to the unique linguistic, semantic and cultural features inherent to all sacred texts. As Chesterman explains:
[I]f you believe that the scriptures are indeed the Word of God, and if you believe that you have a mission to         spread this Word, you quickly find yourself in a quandary. The Word is holy; how then can it be changed? For translation does not only substitute one word-meaning for another but also reconstructs the structural form in which these word-meanings are embedded. (Chesterman 1997: 21)
Since many of the words used in the Quran include metaphorical and cultural expressions, a word-for-word or literal translation risks distorting their meaning. This study argues that if the translator attempts a free translation, including the use of idiomatic expressions and changing the grammatical and lexical forms of the Arabic text, they may be able to offer a closer approximation of its meaning to a non-Arabic-speaking readership.
Newmark (1998: 120) adds another dimension to the problem when he states that ‘even in a “sacred” text, you may have to translate, not just what the writer means rather than what he writes, but what you think he means’. In fact, translating the meaning of the Quran demands an advanced knowledge of Arabic syntax, as well as an acquaintance with the best exegetical sources and the reasons for the revelations contained in its verses and ‘surahs’ (chapters). The Quran is an independent genre: it is written in classical Arabic, which is very different from modern standard Arabic (MSA). In classical Arabic, words contain numerous shades of meaning, depending on their context. For example, some lexical words have more than one meaning, and some metonymes and metaphors include connotations whose implicit meaning is often difficult to grasp in translation. As a consequence, translators tend to fall back on a literal method of translation, which often leads to ambiguity and confusion as it does not take into consideration the allegorical sense of the word or phrase.
For these reasons, the first aim of this study is to investigate the problems translators face when attempting to render some lexical items, metaphors and metonymic words into English. Its second aim is to test the proposition that free translation best conveys these items’ intended meaning because it focuses on their context and approximates their message in the target language, in contrast to literal translation, which does not pay attention to the content of the source language and risks distorting the implicit meaning, confusing target readers. The study’s third aim is to provide a guide for future translators of the Quran when translating figurative language such as metaphors and metonymes. Non-Arab Muslms are in need to understand their religion and the meanings of the Quran and even for non-Muslims would also intend to know the meanings of the Quran and its allegorical language.

Methodology of the study
The study undertakes a comparative analysis of different English translations of a number of lexical items, metaphors and metonymic words in the Quran, using a translation-theory framework to explore the advantages and disadvantages of free translation versus literal translation from a theoretical perspective.
The study’s theoretical approach is based on Nord’s model of text analysis in translation (1991), which analyses the extratextual and intratextual factors in both source and target texts. External factors include sender, intention, recipient/audience, medium, place, time, motive and text function, while internal factors include subject matter, content, presuppositions, text composition, lexis and sentence structure. According to Nord (1991: 28), this model is applicable to all types of text because functionality is ‘the most important criterion for a translation’. She (1991:5) clarifies that ‘one possible TT function may be to imitate the effects of the original ST reception’. This model can solve problems in translation and provides valuable help for translators struggling to grasp the functionality when establishing the function of the source text compared with function in culture of the target text and the translator has to make adjustments by using a cultural filter between ST and TT. Nord (1991:15) elaborates further that ‘in a translation-oriented analysis, we will first analyse these factors [the communicative situation and participants in the communicative act] and their function in the ST situation and then compare them with the corresponding factors in the (prospective) TT situation […]’. The important feature of Nord’s model is its looping nature that the translator with every step has to look back on the facts that emerged from the ST analysis and their implications for a prospective TT. The translator continuously goes back and forth to choose the most suitable solutions and pays attention to every important factor. In short, Nord’s model provides a solid basis for translators and help them to understand the contextual meanings found in the content and structure of the source text, so that they will be able to use suitable translation strategies that elucidate its intended purpose and convey its meaning appropriately to the target audience.

Review of the related literature
The literal translation of some Quranic words may not transfer their contextual meaning to the target language, and requires additional exegetical information. Benaili and Benatallah (2016) refer to the fact that some terms are characterised by their very specific meaning and function; the words may possess equivalent terms in the target language but these do not carry the same meaning as the original. The translator may need to use a footnote to shed light on the intended meaning of the verse. For example, the Arabic word ‘jihad’ has three or four connotative meanings in the Quran, depending on its context: it can be associated variously with speech, weapons, money-giving or deeds – meanings that are sometimes missing in translation. Pickthall (1983) translates the word, as it appears in surah Al-Furqan (25: 52), literally as ‘to strive’, without reference to any other connotative meaning. According to the tafsir (exegeses or learned interpretations) of Ibn Khatir (1997), Tabari (1997), Al-Qurtubi (2006) and Al-Razy (1995), the term refers in this verse to Allah bidding the Prophet Mohammed to convince disbelievers to study the Quran.
Abdul-Raof (2005) also discusses the problems of translating Quranic lexical words, referring to what he calls ‘delexicalised expressions’. He describes these as ‘SL [source language] black holes that refer to lexical items that are lacking in the TL [target language]’. As such expressions have no equivalence in the target language, adopting a literal translation may not entirely convey the intended message. Abdul-Raof suggests that they should be translated either by transliteration, followed by exegetical notes, or by domestication and the use of periphrasis. He gives an interesting example (2005: 169): the Quranic expression ‘taymmum’ is absent from both the lexicon and culture of the target language (English), and needs to be paraphrased with an exegetical translation in order to convey an intelligible message. He refers to Asad’s (1980) translation: ‘Then, take resort to pure dust, passing therewith lightly over your face and your hands.’ When Muslims cannot find water for wadu (ablution) before prayer, they may resort to taymmum.
Shunnāq (1998) notes that it is difficult to find full equivalence in English for some Arabic terms, and maintains that translators may have to find English items that have partial equivalence. The following are some lexical examples from the Quran that are frequently translated into English: taqwa (God-fearing), saqar (hell), kufr, shirk (disbelief, idolatry), tawbah (repentance), ḥaqq (truth), zakāt (almsgiving/dues owed to the poor), sawm (fasting), ma’rūf (charity), munkar (wrong), ghayb (the unseen/the unknown) sunnah (prophetic tradition) and ẓulm (oppression). Abdul-Raof (2004: 94-95) states that the word ‘taqwa’ has no English equivalent as it not only means to be in awe of God but includes other spiritual aspects such as the love of God. He argues that Ali (1938) renders the word ‘muttaqīn’, a noun-agent derived from taqwa, unsuitably as ‘those who fear God’ (in surah Cow: 2) and ‘those who restrain themselves’ (in surah An-Nahl: 128), and recommends transliterating this expression, using a periphrastic (exegetic) translation to reduce the loss of meaning. Al-Hilali and Khan (1983) adopt this approach, employing transliteration followed by a periphrastic translation: ‘The pious and righteous persons who fear Allah much, abstain from all kinds of bad deeds which He has forbidden, and love Allah much, and perform all kinds of goods deeds which He has ordained.’
These problems are magnified when we turn to metaphors, which act by combining ideas, using a single characteristic for the identification of a complex entity. According to Lakoff and Johnson (2003), a metaphor is viewed as another whereas metonymy stands for another. Translators can find the use of metaphor in the Quran as problematic as metonymy, and they need to be aware of such figurative language if they are to avoid deforming its meaning.
Najjar (2012) has conducted a study of the effectiveness and accessibility of a sample of English translations of Quranic metaphors. He used three translations of the Quran – by Arberry (1996), Ali (1983) and Pickthall (2004) – and distributed questionnaires with the sample translations to his sixty-one participants. The study combined qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection, and used some exegetical materials, including those of Ibn Kathir, Al-Tabari and Al-Qurtubi. The results revealed that the majority of respondents found the metaphors ambiguous and inaccessible. One example was surah 6: 122:
       Awaman Kāna Maytāan Fa’aĥyaynāhu Wa Ja`alnā Lahu Nūrāan Yamshī Bihi Fī An-Nāsi Kaman Mathaluhu         Fī Až- Žulumāti Laysa Bikhārijin Minhā Kadhālika Zuyyina Lilkāfirīna Mā Kānū Ya`malūna
Can he who was dead, to whom We gave life, and a light whereby he can walk amongst men, be like him who is in       the depths of darkness, from which he can never come out? Thus, to those without faith their own deeds seem             pleasing. (Ali 1983)
Najjar (2012: 197-98) asserts that, according to the exegetical materials, the surah likens the believer to someone who has lived a misguided life, full of confusion, but is granted new life by Allah, who has directed them onto the right path and filled their heart with faith and happiness. The respondents were asked if they understood the meaning of the metaphor. Najjar noted that 16.1% fully understood and 29% roughly understood it, but 38.7% could not grasp its meaning and selected the option, ‘I only understand the meaning of the individual words.’ Meanwhile, 14.5% of the respondents could not understand the meaning at all, and selected the option, ‘It does not make sense.’
Elimam (2016) has conducted a similar comparative analysis of the translation of Quranic metaphors. He selected three English translations by Al-Hilali and Khan (2000), Ahmed Ali (2001) and Abdullah Yusuf Ali (2004), and consulted two exegetical works by Tafsir Al-Jalayn (2007) and Tanwir Al-Miqbas min Tafsir Ibn Abbas (2007). His findings showed that the majority of samples were not translated accurately and did not convey the meaning of the Arabic metaphors. Elimam adopted some of Newmark’s (1988) various strategies for translating Quranic metaphors. He found that the only way to retain the metaphorical images of the source language was to use Newmark’s third strategy of translating the term literally and then adding similes in the target language.
However, the above technique is sometimes insufficient because the source and target languages also differ in terms of their linguistic and cultural systems – the Arabic language is classified as a Semitic language whereas English is classified as a Germanic one. Both are far from each and a literal translation may not serve the purpose since some metaphors in the Quran have no direct equivalence and therefore, translators have to minimize the loss by employing free translation with different strategies and approximate the meaning into the target language. Although Elimam recommends the use of different tafsir to discover the hidden meaning of these metaphors, he himself only uses two books of tafsir, and this may not be sufficient for a better understanding of the different types of Quranic metaphors and their functions.
Semantic problems may also arise when attempting to render the Quran into English due to the difficulty of grasping the intended meaning of its metonymy. Fass (1997: 70) defines metonymy as ‘a form of indirect reference in which one entity is used to stand for another entity closely associated with it’.
Muhammed (2017) has conducted a comparative analysis of the translation of metonymic expressions in the Quran, evaluating the ways in which the authors of two English translations, Arberry (1955) and Al-Hilali and Khan (1997), use different strategies in an attempt to overcome linguistic obstacles and convey the meaning of these expressions informatively. He chose nine examples from surah An-Nisa, as well as four examples from other surahs, and consulted some exegetical works, including those of Al-Tabari (224-310), Ibn Kathir (701- ), Al-Qurtubi (600-671) and Al-Baghawi (436-510), and some useful translation dictionaries. His results revealed that the two translations mostly maintain lexical, semantic and grammatical equivalence but fail to fully convey the metonymic functions found in the Quranic Arabic. Muhammed recommends that Arberry, and Al-Hilali and Khan enhance their linguistic skills and enrich their knowledge of Arabic in order to understand the context and the message of the figurative language.
Muhammed appears to criticise Arberry’s, and Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translations for failing to transfer the complete meaning of metonymic expressions into the target language. Arguably, however, there can be no perfect or complete translations between languages, and the main task of the translator is to reduce the loss in the source language and approximate the meaning in the target language. According to Abdul-Raof (2001: 7), ‘A translator who aspires to achieve total lexical and/or textual equivalence is chasing a mirage: total equivalence at any level of language is impossible, relative equivalence at any level is possible.’ Moreover, Muhammed (2017: 50-52) does not seem to analyse these authors’ translation methods properly. For example, he cites an example from surah Al-A’raf (189):
Falammā Taghashāhā Ĥamalat Ĥamlāan
When he covered her, she bore a light burden. (Arberry 1955)
When he had sexual relations with her, she became pregnant. (Al-Hilali and Khan 1997)
Mohammed states that Arberry’s translation, ‘when he covers her’, does not convey the implicit meaning and loses the original metonymic effect, but he neither refers to the type of method Arberry uses nor supplies an alternative translation. Arberry in fact adopts a literal translation, as the word ‘taghasha’ literally means ‘covered’. Mohammed consulted a number of exegetical materials in his study but in this example he only cites Tantawi (1997), who introduces several meanings of the word ‘taghasha’ from a linguistic perspective but does not mention its theological meaning. Al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir, Al-Qurtubi and Al-Baghawi all explain that the verse refers to sexual relations that result in pregnancy. Mohammed then turns to an analysis of Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translation and claims that they use a direct literal translation, ‘he had sexual relations with her’, which does not convey the functional figurative equivalent of the source language. It could be argued, however, that Al-Hilali and Khan use a free translation technique that transfers the implicit meaning of the metonymy in a similar way to the exegetical works mentioned above as the word ‘taghasha’ is a classical Arabic and seems strange to the modern Arabic native speakers.
Meanwhile, Ali et al. (2012) focus on the translation of metonymy in the Quran and assert that metonymy serves a purpose as a useful substitution. They give an example from surah Al An’am (6):
Wa ‘Arsalnā As-Samā’a `Alayhim Midrārā
[A]nd how we loosed heaven upon them in torrents (Arberry: 1982)
For whom We poured out rain from the skies in abundance (Ali: 2000)
Ali and his co-authors state that the word ‘assāma’ (sky) is used here to refer to the intended meaning (rain) and serves as an indication of the heaviness of the rain. Arberry uses a literal translation, ‘loosed heaven’, which may have deformed the intended meaning of the metonymic phrase, while Ali renders the verse successfully by using the term ‘poured out rain from the skies in abundance’.

Overview of the selected translators
This study has selected three translations – out of the many English translations of the Quran available – for further analysis. Before turning to these, however, it is useful to understand the background of the translators and their qualifications as Arabic translators of the sacred text.
Muhammed M. Pickthall (1875-1936)
The first of these translations was completed by Muhammed Pickthall in 1930. Pickthall was born in 1875 in Suffolk. On the death of his father, when he was six, the family moved to London, and when he turned seventeen, he travelled to Egypt and Jerusalem, seeking a consular job in Palestine. While in Damascus, he developed an interest in Islam, and on his return, he converted and changed his name from William to Muhammed (Sadiq, 2010). Pickthall began his translation in 1928, and it was to take him two years (Sadiq, 2010). During this time, he consulted many European scholars, as well as travelling to Egypt in 1929 to obtain approval for his work from scholars at the Al-Azhar University, where he gained the support of Rasheed Rida (1865-1935), a Syro-Egyptian Muslim reformer. Pickthall’s English translation was published by Knopf in New York in 1930 under the title, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (Nash, 2017). The work was reprinted in many different countries: in 1938, the central press in Hyderabad published an edition with Arabic and English text and, in 1970, a Delhi-based publisher produced a trilingual version of Pickthall’s translation containing Arabic, Urdu and English (Clark, 2017).
Pickthall’s translation approach
Kidawi (2017) assesses Pickthall’s approach in translating the Quran that Pickthall, at times, did not wholly succeed in conveying the meaning of some culturally specific concepts and some of the legal discourse in the Quran. For example, he did not add any explanatory notes to clarify that the rite of animal slaughter forms part of the tradition of Islamic pilgrimage. Furthermore, in his treatment of Surah An-Nisa, which deals with women’s rights, Pickthall does not present any explanation, failing to show how the Quran established gender equality, giving Arab women entitlement to inheritance. A further shortcoming of his translation is that some of the footnotes are short and inaccurate, omitting important information. For instance, in Surah Al-Qasas (28: 15), which proclaims that Moses was guilty of a crime when he killed a Copt (an Egyptian Christian) – ‘So Moses struck him with his fist and killed him’ – Pickthall’s translation presents the prophet in a poor light. He should have clarified that Moses had unintentionally killed the Copt and that, as the Quran adds, he soon repented and Allah accepted his repentance.
Generally speaking, Pickthall seems to adopt a literal translation method and this approach may sometimes risk distorting the implicit meanings in the Quran and misleading the target reader.Pickthall (19:38: i) states that “the book is here rendered almost literally and every effort has been made to choose befitting language.” Indeed, Abdullah Ali (1975, xv) himself has criticized Pickthall for this omission, claiming that ‘he has added very few notes to elucidate the text. His rendering is almost literally.’
Abdullah Y. Ali (1872-1953)
The second English-language translation of the Quran selected for analysis is that of Abdullah Yusuf Ali (1934). Ali was born in 1872 in Surat, a textile town in Gujarat, western India (Sherif, 1994), into a family belonging to the Dawoodi Bohra sect, one of the Shi’ah Ismaili branches of Islam (Al-Khatib, 2010). He began studying the Quran and the Arabic language at the age of five, and was later sent to the Bombay Anjuman Islam School, one of the most prominent educational establishments in India, which was distinguished by the fact that it was open to students from different Islamic sects. Ali studied there for a short time before moving, in 1882, to the Welson English School, founded John Welson, a minister of the free Scottish church. Ali spent five years at the school before moving to Welson College, part of the University of Bombay, where he graduated in classical literature in 1891. He obtained a scholarship to pursue legal studies at St John’s College, Cambridge, and graduated with a higher degree in 1895 (Al-Khatib, 2010). His long and varied experience gave him a solid background in research and an understanding of how to express himself in a style of English that could be easily understood by Western non-Arabic speakers, which stood him in good stead when he came to translate the Quran into English in 1934. Ali’s publication appeared under the title The Holy Quran: An Interpretation in English and his translation of the Quran still remains one of the most popular in the English-speaking world, and it has been reprinted numerous times in many different countries, including India, the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon (Al-Khatib, 2010).
Ali’s translation approach
Al-Khatib’s (2010) critique of Ali’s translation of the Quran is focused on his adoption of semantic and literal approaches. Al-Khatib believes that the semantic approach ignores the target reader, who needs a more communicative translation to understand the message of the sacred text, while observing that Ali also adopts a literal translation technique at times, using footnotes to clarify the original text and a translation style that seems ‘overly poetic’ and ‘romantic’. His translation also contains a number of misunderstandings of sharia and Islamic doctrine. Al-Khatib (2010, 178) illustrates his criticism with the following example from Surah 44: 54: ‘So; and We shall join them to Companions with beautiful, big, and lustrous eyes’ (Ali: 1936). Al-Khatib (2010) notes that the Quranic text describes the bliss of paradise (for Muslim men) in terms of marrying the hūr (beautiful young women); however, Ali translates this verse as ‘join them to’ rather than ‘marry’, and also translates the word hūr as ‘companions’ rather than ‘wives’. More importantly, however, Ali comments that there are in fact no real people or objects – or any physical reality at all – in paradise. According to Al-Khatib, Ali also commits an error when translating Surah Az-Zukhruf as to ‘have satisfaction’, noting that he contravenes the rhetorical rules of Arabic which reject the use of metaphor and figurative language unless the literal meaning is unable to convey the intended message. In this verse, the correct meaning is ‘eat’ because it is collocated with fruit: ‘Ye shall have therein abundance of fruit, from which ye shall have satisfaction’ (Ali: 1936). Al-Khatib states that when he looked at other translations ¬– such as those by Pickthall, Al-Hilali and Khan, Arberry, Asad, and others – he found that all of them had translated the verb as ‘eat’, raising the question of why Ali chose to render it differently.
Overall, In the introduction to his work The Glorious Quran: Translation and Commentary (1934: 1975, xii-xiii), Ali refers to the most important tafsīrs or exegeses that he uses and also mentions from time to time in his footnotes. He states that some of these commentaries expound views with which he disagrees, and he therefore adopts only their general sense, Ali also confirms that he is aiming to transfer the meaning of the Quran, however, it does not seem that he adhers to certain method in translating the Quran.
Taqiuddin Al-Hilali (1893-1987) and Muhammed Khan (1927)
The third translation selected for discussion is that of Taqiuddin Al-Hilali and Muhsin Khan (1974). According to Jassem (2014), Al-Hilali and Khan produced their translation of the Quran whilst lecturing at the Islamic University of Madinah. The first edition comes in a short one-volume work, Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Quran in the English language, published in Istanbul. This was later expanded as a second edition consisting of nine volumes, published by the King Fahd Complex for Printing the Quran under the title, The Noble Quran: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary. Both translators shared a great interest in the language of the Quran and in the Quranic exegetic tradition (Nassimi, 2008).
Al-Hilali was born in 1891 in a village called al-Fidah in Morocco. By the time he was twelve, he had memorised the whole of the Quran. He later studied Arabic, the hadiths and the tajwaid (the rules of Quranic recitation) (Al-Jabari, 2008; Nassimi, 2008), completing his graduate studies in Egypt (Kidwai, 2007). Al-Khaleel (2005) relates that Al-Hilali then gained a doctorate at the University of Berlin, before travelling and living in Iraq, India and Egypt, pursuing his religious education (Nassimi, 2008).
Khan, meanwhile, was born in 1925 in Al-Qaur, a city in the Punjab in Pakistan (Fahad, 1995). Khan was of Afghani origin: his grandfather had fled the wars and tribal conflicts in Afghanistan (Nassimi, 2008). He gained a degree in medicine and surgery from the University of the Punjab in Lahore, and later a postgraduate diploma in respiratory medicine from the University of Wales (Kidwai, 2007). He then travelled to Saudi Arabia, where he worked as a hospital director for the ministry of health for fifteen years in Al-Ta’if and Medina, during the reign of King Abdul-Aziz (1900-1953). Elimam (2009) and Jassem (2014) assert that Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translation of the Quran has been reprinted many times by different publishers in many different countries.
Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translation approach
Kidwai (2007) assesses Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translation approach comments that it contains ‘useful notes culled from primary sources, elucidating a number of recurring Quranic terms and concepts, and inserting explanatory parenthetical phrases. However,Hawamdeh (2015) has conducted a study of Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translation of the first eight verses of the surah called ‘the Cave’. He argues that the cohesive explicitness of their translation clarifies the ambiguity of the Arabic in the Quranic text and narrows the gap between the Arabic and English. Nevertheless, the use of these techniques can tend towards over-translation, meaning that the target reader receives too much information, which may prove a hindrance to their understanding of the text. As such, Hawamdeh believes that it is often better to adopt a translation approach that limits the use of information and explanatory text contained in parantheses. He indicates two instances of parenthetical cohesive explicitness that occur in Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translation which could potentially confuse the reader:
Al-ḥamdu li-llāhi lladhy ʾanzala ʿalā ʿabdihi l-kitāba wa-lam yajʿal lahū ʿiwajā (18: 1)
“All praise and thanks be to Allah, who has sent down to His slave (Muhammed) the Book (the Quran), and has not placed therein any crookedness”. (Al-Hilali and Khan, 1974: 1996, 164, cited in Hawamdeh, 2015, 164)
Hawamdeh argues that the addition of ‘Muhammed’ in parantheses is based upon a lexical reiterative relationship between the source-language/target-language units: the former entails ‘His slave’ and the latter is a referential nominal subordinate – ‘Muhammed’ – which can replace the former. The author also notes that the word ‘Quran’ in the target language is a referential nominal subordinate which can replace ‘the book’ in the source language. Consequently, both the brackets and the word ‘thanks’ may create cohesive explicitness but are possibly confusing to a non-Arabic-speaking reader. He considers that a more appropriate translation would be:
“All praises be to Allah, who has sent down the Quran to Muhammed, and has not placed therein any crookedness”. (Hawamdeh, 2015, 164)
One of the shortcomings of their translation is that Al-Hilali and Khan (1996) do not refer in their introduction either to the method or the strategies they adopt in the translation, despite the fact that throughout the text they use intensive footnotes and parentheses as well as other translation techniques, such as borrowing and compensation. In these footnotes and commentaries, they also cite the narrations of the Prophet Mohammed as rendered in the hadiths of Al-Bukhari and Muslim, and sometimes refer to other books where more information can be found. They seem mainly depend on the free translation method; however, on some occasions, they include repetition and a redundancy of explanation which may serve to confuse target readers.
There are three main reasons for selecting these three translations by the authors whose lives and work are summarised above. Firstly, they are the translations most commonly used by both academics and non-academics as they are readily available in university libraries, mosques and online (Kidwai, 2007, 2017; Al-Khatib, 2010). Its popularity and the range of its distribution means that the work of Al-Hilali and Khan (1974), in particular, is the one of the most widespread of all Quranic translations in the English-speaking world, partly due to the fact that copies of it are printed and distributed free by the Saudi government (Khaleel, 2005). Secondly, the translators all come from different backgrounds: for instance, Pickthall is a native English speaker, whereas Al-Hilali is a native Arabic speaker, and Khan learnt Urdu and English and then Arabic, while Ali is of Indian origin and, similar to Khan, first learnt Urdu and English before mastering the Arabic language. An understanding of the authors’ varied backgrounds can help in identifying whether the original language (and cultural context) of the translator has an effect on their work. Thirdly, the translations by Ali and Pickthall were first published in the first half of the twentieth century, and they used the somewhat archaic English of the time, while the first translation of Al-Hilali and Khan was completed in the second half of the twentieth century, by which time modern English had become standard and translation studies was already establishing itself as an academic discipline. This can explain some of the differences between the translations, particularly since there is a time span of around forty years between the versions.

Analysis and discussion
In the following section, I examine some Quranic lexical items, metaphors and metonymic words, which are difficult to be grasped. The study uses a semantic analysis to determine their meanings, followed by an evaluation of the methods the authors of three selected translations (Pickthall, Al-Hilali and Khan, and Ali) use to render these phrases into English.
(1) Quranic lexical words and their translation
Wa Attaqū Allāha Al-Ladhī Tatasā’alūna Bihi Wa Al-‘Arĥāma ‘Inna Allāha Kāna `Alaykum Raqībāan                        (An-Nisa: 1)
Be careful of your duty toward Allah in Whom ye claim (your rights) of one another, and toward the wombs (that        bear you). Lo! Allah hath been a watcher over you. (Pickthall 1938)
Reverence Allah, through whom ye demand your mutual (rights), and (reverence) the wombs (that bore you): for        Allah ever watches over you. (Ali 1975)
Fear Allah through Whom you demand your mutual (rights), and (do not cut the relations of) the wombs                        (kinship). Surely, Allah is Ever an All-Watcher over you. (Al-Hilali and Khan 1996)
Semantic analysis
DAEQU (2008: 355) describes the word ‘arĥām’ as possessing two different meanings, depending on its position in the Quran. One meaning can be seen in surah 3: 6, ‘It is He who shapes you in the womb as He wills’, while the other appears in surah 47: 22,in that DAEQU cites the last part of this verse, in which Allah warns us not to sever connections with our relatives ‘wa tuqaţţi`ū ‘arĥāmakum’. According to Ibn Kathir (1997, 1: 396), Al-Tabari (1997, 2: 491) and Al-Qurtubi (2006, 6: 16-17), al-‘arĥām implies here that we should fear breaking the bonds of kinship. As Al-Razi (1955, 5: 173) explains, referring to another verse in the Quran with the same meaning (Muhammed: 22), ‘Would you then, if you were given the authority, do mischief in the land, and sever your ties of kinship?’ (Al-Hilali and Khan 1996).
Evaluation of the translations
The word ‘al-‘arĥāma’ means both kinship (relatives) and womb, and either meaning can be used, depending on the context. In this case, Pickthall does not seem to have mastered the Arabic language, as he translates al-‘arĥāma literally as ‘the wombs (that bear you)’, deviating from the intended meaning of kinship. As a result, his translation risks leaving target readers confused. Likewise, Ali uses a literal translation, ‘and (reverence) the wombs (That bore you)’, and adds in a footnote that mothers and wives should be treated with respect. He does not appear to have been aware of the intended meaning of this lexical item as explained by the exegetes. As Larson asserts:
A literal translation is useful if one is studying the structure of the source text as in an interlinear translation, but a literal translation does not communicate the meaning of the source text. It is generally no more than a string of words intended to help someone read a text in its original language. It is unnatural and hard to understand, and may even be quite meaningless, or give a wrong meaning in the receptor language. (Larson 1984: 10)
Unlike Pickthall and Ali, Al-Hilali and Khan use a free translation method, inserting paraphrases that illuminate the intended meaning: ‘and (do not cut the relations of) the wombs (kinship)’. They also use a calque translation with the word ‘wombs’ followed by a paraphrase. This technique is useful in that it explains the original concept, heightening the target reader’s awareness. Their translation accords with that suggested by a reading of the exegetical works. This type of translation related to Nord’s model of text analysis in translation- that they have taken into consideration some external factors such as the intention of the author in both languages as well as the medium since the message has been appropriately transferred to the target audience. Al-Hilali and Khan analysed the ST function and provided a compatible TT function by inserting two paraphrases and they have also taken into an account some internal factors such as presuppositions, content and lexis that the word (wombs) refers to a source language culture that includes an implicit meaning.
(2) Quranic lexical words and their translation
Qāla Yā Qawmi Hā’uulā’ Banātī Hunna ‘Aţharu Lakum Fa Attaqū Allāha Wa Lā Tukhzūnī Fī Đayfī (Hud: 78)
He said: O my people! Here are my daughters! They are purer for you. Beware of Allah, and degrade me not in              (the person of) my guests. (Pickthall 1975)
He said: O my people! Here are my daughters: they are purer for you (if ye marry)! Now fear Allah, and cover me        not with shame about my guests! (Ali 2002)
He said: O my people! Here are my daughters (i.e. the daughters of my nation), they are purer for you (if you                marry them lawfully). So fear Allah and degrade me not as regards my guests! (Al-Hilali and Khan 1996)
Semantic analysis
DCAL (2008: 1417) states that the meaning of ‘tahar’ [noun] is ‘purity, while DAEQU (2008: 574) clarifies its primary meaning of ‘purity or cleanse’ by explaining that ‘yathur’ [imperf. v., intran.] [jur.] means to perform ritual cleansing or to be ritually cleansed, while ‘tahur’ [adjective] indicates that something is exceptionally pure, as in surah 76: 21: ‘And their lord will give them to drink of a most pure drink.’ Ibn Kathir (1997, 2: 389), Al-Tabari (1997, 4: 384) and Al-Qurtubi (2006, 11: 178) explain the phrase ‘purer for you’ in the context of the above verse. They claim that the men among Lot’s people were known for their sexual preference for men rather than women, so when the angels came to visit the prophet in the shape of handsome young men, they crowded at his door, trying to gain entry. Lot held them back, saying: ‘O my people! Here are my daughters: they are purer for you.’ The exegetes assert that Lot wanted to guide them into lawfully marrying his daughters instead, but Ibn Kathir and Al-Tabari claim that he offered the ‘daughters of his nation’ in marriage, not his own daughters – prophets are often considered as the father of their people. Al-Razy (1995, 9: 33-34) agrees that it is more likely that Lot meant the former, arguing that Allah says in surah 33: 6 ‘his [Mohammed’s] wives are their [believers’] mothers’ (Al-Hilali and Khan 1996), where it is clear that the Prophet is their metaphorical father. He further elaborates that a prophet would be unlikely to offer his own daughters to such people.
Evaluation of the translations
Pickthall has rendered the phrase ‘they are purer for you’ literally, and does not clarify what is meant by ‘purer’ in this context. This may confuse target readers as the translation is vague and does not imply marriage to Lot’s ‘daughters’. Unlike Pickthall, Ali and Al-Hilali and Khan render the phrase more appropriately by inserting the paraphrases ‘if ye marry!’ and ‘if you marry them lawfully’. These free translations convey the implicit meaning and render the message more accessible to the target audience. Nida and Taber (2003: 12) recommend that ‘translating must aim primarily at “reproducing the message”. To do anything else is essentially false to one’s task as a translator’. A free translation is when the translator reads the source text and understands its meanings and produces the same meaning in the target language with different words and a different word order to make natural sounding message to the target audience. Translators should be aware that literal translation may not necessarily convey the intended meaning of a word or phrase.
(3) Quranic metaphorical words and their translation
Fī Qulūbihim Marađun Fazādahumu Allāhu Marađāan Wa Lahum `Adhābun ‘Alīmun Bimā Kānū Yakdhibūna        (Cow: 10).
In their hearts is a disease, and Allah increaseth their disease. A painful doom is theirs because they lie.                          (Pickthall  1938)
In their hearts is a disease; and Allah has increased their disease: And grievous is the penalty they (incur),                      because they are false (to themselves). (Ali 1975)
In their hearts is a disease (of doubt and hypocrisy) and Allah has increased their disease. A painful torment is              theirs because they used to tell lies. (Al-Hilali and Khan 1996)
Semantic analysis
The word ‘mariđ’ is an adjective (literally, sick) that is commonly used in modern Arabic to describe someone unworthy who does not behave appropriately towards others. Hence, native Arabic speakers would understand the original phrase without needing to check the exegetical materials. However, it may be difficult for non-Arabic speakers to understand its meaning without the aid of tafsir. DCAL (2008) describes marađ as implying hypocrisy and doubt, whereas DAEQU (2008: 772) says that ‘fī qulūbihim maraḍun’ means ‘those who are corrupt at heart’ (literally, ‘those in whose hearts is sickness’). The word ‘maraḍun’ (literally, disease) refers to a spiritual sickness. In this verse, it implies someone who hypocritically pretends to be a believer but secretly harbours doubts about the Prophet and Islam, as Ibn Khathīr (1997, 1: 60), Al-Ṭabarī (1997, 1: 120) and Al-Qurṭubī (2006, 1: 299-300) note in their commentaries. Al-Qurtubi further elaborates that the word ‘disease’ is a metaphorical way of saying that someone’s belief has been corrupted, and Al-Tabari confirms that there are two types of disease: physical disease that damages the body and spiritual disease that damages religious faith.
Evaluation of the translations
Pickthall adopts a literal translation of the word, rendering it as ‘disease’. This risks deforming the meaning of the phrase if disease is understood in the physical sense. Likewise, Ali also renders the phrase literally, ‘In their hearts is a disease’, but he follows it with a semantic translation in a footnote. Nevertheless, the footnote does not immediately supply the explanation mentioned by the exegetes and includes redundant information. Al-Hilali and Khan, however, render the phrase successfully by inserting a paraphrase that illuminates the implied meaning: ‘In their hearts is a disease (of doubt and hypocrisy).’ Their free translation successfully approximates the meaning in the target language. Al-Hilali and Khan’s translation is related to Nord’s model of text analysis in translation. As such, they have analysed external and internal factors within the source and target texts and produced the effects of the source text function into the target text. They have taken into consideration factors such as recipient, medium, text function, subject matter, content, lexis, and presuppositions. Therefore, they conveys the contextual meaning informatively to the target audience. As Nida and Taber assert:
Since words cover areas of meaning and are not mere points of meaning, and since in different languages the semantic areas of corresponding words are not identical, it is inevitable that the choice of the right word in the receptor language to translate a word in the source-language text depends more on the context than upon a fixed system of verbal consistency. (Nida and Taber 1982: 15)
(4) The Quranic metaphorical words and their translation
Tatajāfá Junūbuhum `Ani Al-Mađāji`i Yad`ūna Rabbahum Khawfāan Wa Ţama`āan Wa Mimmā                             Razaqnāhum          Yunfiqūna (Al-Sajdah: 16)
Who forsake their beds to cry unto their Lord in fear and hope, and spend of that We have bestowed on them.               (Pickthall 1938)
Their limbs do forsake their beds of sleep, the while they call on their Lord, in Fear and Hope: and they spend (in         charity) out of the sustenance which We have bestowed on them. (Ali 1975)
Their sides forsake their beds, to invoke their Lord in fear and hope, and they spend (charity in Allah’s Cause) out        of what We have bestowed on them. (Al-Hilali and Khan 1996)
Semantic analysis
DAEQU (2008: 173) interprets the meaning of ‘tatajāfá junūbuhum `ani al-mađāji’ as ‘They forsake their beds [literally, kept their sides off their beds], they spent the night in prayer.’ According to Al-Qurṭubī (2006, 17: 28-29), the clause is a metaphor meaning ‘they go to worship, leaving their beds to perform the night prayer (qiyam al-layl)’ (Ibn Khathīr 1997, 3: 402; Al-Rāzī 1995, 13: 180; Al-Ṭabarī 1997, 6: 156). Al-Rāzī (1995, 13: 180) states that ‘yadʿwna’ (literally, to supplicate) means in this verse ‘to invoke’.
Evaluation of the translations
Al-Hilali and Khan, and Ali render this metaphor appropriately by using a calque translation followed by a free translation, with footnotes clarifying its implicit meaning (which accords with that found in the above-mentioned exegeses). Unlike Ali and Al-Hilali and Khan, Pickthall adopts a literal translation that does not convey the accurate meaning of the original text, and the verse would likely be inaccessible or unintelligible to the target audience. In this case, literal translation is form-based translation attempts to follow the form of the source language and serves to obscure the implicit message of the verse because , as Nida and Taber (1982, 16) rightly observe, the ‘literal rendering is both unnatural and misleading’. Free translation can preserves the meanings of the original and uses natural forms of the target language so that the translation can be naturally informative. Translators need to preserve the function and effect of the Quranic discourse to preserve the intended meaning, and therefore, Nord ‘s model of text analysis is useful to be applied in this situation.
(5) The Quranic metaphorical words and their translation
Wa ‘Ammā Al-Ladhīna Abyađđat Wujūhuhum Fafī Raĥmati Allāhi Hum Fīhā Khālidūna (The House of Imran          3: 107)
And for those whose faces will become white, they will be in Allah’s Mercy (Paradise), therein they shall dwell              forever. (Al-Hilali and Khan 1974: 1996)
And as for those whose faces have been whitened, in the mercy of Allah they dwell for ever. (Pickthall 1930: 1938)
But those whose faces Will be [lit with] white – they will be in [the light of] God’s mercy: therein to dwell [for                ever]. (Ali 1934: 1975)
Semantic analysis
According to DCAL (2008: 270), ‘abyāḍḍa allaun’ (literally, ‘whitening the colour’) means ‘to turn white and gradually become shining’, and the term ‘a face becomes white’ means that it brightens with delight and joy. DAEQU (2008, 1014), meanwhile, gives the meaning of this phrase as ‘some faces will be delighted’, referring to those whose faces have become radiant with joy. According to Ibn Khathīr (1997, 1: 346), Al-Ṭabarī (1997, 2: 353) and Al-Qurṭubī (2006, 5: 258), this verse describes the situation on the Last Day when the faces of sinners will darken with sorrow, in anticipation of their punishment, while the faces of those who have followed Allah’s commands – abstaining from bad deeds and abiding by the sunnah – will become radiant with joy as they feel ‘rahmati allahi’ (Allah’s mercy) and enter paradise. Al-Rāzī (1995, 4: 186-87) adds that in modern Arabic the phrase ‘andī yad bīḍa’ (literally, ‘I have a white hand’) means ‘I will give you something that will delight you’, and that ‘abyaḍḍa wajhuhu’ (‘his face has become white’) is used to refer to someone who is delighted because of their success. Thus, the phrase ‘alhamdu lil Allahi aladhī byyaḍa wajhaka’ (‘thank God that He turned your face white’) is used when congratulating someone.
Evaluation of the translations
None of the three translators render the metaphorical meaning appropriately; they all adopt a literal translation strategy that does not convey the implicit meaning of ‘abyaḍḍat wujwhuhum’. As a result, target readers may struggle to grasp its true sense. However, this type of translation would not be a problem for most native Arabic speakers who would be aware of the implicit meaning of the collocation, especially as it is common in Arabic culture to use synonymous religious terms in everyday speech. For example, the term ‘lightened faces’ is often used to indicate that someone is pious and Allah is satisfied in them. Ali (1975: viii), commenting on the particular difficulties of translating the Quran, observes: ‘Classical Arabic has a vocabulary in which the meaning of each root-word is so comprehensive that it is difficult to interpret it in a modern analytical language word for word, or by the use of the same word in all places where the original word occurs in the text.’ When it comes into the figurative language that includes an allegorical meaning, Nord’s model of text analysis is useful to be applied in such situations that the external and internal factors being analysed. Thus, this enables the translator to convey the implicit meaning adequately and helps to choose an appropriate strategy and conveys the message suitably to the target audience. If factors such as recipient, medium, motive, text function, content, and presupposition being analysed in the above example and target text, the appropriate translation of the metaphor ‘abyaḍḍat wujwhuhum’ could be ‘delighted faces’.
Baker (1992: 26) suggests that a good strategy in such instances is to substitute a specific word with a more general one, ‘one of the commonest strategies for dealing with many types of non-equivalence, particularly in the area of propositional meaning’. Hence, free translation can allow the translator to use different techniques to convey the message suitably to the target audience such as paraphrase, explanatory notes, footnotes, descriptive and functional equivalence and other techniques. This approach is not necessarily follow closely the form of the source text.
(6) Quranic metonymic words and their translation
       Faqāla ‘Innī ‘Aĥbabtu Ĥubba Al-Khayri `An Dhikri Rabbī Ĥattá Tawārat Bil-Ĥijābi (Sad: 32)
And he said: Lo! I have preferred the good things (of the world) to the remembrance of my Lord; till they were              taken out of sight behind the curtain. (Pickthall 1983)
And he said: Truly do I love the love of good, with a view to the glory of my Lord – until (the sun) was hidden in          the veil (of night). (Ali 1975)
And he said: Alas! I did love the good (these horses) instead of remembering my Lord (in my ‘Asr prayer) till the          time was over, and (the sun) had hidden in the veil (of night). (Al-Hilali and Khan 1996)
Semantic analysis
Al-Tha’ālibi (1998: 357) asserts that Arabic discourse in the Quran sometimes contains metonymies that have not been mentioned previously in the text. He refers to the verse ‘until [it] was hidden behind the hijab’ (Sad: 32), meaning ‘hidden behind the sun’, as an example. This verse contains two metonymies: one is a metonymy of a word with a metaphorical meaning that has been referred to earlier in the surah, but the other metaphorical sense needs to be intuited from the text as the word is not mentioned. In surah 31, the prophet Salomon is said to be preoccupied in watching a display of horsemanship during the day, and in surah 32, he blames himself for forgetting the evening prayer due to watching the exhibition until the sun set and night fell (Ibn Khathīr 1997, 4: 31; Al-Tabari 1997, 6: 401; Al-Qurtubi 2006, 18: 193-94; Al-Rāzy 1995, 13: 206). The implicit meaning of the word ‘hijāb’ (veil), which is mentioned in the original text of the Quran, is ‘night came’. However, the word ‘sun’ is a second metonymy, whose denotative has not been mentioned previously.
Evaluation of the translations
Pickthall builds his analysis of this verse literally, as the first clause of the original text says, ‘I loved the good things [these horses] rather than remembering my Lord’ (my translation), and also, ‘until [it] was hidden behind [a] hijab’. It appears that Pickthall encountered problems when trying to grasp the meaning of the two metonymies in the second clause as he uses the subject pronoun ‘they’ when in fact the metonymy has not been mentioned before and the second clause is in the passive voice. Pickthall believes that it refers to the horses, and he also renders the word ‘hijab’ as ‘curtain’. This literal translation may present target readers with an ambiguous interpretation. Thus, metonymy can give rise to difficulties: translators frequently fail to contextualise the implicit meaning and instead use a literal translation method, leading to confusion. In such cases, the exegetical materials are particularly useful in helping decipher the intended meaning. Abdel-Raof (2001: 30) maintains that ‘translating the Quran, therefore, requires a thorough exegetical analysis and reference to exegetical works, otherwise the meaning of the Quran will be distorted and drastically mispresented in the target language’.
Ali, and Al-Hilali and Khan render the two metonymies informatively (in accord with the above exegeses), taking into account the contextual meaning, and their free translation is effective because they use the two paraphrases ‘the sun’ and ‘of night’. Free translation is not strictly adheres to the form of the source text and context or the direct meanings of the words, but seeks for the spirit and the message of the source text to be transferred into the target text.
(7) Quranic metonymic words and their translation
Yawma’idhin Yawaddu Al-Ladhīna Kafarū Wa `Aşaw Ar-Rasūla Law Tusawwá Bihimu Al-‘Arđu Wa Lā                    Yaktumūna Allāha Ĥadīthāan (Al-Nisa: 42)
On that day those who reject faith and disobey the Apostle will wish that the earth were made one with them: but        never will they hide a single fact from God! (Ali 1975)
On that day those who disbelieved and disobeyed the messenger will wish that they were level with the ground,            and they can hide no fact from Allah. (Pickthall 1938)
On that day those who disbelieved and disobeyed the Messenger (Muhammad ) will wish that they were buried in        the earth, but they will never be able to hide a single fact from Allah. (Al-Hilali and Khan 1996)
Semantic analysis
‘Tusawwá bi al-‘arđ’ (literally, ‘level with the ground’) refers to a feeling of deep regret or guilt. It is an expression known to most modern-day Arabic speakers, who often use a similar idiom, ‘I wished the earth would swallow me’, when they recount a particularly bad or embarrassing experience. However, the concept may be difficult for all non-Arabic speakers, apart from specialists in Islamic terminology, to understand unless it is translated freely; it may not be part of their culturally idiomatic speech. Ibn Kathir (1997, 1: 439), Al-Razy (1995, 5: 111), Al-Tabari (1997, 2: 606) and Al-Qurtubi (2006, 6: 327) assert that ‘tusawwá bihimu al-’arđu’ means that on the day of resurrection, when every act stands revealed, disbelievers will wish they were under the ground, alongside those who have died and been buried, rather than be confronted with their shameful or scandalous acts and suffer the consequent punishment.
Evaluation of the translations
In the above translations, Pickthall uses a literal method, ‘they were level with the ground’, which could lead target readers to wrongly believe that the phrase refers to disbelievers who wish to humble themselves before Allah by bowing down to the earth. Like Pickthall, Ali renders the phrase literally as ‘the earth were made one with them’, followed by a semantic translation stating that ‘they might like to hide in the dust’. He appears to deviate from the accurate information given in the exegeses, and his translation contains redundant information rather than an essential explanation. On the other hand, Al-Hilali and Khan succeed in rendering the contextual meaning of the phrase by translating it freely as ‘they were buried in the earth’, allowing the target audience to grasp its implicit meaning. As Beekman and Callow (1974: 67) assert:
Before the procedure for analysing the components of meaning can be described, it is necessary to bring into focus certain universal features of vocabularies. An understanding of these features is important to the translator as he looks for ways of expressing accurately the concepts of the original which he is translating into the RL [receptor language]. (Beekman and Callow 1974: 67)

Research findings
The current study has analysed seven translations of lexical items, and metaphors and metonymic words containing implicit meanings, and has found that the translators did not adhere to a specific translation method or strategy. It appears that, because they found it difficult to grasp the culturally specific and implicit sense of the metaphors and metonymic words, and some of the lexical items, they mainly used a variety of procedures. The results of the study indicate that the most frequently used approach to rendering the implicit meaning of lexical items, metaphors and metonymic words was that of literal translation, and this led to a significant loss of the intended meaning, distorting the entire translation. The analysis also shows that the most appropriate method of rendering the intended meaning of some of the lexical items, metaphors and metonymic words that appear in the Quran is that of free translation. The most important characteristic of this approach is its focus on the text’s intended meaning and effect, as well as the intentions of the author. It concentrates on transferring the content of the original text into English without paying much attention to the grammatical structure.
The findings also confirm that the time in which the selected translations were produced affected their style. For example, the translations of Pickthall and Ali appear to be written in an archaic form of English. Moreover, it is important to note that their translations of the Quran were produced in the first half of the twentieth century: Pickthall’s translation was first published in 1930, while Ali’s was first published in 1934. These works, therefore, appeared in the period before translation studies first emerged in the second half of the twentieth century and began to develop systematic translation theories and methods. Pickthall’s approach is the more literal, with word-for-word translation. In these examples, he uses only a literal translation method and does not employ any other translation strategies and his approach to the translations is entirely source text-oriented. Ali, on the other hand, does not seem to have followed any specific method or strategy when rendering the implicit meanings of the selected collocations into English: sometimes, he uses literal translation; at others, he adopts semantic translation; and at still other times, he uses free translation. For example, he uses a literal translation three times and a semantic translation one time and a free translation three times.
Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translation approach, in contrast, appears to be mainly target text-oriented, and consequently adheres to the method of free translation, placing essential descriptive information in parentheses, footnotes or as a paraphrase. In the examples analysed in this study, they use a free translation method six times, and a literal translation one time. Al-Hilali’s and Khan’s translation was produced in the second half of the twentieth century – in 1974 – and may have benefited from contemporary academic studies of translation theory and methods, as their style appears modern and they use paraphrases and footnots strategies in their translation of the intended meaning of the lexical items and metaphors and metonymic words. Al-though Al-Hilali, as a native Arabic speaker, was more aware of the language in which the Quran written, does not succeed with Khan in conveying the implicit meaning of one of the samples in this study.
The analysis of the metaphor in surah 3: 107, for example, shows that none of the translators appear to grasp the contextual meaning of ‘abyaḍḍat wujwhuhum’, and consequently resort to a literal translation, ‘faces will become white’, which obscures the meaning. In most cases, target readers would find it difficult to discern the implicit meaning of this verse without an explanation, otherwise the translation would sound culturally alien to them. This underlines the fact that translators of the Quran have to constantly bear in mind that they are not translating the text for Arabic speakers, who may sometimes understand the contextual background.
Nord’s model of text analysis in translation can act as a guide for future translators, helping them grasp the implicit meaning of some lexical items, metaphors and metonymic words in the Quran, particularly as it takes into consideration both external and internal factors when analysing a text. Nord reminds us that the source-language recipient differs from the target-language recipient in at least in two aspects: cultural background and linguistic community, and therefore the translator should make adjustments when translating from the source language. For example, the analysis of the metonymic sample, surah 4: 42, shows that Al-Hilali and Khan produced an appropriate translation, ‘they were buried in the earth’, which takes into account both external and internal factors. Among such external factors are the author’s intention and the motives or reasons behind the production of the text, as well as the medium that the translators use to convey the information explicitly to the recipients. In other words, in some of the Quranic verses, the purpose of revelation is an important factor, and this function should apply to both source and target text, ensuring that they are compatible. This translation model also takes into consideration internal factors, such as content and presuppositions (cultural objects), as well as lexical categories (such as metonymy), and its application is very useful when translating figurative language in the Quran that includes metaphors, metonymy, polysemy, collocations and culturally specific expressions, as well as other lexical items that include more than one meaning or contain implicit meanings.
In summary, this study reveals that the selected translators encountered problems in rendering some of the samples of Quranic lexical items, metaphors and metonymic words into English, and concludes that in such cases they should avoid literal translation and adopt a free-translation approach. Moreover, it shows that it is imperative that the translator has a deep understanding of the language of the Quran, as invaluable information is embedded in its particular linguistic structure. For this reason, exegetical books are a vital tool for deciphering the intended meanings of Quranic verses. The current study has only analysed seven examples, further research is needed for an in-depth analysis of other lexical items and metaphors and metonymic words in the Quran.

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