An-Najah Staff

The continuous growth of Islam and its wide spread throughout the world has called for the need to translate the Quran. The necessity for translating the Quran lies in the fact that the teachings of Islam are found within the verses of the Quran; it is the true guide for all Muslims around the world. A large number of translations of the Quran are found in libraries and book stores carried out by Muslims and non-Muslims from different tongues and cultures. Having a large number of translations for the same book raises the question of why all the translations are not the same. This is due to the highly elevated language of the Quran and the Arabic language used in its verses with its rhetorical devices. The dissertation tries to shed some light on how the Quran should be translated and what methods of translation are to be followed when dealing with its verses. The study is based on the comparison of three translations of the Quran regarding the semantic and pragmatic issues found in surat “Yusuf”. The aim is to discover areas in which the translators were unable to capture the intended meaning of a verse due to semantic or pragmatic reasons present in the verse. The comparison is carried out in the light of some of the most important exegeses of the Quran along with important books of Arabic rhetoric and grammar. The study does not aim at judging the works of the three translators; it aims at pinpointing cases that are problematic in Quran translation so as to produce translations that are more accurate and more incongruence with the established canon of Quranic exegeses .