TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH INDIAN ISLAMIC MARRIAGE CONTRACTS INTO ARABIC

Abstract

The translation of Islamic marriage contracts from English into Arabic is an actual issue for an ordinary translator and even for a legal translator. Almost all translators in such a field of translation face the difficulty of grasping the straight and accurate equivalence in Arabic for specific linguistic terms. This problematic issue lies in the differences between the English legal system and the Arabic legal system. Another essential problem that legal translators usually face is the translating of items that are related directly to Islamic shariah and Islamic culture. The present research evaluates and inquiries about three translations for a sample of an English International Islamic marriage contract that is officially utilized by Muslims of India and translated by three MA Students who have master's degrees in translation. It is noteworthy to note that the assessment of these sample translations is defended on Peter Newmark's (1981) approach of Semantic and Communicative translation which is widely used in translating texts of languages from two different families such as English and Arabic. In closing, following the communicative procedure is the most equivalent option according to the context on one hand. On the other hand, the Semantic procedure is only acceptable when there is already a direct rendition for the items of ST into TT, So, Communicative is usually used in case of absence of equivalence. Or semantic procedure leads to translation non-identical from that of the source languages