Mansour Harb

Problems in Translating Pilgrimage Hadiths: Culture and Equivalence Mansour Harb

The study aimed at showing the translatability of some Islamic religious expressions from Arabic into English and to evaluate the translation of some selected pilgrimage Hadiths and the major problems that translators encounter. The researcher concentrated on two main dimensions: culture and equivalence. The data of this study were collected from a book entitled "Fiqh as-sunnah."(1971 ??? ?????) Thirty Hadiths- relative to pilgrimage- were purposefully chosen. They were classified and analyzed according to two major dimensions: culture and equivalence. Each dimension of the Hadith translation was discussed separately with a number of illustrative examples. The conclusion was that it is difficult to render religious expressions due to linguistic and cultural differences. Accordingly, Islamic-specific terms should not be translated; instead, the Arabic form should be retained in English and the meaning should be paraphrased either by a definition or a descriptive translation. This is to suggest that partial equivalents do not serve the purpose of translation.