The Arabic Hyperbolic Pattern 'Fa??al' in Two Recent Translations of the Qur'an

Abstract

The present study addresses the problem of rendering the فعال'fa??al' hyperbolic pattern into English in two recent translations of the Qur'an. Due to the variety of Qur'an translations and the large amount of hyperbolic forms of Arabic verbs recorded in the Qur'an, only two translations of the Qur'an are consulted and analyzed: these two translations, namely Saheeh International Translation (1997) and Prof. Abdel-Haleem's (2004), are distinguished by the fact that they are recent and well-received. Moreover, the investigation of hyperbolic forms is confined to the Arabic formفعال    'fa??al'. The study reveals that the Saheeh translator has applied morphological shifting in many examples while Abdel-Haleem's translation exhibits a considerable amount of syntactic transposition, coupled with paraphrasing. The test of accuracy as administered here is to give a clear picture of the need to pay particular attention to hyperboles of the form examined and other ones not analyzed here for limitations of space.