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ABSTRACT
Scholarly works on Qur’an translation are predominately focused on the linguistic aspects of translation. Such a reductive approach incurs neglecting other, not less important, aspects of Qur’an translation. This study focuses on the social aspects, particularly the translator’s image, its initial construction and development in order to understand Qur’an translation’s role as a social activity. Drawing on Louis Althusser’s notion of interpellation Althusser (1971), this article studies translation as part of the ideological aspects that influence the process of “becoming” translators, thus their agency. Such an understanding illuminates how the actual process of “becoming” is germane to power relations and frameworks of beliefs and assumptions. As a case study, this article analyzes 21st-century translators’ profiles as advertised on online platforms, such as the publishing company’s website. Overall, the findings demonstrate that the Qur’an translator is presented as a religious-scholar-translator and that the understanding of who is “eligible” to translate the Qur’an is embedded in a larger narrative of the past.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Yazid Haroun
Yazid Haroun is an academic writer who recently earned a PhD in Translation Studies from Durham University. His current research focuses on the operation of ideology at the level of Qur’an translation in the process of political mobilization. He is particularly interested in what a focus on ideology and religion can bring to understanding the notion of translation as a social activity.
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