History of Translation in the

Arab World

2nd Century The early translations used in Arabic

are dated back to the time of the Syrians.

According to Addidaoui, Jarjas was one of the best Syrian translators. He translated Aristotle’s book In The World.

The time of Prophet Mohamed is of importance for translation history.

One of the most famous translators of the time is Zaid Ibnu Thabet.

Another era that knew significant changes in Arabic translation was related to the translation of the Koran.

Despite the proliferation of the Koran translations, this matter was and is still the point of many debates and conflicts in the Arab world.

The core of the conflicts that existed and still exist in the translation of Koran is related to the reason behind translation itself, whether to use the translation as a way to teach the principles of Islam or to use it in praying and legislation was the difficult choice that faced translators.

1st Abbasid period

Translation knew an enhancement with the Caliph Al-Mansour, who built the city of Baghdad. It was also developed in the time of the Caliph Al-Ma’moun, who built ‘Bait Al Hikma’, which was the greatest institute of translation at that time.

Al-Jahid

One of the greatest theorists in translation

“The translator should know the structure of the speech, habits of the people and their ways of understanding each other.”

Stressed the importance of revision after translation

Mona Baker distinguished two famous

methods in Arab translation:1. Yohana Ibn Al-Batriq and Ibn

Naima Al-Himsi- literal translation

2. Hunayn Ibn Ishaq Al-Jawahiri- sense-for-sense translation

Contemporary Time The proliferation of studies in the

domain helps in the development of translation and the birth of new theorists.

Translation in the Arab world also benefits from the use of computers, digital materials and the spread of databases of terminologies that offer translators a considerable amount of dictionaries.

Literary Translation

a genre of literary creativity in which a work written in one language is re-created in another

bridges the delicate emotional connections between cultures and languages and furthers the understanding of human beings across national borders

History of Literary Translation

1st-3rd century The first important translation in the

West was that of the Septuagint, a collection of Jewish Scriptures translated into early Koine Greek in Alexandria.

Latin was the lingua franca of the Western World.

9th century Alfred the Great, King of Wessex in

England, was far ahead of his time in commisioning vernacula Anglo-Saxon translations of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy.

The Christian Church frowned on even partial adaptations of St. Jerome’s Vulgate, the standard Latin Bible.

In Asia, the spread of Buddhism led to large-scale ongoing translation efforts spanning well over a thousand years.

The Arabs undertook large-scale efforts at translation. They made Arabic versions of its philosophical and scientific works.

14th century First fine translations into English

were made by Geoffrey Chaucer

The first great English translation was the Wycliffe Bible which showed the weaknesses of an underdeveloped English prose.

15th century The great age of English prose

translation began with Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur- an adaptation of Arthurian romances

The first great Tudor translations are the Tyndale New Testament (1525) which influenced the Authorized Version (1611), and Lord Berners’ version of Jean Froissart’s Chronicles (1523-25).

Renaissance A new period in the history of

translation had opened in Florence with the arrival of the Byzantine scholar Georgius Gemistus Pletho.

A translation of Plato’s works was undertaken by Marsilio Ficino.

Non-scholarly literature continued to rely on adaptation. France’s Pleiade, England’s Tudor poets, and the Elizabethan translators adapted themes by Horace, Ovid, Petrarch and modern poetic writers.

Elizabethan period

saw considerable progress beyond mere paraphrase toward an ideal of stylistic equivalence but there was no concern for verbal accuracy

18th century

The watchword of translators was ease of reading. Whatever they did not understand in a text, or thought might bore readers, they omitted.

19th century

brought new standards of accuracy and style

Edward Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was considered to be the outstanding translation.

20th century

a new pattern was set in 1871 by Benjamin Jowett who translated Plato into simple, straightforward language