Notes on the Translations of S?rat al-Inshiq?q
This paper conducts a comparative study about four translations of s?rat alInshiq?q: Yousef Ali, Muhammad Hilali-Muhsin Khan, Pickthall and Mohammad Abdel
Haleem. Multiple opinions of exposition have been provided to explore how, in certain
ayas, the translators fail to find an appropriate equivalent. The translations' problems are
categorized into lexical, stylistic and syntactic problems, whereas these categories also
have sub-categories in order to clarify the gaps that might be encountered while
translating the Qur'anic text. The problems are investigated through the theories of free
and bound translation. Since religious texts, especially the sacred ones, are contextbased, they have different meanings which are not easy to tackle. In conclusion, the
lexical, syntactic and stylistic norms of the target language fail to match those of the
Qur?an discourse because these features are far from universal.