Types of Syntactic Equivalence in the Qurʼānic Translations

The fundamental premise here is that linguistic equivalence at the microstructural level is not usually expected because languages are linguistically and semantically incongruous. Though this premise is basically correct the starting point of this article is that syntactic equivalence is possible and the translation process can involve a matching at the syntactic level even when some components or structures seems untranslatable. However, certain additional factors might affect the translator's choice. This article shows that the choices made by the Qurʼān's translators can usually be justified. On the other hand some inaccuracies arise from insufficient syntactic knowledge or sometimes the translator retains minimal similarity to the SL for no apparent reason. This may lead to misinterpretation of the intended meaning of the SL.