The Translation of Hadiths on Prophet Muhammad’s Personal Attributes: A Foreignising Approach

Abstract

As a category of religious texts, prophetic hadiths present distinct challenges for translators. This study aims to investigate the linguistic and cultural issues inherent in Najjar’s (2012) translation of hadiths concerning prophetic personal attributes. The analysis encompasses a selection of eight hadiths, four of which illustrate linguistic challenges, while the remaining four exemplify cultural difficulties. The theoretical framework employed in this study is a foreignizing approach, which seeks to preserve the linguistic features, cultural norms, and value systems of the original texts in their English translations. To facilitate this process, Baker’s taxonomy (1992) is utilized to identify and evaluate samples with linguistic issues, whereas Newmark’s cultural categorisation (1988) is applied to select and assess samples with cultural concerns. Specifically, linguistic samples are chosen based on Baker’s taxonomy, which analyses equivalence at both the word and grammatical levels, while cultural samples are selected in accordance with Newmark’s concept of ‘material culture,’ encompassing aspects such as food and clothing. Additionally, Halimah’s (ACNCS) criteria (2015) are employed to analyse and evaluate the quality of the translated hadiths. The findings of this study suggest a pressing need for the retranslation of prophetic personal attributes hadiths through the application of a foreignising approach. Although the scope of this research is not exhaustive, it is anticipated that the study will contribute to the understanding of these texts among non-Arab Muslims and stimulate further scholarly inquiry in this area.