Signs & Miracles · The Language Argument in Full

What Translation Cannot Carry

Handle with care. Never quote an English rendering and call it proof of the miracle. It is the single most common overclaim in this area.

In short

• 1.A translation loses metre, assonance, root-play, particle nuance and word order.
• 2.This is why Muslim scholars call translations 'interpretations of the meaning'.
• 3.So an English reader can assess the Qur'an's ideas, but not its composition.
• 4.Saying this out loud protects you from a fair charge of overclaiming.

The claim being examined

Every translation is an interpretation. Using an English rendering as evidence of literary inimitability confuses the copy with the original.

The Islamic position

Muslims hold that the Qur'an is the Arabic text; translations are explanations of meaning, not the Qur'an itself.

Analysis

The Muslim position on translation is a genuine asset in this conversation because it is a limitation the tradition itself insisted on long before any critic raised it. Ritual recitation is in Arabic; translations are titled as renderings of meaning; and the classical scholars discussed the loss involved at length. Applied to i'jaz, the consequence is straightforward: the literary claim is about the Arabic and can only be tested there. What a translation can convey is content — the theology, the ethics, the arguments — and those are legitimate subjects of discussion in any language. Keeping the two apart makes the overall case more credible, not less.

From the Qur'an

Sources

Al-Khattabi, Bayan I'jaz al-Qur'an · al-Shatibi, al-Muwafaqat (on translation and meaning) · Al-Khattabi, The Miracle of the Qur'an (Sapience Publishing, 2022)

More in The Language Argument in Full

• Al-Walid ibn al-Mughirah's Verdict
• Arabic Has Almost No True Synonyms
• Bala, Not Na'am (Q 7:172)
• Classical Criticisms of Qur'anic Wording
• Do Not Substitute Number Games
• 'Ilm and Ma'rifah, Hamd and Shukr