Assessing the English Translation of Prophetic Traditions

Evaluating the quality of English translations of prophetic sayings is crucial to ensure that the Islamic teachings are passed on faithfully to the target receptors. The book aims at assessing an English translation of Imam An-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths using Megrab's (1997) text-linguistic approach to translating prophetic traditions on the basis of the seven standards of textuality introduced by de Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) namely cohesion; coherence; intentionality; acceptability; informativity; situationality; intertextuality respectively. According to Megrab (1997), a good translation of prophetic sayings maintaining their sensitive and religious nature can be produced, if the seven standards of textuality are met. This book includes two main parts: the theoretical background of the model adopted in this study and the application of this model to the major source of data through assessing the English translation of An-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths on the basis of the seven textuality attributes. The author concludes that the English translation of An-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths, the one under assessment, is of poor quality owing to the overall number of textual discrepancies totaling