Abstract:
This article aims to explore the earlier seeds of fragmentary translation theories in
the Islamic era. It first presents some renowned philologists, grammarians, writers
and linguists who have prominently contributed to translation and articulated their
thoughts of translation. The study reveals buried inheritance of Islamic era by means
of gaining insight into earlier immature theories of translation and looking into
contemporary mature theories of translation, with a view to establishing a dialogical
engagement between the two sides. The study asserts the fact that translation has
been interdisciplinary since time immemorial, and shows how that was a doubleedged sword in the history of translation. The article shows that embryonic theorising
in Islamic era can fairly be considered the point of departure for developing
contemporary theories of translation, the structural features of which include: (1)
teamwork translation; (2) encyclopaedic knowledge; (3) Source Language (SL)
versus Target Language (TL); (4) the translator and interpreter; (5) bilingual
translator and language acquisition interference; (6) translating sacred texts; (7)
codes of ethics; (8) legal translation; (9) translation strategies; (10) and acts of ‘notranslation’
