Making Translation Theories Work across Space and Time: A Critical Reflection on Translation in the Islamic Era

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’