Some Linguistic Phenomena in Al-Adawi and Al-Basul’s Hebrew Translations of the Holy Quran: A Critical Study

Abstract

This research is based on the recent Hebrew translations of the Holy Quran: Al-Adawi and Al-Basul’s translations. In this research, I critically analyze these two translations in light of three phenomena of the Arabic rhetorics; specifically, antonymy, synonymy, and polysemy. Based on this research, I conclude that both translators did not consider the above mentioned phenomena for various reasons. First, it is because of the inability to convey the intended meanings on the part of the translators. Second, it is because of the inadequacy of the Hebrew language compared with Arabic since the latter has more lexical items with a wide variety of meanings. However, it should be noted that both translators put a significant effort in translating the Holy Quran to Hebrew. Keywords: Translation, Hebrew language, Al-Adawi, Al-Basull, Antonymy, Synonymy, Polysemy.