Investigating Application of Literary Methods for Interpretation and Translation of Religious Text

Abstract

In some contexts of use, text interpretation and accurate conveyance of meaning has a critical importance. Religious texts, on top of that, Quranic texts have inherent intricacies which renders the job of Islamic exegetes and expounders very difficult. Considering the importance of these texts for Muslims and extensive foreign readers, the current research is an attempt to examine the application of major literary methods of text interpretation for interpretation and translation of Quranic text. To this aim taxonomy of methods discussed by Titscher, et al (2012) was selected as the theoretical baseline for the study. The findings of the research showed that commentators can employ literary methods toward literary text interpretation for Quranic interpretation directly or with some considerations. The findings also indicated that, application of these methods requires further investigation because translation is inherently different from interpretation. It was concluded that, according to Shiite school of thought, for Quranic interpretation, methods of text analysis is only a tool and exegetes stand in the need of some internal and external resources amongst which is traditional quotations and Hadith from the side of immaculate Imams.