Proposing a Tentative Revision Hypothesis for Sacred Texts: The Holy Qur’an’s English Translation and Revision in Focus

The present study analyzes a translation of the Holy Qur’an and its revision to take a step towards formulating a tentative revision hypothesis. Muhammad Ali’s (1917) translation and its edited version by Aziz (2010) are the corpus of the study. The major principle of the revision hypothesis was found to be that the translation of a sacred-text is less target-oriented than its edited-version. This revision hypothesis is not formulated in absolute terms. Other researchers can test the validity of its principles by focusing on specific genres (i.e. religious texts, children’s literature, etc.).