Can English Capture the Language of Revelation?

Can English Capture the Language of Revelation? Robert Alter's Torah and Lessons for the Translation of the Qur'an  by Caner K. Dagli

Can English truly capture the language of divine revelation? Robert Alter's literary approach to translating the Hebrew Bible offers profound lessons for how Muslims might translate the Qur'an—and why most English Qur'an translations fall short.

KEY INSIGHTS: 
• Why Alter's one-man Torah translation caused a literary sensation 
• How respecting register, rhythm, and rhetoric preserves sacred text's power 
• The problem with committee translations that flatten sacred language 
• Three historical English Qur'an translations that achieved literary excellence

Robert Alter, a comparative literature professor, challenged centuries of biblical translation by prioritizing literary style over theological smoothness. His jarring translation of Esau's crude demand—"Let me gulp down some of this red red stuff"—preserves the original's colloquial register, shocking modern readers just as it shocked ancient audiences.

Scholar Caner K. Dagli explores what Muslims can learn from this approach, examining three English Qur'an translations that rise to literary merit: George Sale's 1734 version (Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an), and more recent attempts to capture the rhetorical power of Arabic revelation. While Muslims have traditionally insisted the Qur'an cannot be translated—only "interpreted"—Dagli suggests Alter's methodology offers a path forward for conveying the Qur'an's linguistic majesty in English.

The essay challenges translators to honor both the uniqueness and beauty of sacred language rather than domesticating it into contemporary idiom, preserving what makes scripture unlike ordinary speech.

Read the full essay: https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/robert-alters-torah-and-lessons-for-the-translation-of-the-quran

About the Author: Caner K. Dagli is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross and general editor of The Study Quran.

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