Blankinship (Khalid Yahya), The Inimitable Qurʾān. Some Problems in English Translations of the Qurʾān with Reference to Rhetorical Features, Leiden, Brill, (Texts and Studies on the Qurʾān ; 15), 2019. ISBN 978-90-04-41744-1

Author

Khalid Yahya Blankinship, Ph. D. (1988), University of Washington, is Associate Professor of Religion at Temple University. He has published numerous articles, translations, and the book The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham ibn ʿAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads (SUNY, 1994).

Presentation

In The Inimitable Qurʾān: Some Problems in English Translations of the Qurʾān with Reference to Rhetorical Features, Khalid Yahya Blankinship examines certain Arabic rhetorical features of the Qurʾān as represented in seven English translations. The author addresses the intersection of two important topics in Qurʾānic studies: the critique of the available English translations and the role of rhetoric in the interpretation of the Qurʾān. He identifies a number of figures characteristic of Qurʾanic style which represent some of the chief stumbling blocks for readers who are used to English in attempting to understand, interpret, and appreciate the text. The book should be useful to all those interested in rhetorical and translation studies and theory as well as Islamic studies.

Contents

Introduction
Section 1 Word Order
Section 2 Iltifāt
Section 3 Indicative In Place Of Imperative Or Jussive Section 4 Indefinite Nouns
Section 5 Non-Consequential Exception
Section 6 Pleonasm And Redundancy
Section 7 Repetition For Emphasis Section
8 Parallelism Section
9 Juxtaposition Of Contrasting Conditional Sentences Section
10 Coordination Section
11 Lack Of Conjunctive Section
12 Parenthesis (I‘Tirāḍ) Section
13 Succinctness Section
14 Ellipsis
Conclusion Notes Bibliography