On Translating and Drafting Sharia Legal Terms and Expressions in Saudi Contracts

Abstract

The difficulty in translating legal sharia expressions and terminologies used in contracts arises from semantic, syntactic, pragmatic, contextual, and cultural features of the Islamic sharia expressions. The present study aims to address the problems arising when translating these contracts from Arabic into English and vice versa. It also aims to reassess the translations of several international business contracts translated from Arabic into English and vice versa to verify whether the legal Islamic terms and expressions have been accurately rendered or not. The Saudi legal system is based completely on sharia law. The Saudi contracts abound with religious expressions and terms, which sometimes have no equivalence in the English language. There is a crystal-clear cultural–religious gap between Arabic and English. The language of contracts must be accurate, precise, meaningful, and comprehensible. Any slight difference in translating these contracts might result in the loss of individual rights, which affects the foreign investments and the social life of residents and citizens. The present study is a qualitative study that adopts a critical hermeneutic method to address the highly controversial issues relating to the translation of Islamic legal terms and expressions. The study has found that the Islamic legal terms and expressions are translatable providing that the translator could use a hermeneutical translational approach. The study is original in the sense that it deals with the problems of translating the religious expressions embedded and constituted in the Saudi contracts.