Assessing the English Translation of Grand Ayatollah Khorasani’s Book of Islamic Laws with Reiss’s Model

Religious texts, particularly texts of religious laws, are among the most delicate and crucial kinds of texts to translate. This paper examined the English translation of Grand Ayatollah Hossain Wahid Khorasani’s book of Islamic laws through the window of Katerina Reiss. Reiss s theory has three levels. First, the text type (informative, expressive, or persuasive) is decided. Then, the linguistic elements are analyzed and it proceeds with the examination of the extra-linguistic determinants. This text is certainly informative and content-focused. Applying Reiss’s theory of criticism to this text, the researcher came to the conclusion that firstly, Reiss’s model could be applied to texts of Islamic laws, and secondly, the English translation of Grand Ayatollah Wahid Khorasani’s book of Islamic laws met 80 percent of Reiss s suggested requirements for a translation. Furthermore, the findings indicated that most mismatches of Reiss’s criteria in this translation pertained to the semantic elements (linguistic components). Moreover, the place factors were mainly overlooked in the translation.