Overview

Fundamental to pursuing knowledge in the fields of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies is having literacy in the languages of these fields and particularly a sound understanding of the numerous specialized terminologies comprising their various disciplines. Today, English is the dominant language of scholarship for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, and problematic has been the accurate translation and conveyance of the meanings of these specialized terminologies from their primary source language(s), namely Arabic, into the target English. With the rise of English writings on Islam and the Middle East beginning with 17th-century translations of the Qur’an and Orientalist writings that were often filled with Islamophobic, anti-Arab, and anti-Ottoman rhetoric, English publications had been marked by mistranslations and gross distortions of Arabic-Islamic terms and concepts, much of which can still be found in circulation in popular culture (literature, periodicals, film, and social media) and even academic literature. And though recent decades have seen outstanding scholarship in English on Islam and the Middle East, faulty translations of specialized terminologies and inadequacies in capturing their nuanced meanings are prevalent.

In his book Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1986), the late philosopher and prominent scholar of Islamic Studies Ismail al-Faruqi held there to be a grave problem in the translation and transliteration of Islamic theological terms into English, wherein there was a loyalty to the norms of the target English at the expense of the semantic loss of the original Arabic. To rectify this, al-Faruqi introduced the notion of “Islamic English,” bringing into the English language Arabic terms in transliteration while properly defining them and thus attempting to expand and enrich English vocabulary rather than the practice of merely adopting an English translation as a direct equivalent to the original Arabic. Al-Faruqi compiled in his book a modest glossary of Arabic transliterated terms, concepts, and phrases that he deemed distorted due to faulty translations and transliterations and attempted to clarify them by providing definitions and their nuanced connotations. However, he was only able to capture a minuscule portion of the vast array of specialized terminologies that span the various disciplines comprising and intersecting the fields of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, a body of terminologies that continues to expand with the development of scholarship in these fields.

In the spirit of al-Faruqi’s notion of “Islamic English” and his broader aim to preserve the integrity of the meanings of specialized terminologies in these fields, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) provides here a larger and more comprehensive project that is reflective of and responsive to the developments of more recent scholarship and that leverages the technological capabilities utilized today in digital scholarship. The Open Access IIIT Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Database aims to be a definitive resource for scholars, researchers, and students. It provides a comparative survey and analysis, sourced from leading scholars and canonical references, of translations and definitions of specialized terminologies within the various disciplines in and intersecting these fields. Users are able to perform various searches, general or thematic by discipline, and enter an Arabic term or phrase, either in the vernacular Arabic script or transliteration, and have it return all the matching translations, transliterations, and definitions in the database from leading scholars or canonical reference works along with a disciplinary categorization. The database also features scholarship treating particular topics pertaining to Islamic terms/concepts and the matter of their translation/definition. By flagging problematic translations, transliterations, and definitions while promoting the circulation of acceptable ones, and by offering articles pertaining to the history of English translations/definitions of terminologies including in-depth treatments of those which have been problematic, the database also hopes to minimize/eliminate distortions of terminologies in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.