Visibility of the translator on religious translations: The example of Hadislerle İslam

Considering the fact that the first written sources about translation were recorded in the process of translation of religious texts, it is possible to state that religion, as an indispensable element of human life since the first periods of history, is also the origin of the translation activities. History has witnessed the translators who were declared heroes as well as the ones who have lost their lives by being executed due to religious translations that have been the focus of discussions for a long time. Venuti, on whose strategies the theoretical framework of this study is based, criticizes the environment through the Anglo-American world, which forces the translator to be invisible, arguing that the pressure to produce fluent texts affects the translator and causes the assimilation of the source culture. As a solution, he suggested the foreignization strategy that would make the translator more visible. On the contrary, in the translation of religious texts, fluency has been replaced with the pressure to be loyal to the source texts, which necessitated maximum loyalty to the source text and thus forced translator's visibility at maximum level. In line with these issues, this study analyzes the first volume of Hadislerle İslam (2013), one of the most comprehensive hadith works published in Turkish recently, and its English translation Islam Through Hadiths (2020) translated by İsmail Eriş, in terms of religious terms and in light of translator's visibility as well as the strategies of domestication and foreignization put forward by Venuti. As a result of the study, the rate of domestication/foreignization strategies and that of translator's visibility were determined. It was also revealed which methods the translator applied in cases when use of a single strategy was insufficient. The studies that will bring the fields of Translation Studies and Islamic theology together shall pave the way for new theoretical initiatives in terms of Translation Studies as well as increasing the quality and clarity of religious translations and thus facilitating transmission of authentic religious knowledge in terms of Islamic Theology.