Qur’an-related Intertextuality: Textual Potentiation in Translation

Qur’an-related intertextuality, envisaged as an enriching communicative act both monolingually and interlingually, represents a case of semantic complexity that is wired to present inconceivable translation challenges. Drawing on Derrida’s (1977) dichotomy iterability/citationality, Kristeva’s (1980) vertical intertextuality, Fairclough’s (1992a; 1992b; 1995 2011) manifest intertextuality, and Bakhtin’s (1986) double voicing or re-accentuation, the study argues that Qur’an-related intertextuality is conducive of conceptual densities, the ‘harnessing’ of which requires ‘mobilizing’ those translation strategies that should exceed the lexicographical equivalence (Venuti 2009) to establish intertextual relations relevant to the form and theme of the foreign text. To resolve the arising translation problems, the study basically proposes two synthetic approaches: the gist-paratextual and the gist-exegetical. Translation skopos has been found to be central to the production and reception of intertextuality and to determining which of the two proposed synthetic approaches to operationalize. Finally, analysis shows that Qur’an proved to be a virtual breeding ground for textual dynamism and potentiation.