Achieving fidelity through self-translation: a case study of Friday sermons by Imam Mohammed Ewes

The paper situates self-translation within contemporary translation studies, noting a shift from purely linguistic transfer to cultural mediation. Self-translation is defined as an author translating their own work into another language, a practice with distinct challenges compared to translator-mediated translation. A central concern is fidelity—the accurate conveyance of the source text’s intent, meaning, and style, including cultural nuances and authorial tone. The study emphasizes fidelity as a key evaluative construct, drawing on Ajunwa (2015), and positions religious texts as particularly sensitive to fidelity due to doctrinal significance. Research aims: (1) to examine whether fidelity is achieved in the Arabic–English self-translation of selected Friday sermons by Sheikh Mohammed Ewes, and (2) to assess whether the self-translation should be considered a translation or a rewriting.

The literature review covers three strands. (1) Self-translation: Prior studies (e.g., Nugroho & Laksman, 2020; Tekalp, 2020; Elimam, 2019; Waite, 2018; Bran, 2016; Candan, 2019) show that self-translation often reflects the author’s ideology, employs strategies like foreignization to preserve allusions, and can involve additions, deletions, and creative rewriting. Several scholars argue self-translation is frequently a form of rewriting due to the author-translator’s authority over the text. (2) Fidelity in translation: Scholars (e.g., Moneyhun, 2012; Abdelaal, 2019; Shoubash, 2018; Ezeibe, 2017; Zou, 2016) conceptualize fidelity along language/meaning axes (literal vs liberal), stress faithfulness to source content and style, and report persistent challenges in achieving full equivalence—even in self-translation—due to subjectivity, pursuit of perfection, target-reader adaptation, and cultural factors. (3) Subjectivity and bias: Translator decisions are shaped by personal, cultural, ideological, and social factors (Dweik, 2000; Davis, 2001), potentially leading to manipulation, intervention, and distortions. Objectivity is urged to ensure faithful renderings.

A qualitative research design was employed using data from a bilingual Arabic–English book by Mohammed Ewes, “Pulpit Sermons in Arabic and English,” containing 80 Friday sermons delivered over 25 years at Al-Birr Mosque (London). Background and contextual details were supplemented via two direct phone calls with Ewes (~20 minutes each). Sampling: Probability (random) sampling selected 8 sermons out of the 80. Analysis: The Arabic source texts (ST) and English target texts (TT) were compared at multiple linguistic levels (words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs). The study adopts a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) orientation and assesses fidelity using Ajunwa’s (2015) indicators: factual accuracy, correctness, harmony (loss/gain, addition/deletion/modification), transparency, tonality, and admissibility. Instances of variation were identified, categorized, and interpreted against these criteria.

• Overall outcome: Fidelity was not achieved; the self-translation displays substantial divergence from the source texts and operates more as a rewriting.
• Factual accuracy: Mistranslations or alterations of names and figures occurred (e.g., narrator changed from Abu Bakra to Ibn Abbas; altering a condition count from three to two; addition of “gossip” alongside backbiting, which has a distinct meaning).
• Correctness: Violations of English grammatical and stylistic norms were observed (e.g., unnatural adverb placement in “We spoke last week...”; punctuation and syntactic choices that shifted meaning in the Ramadan example; additions like “A believer feels happy...” that narrow the ST’s inclusive “we”).
• Harmony (loss/gain): Deletions included omission of entire paragraphs in the TT, causing semantic loss (e.g., mosque importance passage). Additions expanded TT beyond ST (e.g., extra details such as houses/market in the brotherhood story). Message modification included substituting a different Hadith instead of translating the cited one (e.g., avoiding terms like “أربى الربا الاستطالة”).
• Transparency: Frequent foreignization via transliteration despite available clear TL equivalents (e.g., “Khutabah,” “masjid,” “Salah” instead of “sermon,” “mosque,” “prayer”), hindering fluency and readability for TT audiences.
• Tonality: Attenuation of evaluative strength by omitting emphatic phrases (e.g., “deadly vices” for major sins) and failing to convey intensified emotional tone (e.g., Abu Bakr’s “bitter weeping”).
• Admissibility: No specific violations were identified; TT generally aligns with this indicator. These patterns collectively indicate inaccuracy, inconsistency with ST intent and effect, and a tendency toward authorial rewriting.

The analysis indicates that Ewes’s self-translation is shaped by subjectivity, language interference from the mother tongue, and the author-translator’s authority, leading to additions, deletions, and modifications. Such interventions create knowledge gaps and reduce transparency and fluency for target readers. The reliance on foreignization where domesticated equivalents exist further elevates translator visibility and diminishes readability. These outcomes align with prior research asserting that self-translation often functions as rewriting (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1998; Jung, 2002; Bran, 2016; Zou, 2016) and that complete faithfulness is difficult to guarantee, even for self-translators. Deletions may be strategic or due to difficulty rendering certain terms and stylistic features, and grammatical inaccuracies suggest limited proficiency in TT norms or insufficient application of translation strategies. Collectively, the findings support the view that reproduction and re-authoring interfered with accurate translation, yielding an unfaithful TT with diminished transparency and altered tone and meaning.

The study concludes that Ewes’s Arabic–English self-translation of selected Friday sermons does not achieve fidelity. Issues include factual inaccuracies (names, figures), numerous correctness problems (grammar, punctuation, structure), and substantial harmony violations (omissions, additions, and message modifications). Transparency is undermined by foreignization and transliteration where seamless TL equivalents exist, and tonality is weakened through loss of evaluative intensity. Consequently, the TT affects readers differently from the ST and is better characterized as a rewritten version rather than a faithful translation. The authors also suggest that the self-translator’s lack of professional translation training may have contributed to the unfaithful and unprofessional outcomes. Future research could expand the dataset, examine other self-translated religious corpora, and explore training interventions to improve fidelity in self-translation.