Abstrakt

In the contemporary Muslim and Western world, Islamic law finds a niche in family law and the financial domain. At least forty-seven countries worldwide implement Islamic law as a primary or secondary source in their legal system (Hellman 2016). Most research on Islamic law derives from legal philosophy and historical studies; however, there are relatively few commentaries within linguistics and translation studies. This article aims to advance the understanding of Islamic law by tapping into two fundamental approaches within translation studies: ‘interlingual’ and ‘intralingual translation’ (Jakobson 2000). It contributes to this under-researched area by offering a new model for reconceptualising the discourse of Islamic law in English as an intralingual form of mediation, which involves an act of ‘cultural translation’ that regards cross-cultural discourse as a ‘translation without translation’ (Wolf 2007; Pym 2014). The study identifies further gaps in current approaches while suggesting a comprehensive model for more systematic investigations drawing on the state-of-the-art research agendas in empirical and legal translation studies.