Portrayal of Positive Psychological Capital in Quran

The present study aims at exploring positive psychological capital in the verses of Qur’an. Positive psychology is the latest advancement in the field of psychology which focuses on improving the well-being of society. Positive psychological capital refers to the combination of overall qualities of positive psychology that contributes to the well-being and mental health. The present study is based on the content analysis of the verses of Qur’an. Content analysis comprises of three steps including identifying the categories or themes, dividing the information into units or parts and finally rating all the themes in all units. In the first step the researchers identified 41 themes from Qur’an by using committee approach and reading the verses between the lines. All these categories were identified by keeping in view the underlying themes of positive psychology. In the second step 30 units were devised from Qur’an by considering each Part as a single unit. The categories included behavior modification, belief in divine help, brotherhood, bravery, contentment, civility, credibility, encouragement of virtue, emotional regulation, excellence, forgiveness, generosity, gratitude, honesty, hopefulness, humility, justice, knowledge, lawful spending, learning, meaningfulness, mindfulness, moderation, obedience, patience, peace, determination, positivity, prosperity, repentance, resilience, reward, self-actualization, self-awareness, self-control, sincerity, social leadership, truthfulness, trust, and wisdom. Results suggest that the most prominent category in Qur’an is the reward. Validity of the study was maintained through the selection of the themes with the help of committee approach. Reliability of the scoring system was maintained through partial inter-rater reliability. Overall the present research has many implications in the positive psychology of religion.    

A Comparative Study of Pragmatic Losses in English Translations of the Holy Quran

The chief objective of a translation is to convey the meanings of the source text to the target text readership. It is the transfer of the content as well as the textual mood to the possible extent. However, achieving this objective remains a crucial challenge on account of social, cultural and linguistic differences among the people of different colors, religions and geographical regions. Morphological, lexical, phonological, syntactical, stylistic, social, psychological and cultural differences among the languages result cumulatively into a broad range of pragmatic losses during the process of translation. The situation gets more intricate when it is the matter of religious literature, especially, the revealed sacred texts. In this regard, it is deemed highly significant to identify the elements of pragmatic loss in the source text and their respective manifestations in translated texts for the awareness of the translators and readers to curtail the possible distortion of the meaning enshrined in the source text. The present qualitative research aimed at investigating three different English translations (wordfor-word translation, literal translation and running translation with lexical and syntactic expansion) of Sūrah al-Kahf of the Holy Qur’ān. The researcher traced and analyzed the instances of pragmatic losses in these three English translations employing comparative pragmalinguistic model which has been tailored for this study. The findings reveal significant similarities as well as differences in these three translations entailing clear manifestations of pragmatic losses. These pragmatic losses occur in the forms of loss of tense, loss of texture, loss of grammatical category, loss of gender, loss of textual meaning, loss of culture-specific terms etc. Finally, certain recommendations have been made for the contemporary and future translators of the Holy Qur’ān in particular and other religious or non-religious Arabic texts in general.