ABSTRACT
The contentions about the translatability of the Qur’an to the Swahili language ended with the publication of the first Swahili Qur’anic translation in 1926 by a German missionary, Godfrey Dale (1861–1941). Since then, many translations have been produced, either in response to the previous one or as necessitated by the emerging needs of the Swahili Muslim community, resulting in the transformation of these works. These transformations come at different levels; those that are a result of theological discourses among scholars of different schools of Islamic thoughts, i.e., Salafi, Shia, Ibadi, etc., and other discourses that were about the tools used to translate the Quran to Swahili, with traditional Swahili Muslim clerics adhering to the vernacular Swahili or Swahili of the Arabic version while others adopting standard Swahili, which was largely considered by mainstream Muslims at the time as a way of advancing the colonial agenda in East Africa. There were shifting discourses thereafter, each time becoming narrower and more internalized. This paper aims to analyze these transformations and relate them to contemporary world dynamics. The researcher used a qualitative method to analyze the various contexts within which these Quranic works were produced. The researcher primarily based his deductions on the translation itself, as well as employing the arguments of many writers associated with the studies of Swahili Quranic translations. The historical sequence was considered for a better analysis. The results showed that the variety of translations was influenced by various religious, cultural, and political dynamics of the world.
