J. Cole's "Engaging The Muslim World": Translating Sarcasm and Orientalism

This paper is a translation thesis that includes an Arabic translation of an extract from Juan Cole’s book: Engaging the Muslim World, and a critical commentary and analysis of the source and target texts. Juan Cole is one of the voices in the West that calls for building relationships between the West and the Muslim world based on mutual understanding and respect. In chapter III that I am translating, Cole challenges the Western myths that relate Wahhabism to September 11 attacks. My thesis demonstrates examples of the challenges of translation on the textual level, namely, the sarcastic style, the use of footnotes, and translating stereotypes. On another level, my thesis explores the socio-textual, discursive level represented by the positionality of the author as a positive mediator, and contrarily, an inconsistently stereotyping orientalism.