Abstract
This article examines how Indonesia’s official Qur’an translation negotiates juristic disagreement in legally indeterminate verses and argues that translating such verses necessarily entails an act of juristic preference (tarjīḥ). Focusing on the 2019 revised edition of Al-Qur’an dan Terjemahannya (QT 2019), the study investigates how particular renderings determine, accommodate, or preserve competing mazhab interpretations and what broader legal logic emerges from these choices. Using qualitative library research, it combines comparative tafsīr al-aḥkām with uṣūl al-fiqh and paratextual analysis. Seven contested verses from two clusters—ritual purification and personal-status law—are examined against classical juristic sources and, where relevant, compared diachronically with the 2002 edition. The analysis identifies four strategies: decisive tarjīḥ, tarjīḥ with paratextual accommodation, double accommodation within the main text, and contextual explanation. The findings show that QT 2019 does not resolve ikhtilāf through a uniform madhhab preference. Although its renderings generally incline toward Shāfiʿī and majority positions, the translation calibrates legal determination and interpretive openness according to the nature of the ambiguity, the weight of competing opinions, and the practical consequences of each ruling. This graded pattern is conceptualized as wasaṭiyyah fiqhiyyah, or managed juristic pluralism. The study thus develops “translation-as-tarjīḥ” as an analytical framework. It demonstrates how an official Qur’an translation can function as a legal-textual mechanism through which juristic certainty and plurality are selectively mediated in public religious practice.
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