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Admin note: This topic was split from a discussion of the translation of 2:256-257. the discussion started with,


I looked into it a bit, and I realized that it is actually a plural.

which leads me to suggest "Transgressors" or "Transgressives" as an opening gambit.

That would work, except that I kinda wanted to reserve "transgressors" to translate المعتدين.

Interestingly, I would translate المعتدين as "aggressors."

Well, the prefix "trans", in "transgress", perfectly matches the root of the word المعتدين. That root is the verb (and article) عدا which means to skip over, or as an article it means "away from" or "beyond."

That said, I now realize that the word that would be translated "transgressors" is المتعدين! So, I agree with your choices.

To summarize:

• We shall attempt to translate المعتدين as "aggressors" wherever suitable,
• We can translate الطاغوت to "Transgressors" or "Transgressives."

I'm going to study the significance of the suffix "وت" and the derivation pattern فعلوت which should shed more light on how to translate الطاغوت.

Please do.

I looked into the possibility that the derivation pattern (وزن) of Taaghoot is FAA`OOT or FAA`ULT. That would be inconsistent with similar words such as لاهوت, جبروت and ملكوت. FAA`OOT is invalid because it omits an intrinsic letter, the laam.

جبروت and ملكوت are for sure of the pattern FA`ALOOT. However, Taaghoot comes from tt-gh-a (طغى) so the alif in Taaghoot is not part of the verb. I also found out that there's no such verb root as ط-ي-غ.

Thus, the only conclusion is that this particular word must be an exception to the rules. Either the final "t" is a transformation from the root ى making the derivation pattern FAA`OOL, or the derivation pattern is a non-standard FAA`OOT. I lean toward the former.

Another translation idea just occurred to me: Cults!