Abstract
A great deal of literature has been written on the approaches to bridging interlingual and intercultural lexical gaps by linguists throughout the ages. Continuing this literature, this paper seeks to arrive at an optimal lexicographic approach to giving equivalents of Arabic Islamic terms/concepts that present lexical gaps in English through analysis, comparison, and assessment of the methodologies employed by three interlingual dictionaries of Islamic terms/concepts, which are geared towards translators and language learners, with a view to achieving successful interlinugal and intercultural communication. The three dictionaries are: The Dictionary of Islamic Legal Terminology (Qal'ajA <<, et al: 1985), the section of the Manual for Arabic Translators with Emphasis on the Usage in the United Nations System devoted to terms related to Islamic sharia (UNIDO: 1989), henceforth referred to as the UN Manual, and A Dictionary of Islamic Terms ('Al-KhudrAwA <<: 1995).This study focuses on these dictionaries as they are representative of varied approaches used to present specialized bilingual lexicography, in addition to being regularly reprinted.