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merit. It is perhaps unanimously accepted thatcomplete symmetry or sameness can hardly exist betweenlanguages descending from the same family, letalone thosebelonging to remote origins, which results in divergency onall planes. In fact, the more divergent the languages are,the more losses in translating from one language intoanother, English and Arabic are not an exception.The asymmetrical character of these two languages underliesthe linguistic/stylistic discrepancies on phonological,morphological, syntactic, semantic, textual, stylistic andcultural levels. Cultural differences, to take the last level,give rise to lexical gaps evinced in incongruousideological, social and ecological terms which relate tohighly sensitive issues such as religion and politics or thosepertaining to institutions and nomenclature. Hence theprocess of translation between Arabic and English issometimes clogged up by linguistic, rhetorical and culturalbarriers which engender inevitable losses with very seriousconsequences especially in dealing with a highly sacredtext like the Qur’an.6.1.1.1. Kinds and Levels of LossThere are two kinds of loss:First, inevitable loss: It occurs because of the divergentsystems of the two languages regardless of the skill andcompetence of the translator who cannot establishequivalence and therefore resorts to compensatorystrategies. Second is an avertable loss which is attributed totranslator’s failure to find the appropriate equivalence. Bothkinds of loss can be seen on all levels.76