Arabic is one of the heaviest workloads in our four Istanbul offices. Almost none of it is straightforward: an Arabic document is not simply “an Arabic document” — the country that issued it decides how it must be legalised, what it is called, and even how your name is written. Since 1992 we have handled these files with sworn translators registered at Istanbul notaries.
SWORN ARABIC TRANSLATION IN ISTANBUL
MOST ARAB COUNTRIES DO NOT USE THE APOSTILLE
This is the single most expensive misunderstanding we see. Many clients arrive having been told to get an apostille, and for their country no such thing exists.
Among Arabic-speaking states, the Hague Apostille Convention is in force for Bahrain, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, and it entered into force for Algeria on 9 July 2026 — documents issued and certified before that date will still carry the older stamps.
Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Sudan and the Palestinian authorities are not parties. Documents from these places need the traditional chain instead: certification by the issuing ministry, then the foreign ministry of that country, then the Turkish consulate there. That chain has to be completed abroad — it cannot be repaired in Istanbul after you have arrived.
Send us a photograph of the document before you start. We will tell you which route yours takes and what the Turkish office at the end of it will accept.
AN ARABIC NAME IS NOT A NAME PLUS A SURNAME
Arabic personal names are usually a chain: your own name, your father’s name, your grandfather’s name, and then a family or tribal name. Turkish civil records have exactly two fields, name and surname, so somewhere in the process the chain gets cut — and different offices cut it in different places.
The script itself adds a second layer. Arabic writing does not mark short vowels, so the same name is spelled Mohammed, Muhammad, Mohamad or Mohamed in Latin letters with equal justification, and the definite article al- is sometimes joined, sometimes hyphenated, sometimes dropped.
We fix the Latin spelling to the one printed in your passport and keep it identical across every document in the file, showing the full Arabic chain in the translation so the authority can see how the two relate. A residence or citizenship file where the name is spelled three ways across three papers is a file that comes back.
HIJRI DATES AND THE STANDARD LANGUAGE OF DOCUMENTS
Saudi and some Gulf documents give dates in the Hijri calendar. A date converted carelessly moves a birth date by a year or more, and a birth date that does not match the passport stops the application. We convert to the Gregorian calendar and leave the original Hijri date visible beside it.
Official documents across the Arab world are written in Modern Standard Arabic, so a Moroccan and an Iraqi certificate read alike — but the vocabulary of institutions does not travel: courts, registries and ministries have different names, and a term translated by its dictionary meaning rather than its function misdescribes the issuing body. Our translators work by country, not by language alone.
Spoken interpreting is the opposite case: dialects diverge sharply, so for hearings, notary appointments and hospital visits we assign an interpreter who speaks the client’s own dialect.
DOCUMENTS WE TRANSLATE MOST OFTEN
- Civil status: birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates, family registers, single status letters
- Education: diplomas, transcripts, course descriptions, recognition (denklik) files for Turkish universities
- Official: passports, identity cards, driving licences, police certificates, residence and work permit dossiers
- Legal: powers of attorney, court judgments, inheritance and guardianship papers, contracts
- Commercial: company registrations, articles of association, tenders, agency agreements, invoices and customs papers
- Medical: reports and test results for treatment in Turkish hospitals
We supply consecutive interpreters for notary, land registry, marriage office and hospital appointments, and simultaneous teams for conferences and trade fairs. Note that property purchases and marriages require you to attend in person with the interpreter.
Other languages are listed on our translation languages page.
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