The Arabic root š-h-d, from which terms commonly associated with martyrdom in Arabic are derived, never assumes this meaning in the Qurʾan, where it is instead used exclusively in the sense of "witnessing." The notion of martyrdom is expressed in the Quranic text through a different formulation, namely that of "one who is slain in the path of God" (man qutila fī sabīl allāh). Rather than focusing on the semantic shift produced by post-Quranic doctrinal elaborations, this paper aims to examine how Italian translations of the Qurʾan (1861-2000) have rendered these two elements. Its goal is to highlight how different translation traditions diverge in their interpretive choices, reflecting not only distinct theoretical approaches to translation, but also, and above all, the audiences for which these translations were intended.