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Copyright

Elvira Kulieva; Johanna Pink; Mykhaylo Yakubovych;

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80511-487-1
Hardback978-1-80511-488-8
PDF978-1-80511-489-5
HTML978-1-80511-491-8
EPUB978-1-80511-490-1

Language

  • English

THEMA

  • QRPF1
  • QRVC
  • 1QFW
  • 5PGP

BISAC

  • REL037000
  • REL017000
  • REL084000
  • HIS032020
  • HIS037070

Keywords

  • Qur'an translations
  • Post-communist societies
  • Islamic authority
  • Religious identity
  • Eastern Bloc history
  • State policies on religion

    Qur’an Translations in the Eastern Bloc and Beyond

    FORTHCOMING
    This book offers the first comprehensive exploration of Qur’an translations across the diverse landscapes of the former Eastern Bloc, from Uzbekistan to the German Democratic Republic. With a focus on how Islamic texts have been shaped by state policies, ideological shifts, and religious identities, the volume examines connections between these regions and the wider world, taking readers to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China, and encompassing perspectives from both Sunni and Shia traditions as well as non-Muslim contributors. Through archival research and textual analysis, the contributors demonstrate how translations of the Qur’an have functioned as more than religious texts. They reflect a profound transformation in national and religious identities in communist and post-communist societies.

    Qur’an translations have gained prominence in modern Muslim publishing, and their analysis reveals a dynamic interplay between local politics and global Islamic discourse. They have become symbols of religious resurgence, cultural renewal, and intellectual exchange but have also been objects of persecution and contestation. Based on multi-lingual sources, this collection is an essential resource for understanding Qur’an translati ons as a significant scholarly and cultural phenomenon in the modern period.

    Endorsements

    This book makes an important contribution to the study of Muslim history in (post-)socialist countries, examining practices of Qur’an translation, knowledge transmission, and intellectual network-building across the region.

    Prof. Gulnaz Sibgatullina

    University of Amsterdam

    Contributors

    Elvira Kulieva

    (editor)
    PhD Candidate at University of Freiburg
    https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7909-7893

    Elvira Kulieva is a PhD candidate at the University of Freiburg. She works as a research fellow at the Global Qur’an Project, where she is focusing on modern Qur’an translations produced by diverse Muslim communities following the dissolution of the USSR. Previously, she conducted research on contemporary Sufism. She has published several articles.

    Johanna Pink

    (editor)
    Professor of Islamic Studies at University of Freiburg
    https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6603-5116

    Johanna Pink is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Her main fields of interest are the transregional history of tafsīr in the modern period, and Qur’an translations, with a particular focus on transregional dynamics. She is the Principal Investigator of the research project “GloQur – The Global Qur’an” and general editor of the Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān Online. Her most recent monograph is entitled Muslim Qur’ānic Interpretation Today (Sheffield: Equinox, 2019).

    Mykhaylo Yakubovych

    (editor)
    Member of the research team on the ERC-funded project ‘GloQur—The Global Qur’an’ at University of Freiburg
    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8305-1166

    Mykhaylo Yakubovych obtained his PhD in 2011 from The National University of Ostroh Academy with a study on interreligous relations in medieval Sunni traditionalism. Currently a member of the research team on the ERC-funded project ‘GloQur—The Global Qur’an’ (University of Freiburg, Germany), he studies Qur’an translations produced by international institutions and publishers, with a focus on Central Asian and Eastern European languages. He is the author of an annotated translation of the Qur’an into  Ukrainian (first published in 2013), along with several books and translations from Arabic, and many research articles published in academic journals from the UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. Yakubovych has conducted several academic projects on the Islamic manuscript heritage, including the post-classical intellectual history of the Crimean Khanate (at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, USA) and sixteenth-seventeenth century Qur’an interpretations produced by Lithuanian Tatars (at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland). Her most recent monograph is entitled The Kingdom and the Qur'an: Translating the Holy Book of Islam in Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2024).