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urn:uuid:79fdfacc-265f-41cd-8b3d-f7ec3881dbdd 03 15 9781805114901 00 EB E101 10 10 02 27538044 01 02 The Global Qur'an 01 01 Qur’an Translations in the Eastern Bloc and Beyond 1 A01 Elvira Kulieva Elvira Kulieva is a PhD candidate involved in the Global Qur’an Project at the University of Freiburg, where she is focusing on her dissertation about modern Qur’an translations produced by diverse Muslim communities following the dissolution of the USSR. Previously, she conducted research on contemporary Sufism and published several papers. 2 B01 Johanna Pink Johanna Pink is a Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Freiburg in Germany. Her primary research focus is the transregional history of tafsīr and Qur’an translation. She serves as the general editor of the Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān Online and was the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project GloQur. Her publications include Muslim Qur’ānic Interpretation Today: Media, Genealogies, and Interpretive Communities (Sheffield: Equinox, 2019) and Qur’an Translation in Indonesia: Scriptural Politics in a Multilingual State (London: Routledge, 2024). She has worked and published extensively on the study of the global history of modern Muslim Qur’an translation. 3 B01 Mykhaylo Yakubovych 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). 01 eng 00 340 03 23 Archaeology and Religion 04 BP131.14 23 Qur'an translations 10 REL037000 23 Linguistics 23 Post-communist societies 10 REL017000 23 Islamic authority 10 REL084000 10 HIS032020 23 Religious identity 23 Eastern Bloc history 10 HIS037070 23 State policies on religion 01 06 03 00 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, it traces connections between these regions and the wider world, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China. This volume draws on perspectives from both Sunni and Shia traditions, as well as contributions by non-Muslim scholars. Through archival research and close textual analysis, the contributors demonstrate how translations of the Qur’an have served not only as religious texts but also as reflections of profound transformations in national and religious identities in communist and post-communist societies. Qur’an translations have gained prominence within the modern Muslim publishing world, 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 also objects of persecution and contestation. Based on multilingual sources, this collection is an essential resource for understanding Qur’an translations as a significant scholarly and cultural phenomenon in the modern era. 04 00 Acknowledgements Transliteration Notes Contributors List of Illustrations Introduction Elvira Kulieva and Johanna Pink Part I: Qur’an Translations Across National Boundaries 1. Hybrid Subjectivity in a Translation of the Qur’an: al-Ramzī’s Farewell to Sufism Alfrid Bustanov 2. ‘Vernacular Qur’anic Space’ within Post-Soviet Uzbekistan: A Qur’an Translation by a Leader of the Turkestani Émigré Community, and its Uzbek Competition Filipp Khusnutdinov 3. ‘I Quenched the Thirst of Seventy Million’: Sumayya ʿAfīfī, an Egyptian Qur’an Translator for a Post-Soviet Readership Elvira Kulieva Part II: State Policies and Qur’an Translations 4. The State, ‘Official’ ʿUlamāʾ and Tatar Qur’an Commentary-Translations in Russia Elmira Akhmetova 5. A ‘Qur’an Race’ in the Cold War: Max Henning’s Qur’an Translation in the German Democratic Republic Johanna Pink 6. Constructing a Qur’an-Based sīra in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan: Denominational Approaches to the Prophet’s Biography in Azerbaijani Qur’an Translations Elnura Azizova 7. Implications of Theological Diversity in Shii-Authored Translations of the Qur’an and tafsīrs into Russian Akif Tahiiev Index About the Team Open Book Publishers 01 Open Book Publishers 04 01 20250521 02 WORLD 06 15 9781805114871 06 15 9781805114888 06 15 9781805114895 06 15 9781805114918 06 15 9781805114901 WORLD 09 Open Book Publishers 20 02 5.99 GBP WORLD