Turkey’s top religious body issues Kurdish translation of Quran

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

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Turkey’s top religious body, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), has finally completed a five-year effort of translating the Quran into Kurdish.

Diyanet Director-General for Religious Publications Dr. Yüksel Salman said efforts to translate the Quran into different languages had accelerated in the last decade, with works published in a total of 26 languages including German, English, French and Russian.

“The latest is the Quran’s translation into Kurdish, of which we printed 10,000 copies,” Salman said, emphasizing that the translation was performed by experts with a deep knowledge of Kurdish and Arabic.

He added that the Diyanet had published 1,150 works since it was founded in 1924, stressing that the variety of its publications increased after the 1990s. 

Highlighting their sensitivity while providing translations of the Quran, Salman said the Kurdish translation was first analyzed by members and experts from the Diyanet, along with professors from faculties of theology at Turkish universities, before it was published.

“[The Diyanet] is a universal and global institution that seeks to convey Islam’s message of mercy to humanity in all languages spoken on earth,” Salman said. 

They will also publish translations in 15 more languages, including English, French, Russian, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Danish and Albanian, and will send many of these editions abroad.