The Ecology of a Vernacular Qur’an

Rethinking Mūsā Bīgī’s Translation into Türki-Tatar

Bibliographic Data

ID22326167
AuthorsGulnaz Sibgatullina (0000-0001-5628-5920, University of Amsterdam, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume24
Issue3
Pages46-69
Publication date2022-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Qur'anic Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-3591 • E-ISSN: 1755-1730
PublisherEdinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3366/jqs.2022.0515
OpenAlexW4306696544
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited25

This paper contextualises Mūsā Bīgī’s infamous Qur’an translation of 1911–1912 against the background of ongoing socio-political processes in Russia’s Tatar Muslim community and transformations in the broader Muslim world. The production of a vernacular Qur’an in Türki-Tatar was not an original phenomenon – contrary to popular assumptions about the groundbreaking status of Mūsā Bīgī’s translation project – but rather the product of a specific translation ecology that existed in Muslim reformist circles in the early twentieth century. Linking Bīgī’s translation endeavour to the larger vernacular turn in non-Arabophone Muslim communities and the so-called ‘Biblical turn’ in Qur’anic exegesis that was in full swing by the end of the nineteenth century, this paper traces major shifts in Muslim approaches to literary translation, and in particular to the evolving status of the Qur’an as the scripture of Islam. The eclectic nature of the translation ecology – which was shaped by various trends within the Muslim world as well as by Western influences – also predetermined the strategies adopted by Bīgī when addressing the core issue of Qur’an translation, the doctrine of Qur’anic inimitability ( iʿjāz)

Art · Islam · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · Politics · Reincarnation · Sociology · Tatar · Theology · Vernacular · African history and culture analysis · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy

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