Qur’anistics In Ukraine: “Oriental Exoticism” Or “Local Colour”?

Did you know that there are scriptures Western dialect of Ukrainian. written in arabic letters? “The first translation of Surah “Yaseen” to Ukrainian is dated XIX century, and written with ligature script,”  — Mr.Mykhailo Yakubovych, the Islamic researcher, told in his lecture within the framework of  III International Youth School For Islamic Studies  “Qur’an and Qur’anistics”. The young researcher noted that this wasn’t a one-off item in XIX, but the turbulent XX century had cut off the practice of translating Islamic texts to Ukrainian for a long time.

 

One would think that participants of a scientific event with such topic would mostly speak of the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean, but it seems that there’s a vast field for research in this sphere not only in Ukraine, but in the neighbouring Belarus as well. Head of Gomel Muslim community Mr. Sergey Saranchuk and Belarus journalist Ms.Rayana Volha Chernykh spoke about first Muslims who arrived to Belarus as early as in XIV, and about the matters of difficult genesis of Belarus Muslims’ self-definition.

 

Besides, there’s an interesting point: 20 to 50 thousand Muslims joined the prince Witowt’s army and resettled to the land of modern Belarus from the lands of modern Donbass region, Ukraine.

 

You can watch the video recordings of these and other reports with the following discussions on “Islam in Ukraine” channel on YouTube. Also see the yesterday's live broadcast of  III International Youth School For Islamic Studies closing ceremony on the same channel.