Quran. Translation of meanings into Ukrainian

In the Islamic tradition, the Quran is considered untranslatable. They say that any of the national translations — and there are more than two hundred of them — is only an approximation that will never be equal to the divinely dictated Arabic text. In addition, over the course of one and a half thousand years, a whole world has grown around the sacred work, so translating the Quran is a non-trivial challenge.

This required the classical commentaries of medieval Arab authors — at-Tabari, al-Baghavi, Ibn Kathir, al-Qurtubi — and the entire range of Ukrainian lexicography. For the second, expanded edition, Mykhailo Yakubovych prepared more than 400 notes that explain unfamiliar words, the cultural, historical and spiritual context of the Quran for Ukrainian readers. This translation is institutionally approved in Islam and is officially used by the Ukrainian Muslim community.

Islam, as is known, prohibits the depiction of people, so calligraphy and ornamentation became an important artistic medium in the Muslim world. To the Western eye, this is essentially a synonym for “oriental.” However, it occurred to us that the Quran deserves more than stereotypical stylization. Our Quran is primarily Ukrainian, and Ukraine has a rich history of interaction with part of the Islamic world and its own calligraphic tradition, which flourished in Cossack cursive.