Quran in Armenian translation in high demand in Lebanon

A Turkish publisher says an Armenian translation of the Quran has drawn attention in Lebanon where a sizeable Armenian community lives. The publisher plans to deliver 1,000 books in the coming days to the country.

Murat Rumevleklioğlu, who runs BM-AR, said the translation, in the eastern and western dialects of Armenian, was based on two separate Turkish translations of the book. He said they donated 1,400 Qurans in Armenian to Aram Ateşyan, the acting patriarch of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Istanbul. "We want to deliver it for free so that Armenians can learn about Islam and appreciate that Ateşyan consented to deliver it to his community interested in learning about Islam," he said.

Rumevleklioğlu said word of mouth helped their campaign deliver the Qurans in Armenian to spread to other countries and this led to increased interest from Lebanon. He said they are now working on Hebrew and Syriac translations. "There isn't any comprehensive translation of the Quran in these languages. We are now meticulously working on providing good translations," he said.

Meanwhile, the state-run religious body, the Presidency of Religious Affairs (DİB), is preparing to release translations of the Quran in 10 languages. The move follows earlier DİB translations of the Quran in 15 languages as part of its efforts to reach out to Muslim communities around the globe. The DİB runs a translation project with the motto of "Let No Language Remain Without a Quran," which saw the release of translations in French, Kurdish, Armenian, Romanian, Russian, Georgian, Spanish, Azerbaijani, Chinese, Italian, Kazakh, Danish, Albanian and Tatar. New translations will include English, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Kyrgyz, Portuguese, Korean, Persian, Lithuanian and Bosnian. Translations will also be available online.