The debut of Turkish-language translations of the Qurʾan in the newly founded Republic of Turkey sparked lively debates over whether Qurʾan translation was possible or desirable, who should engage in interpretation of the text, and what characteristics a Turkish-language rendering of the Qurʾan should have. Whereas the abolition of the Islamic caliphate, closure of the medreses, and prohibition of the Sufi orders have received considerable attention in histories of early republican Turkey, the state-sponsored translation of the Qurʾan into Turkish remains both neglected and misunderstood.Footnote ³ Muhammad Rashid Rida, who was highly influential in shaping opinion in the Muslim world, portrayed the state-sponsored project as a long-term plot to displace the Arabic Qurʾan. Other accounts misrepresent the involvement of President Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) in the promotion of Qurʾan translation by anachronistically suggesting that he sparked the initiative and led a “campaign” in support of it.Footnote ⁴ Mustafa Kemal had no hand in the composition of Turkish Qurʾan translations published in 1924, other than helping create the political context in which they could be published. Their composition began well before the foundation of the Turkish republic, and their inspiration emerged from the intellectual milieu of the late Ottoman public sphere.

In fact, state involvement in Qurʾan translation occurred only after private publishers printed translations in 1924 that ignited considerable controversy, leading the parliament to sponsor the composition of a reliable and eloquent Turkish translation. Support for a Turkish-language Qurʾan translation and commentary was broad, crossing and complicating the categories “Islamist” and “Turkist,” which are often invoked to describe the intellectual divisions of the day. Recent scholarship indicates that many intellectuals of the period were devout Muslims as well as nationalists, and the case of Qurʾan translation lends further support to this finding.Footnote ⁵

Unlike the unpopular closure of the medreses and Sufi orders and the abolition of the caliphate, the Turkish state's support for the composition of a Qurʾan translation actually responded to the concerns of devout intellectuals to produce a dignified, accurate translation. It did not have the radical flair of other reforms; in fact, it cannot truly be called a “reform” at all. Rather, this Qurʾan translation initiative was a state-sponsored writing project of uncertain duration that enlisted the talents of the politically marginalized devout intelligentsia.

QURʾAN “TRANSLATION” AND THE OTTOMAN BACKGROUND

Why was the notion of translating (in Arabic, tarjama; in Turkish, tercüme) the Qurʾan controversial? Within the tradition of Muslim legal thought and theology, most jurists define the Qurʾan as an Arabic text and understand the particular linguistic arrangement or form (naẓm) of the text to have divine qualities. The Qurʾan is remarkably self-conscious about its own language and/or its original audience,Footnote ⁶ referring to itself repeatedly as an “Arabic” revelation; for instance, sura Yusuf states, “We revealed it as an Arabic recitation so that you might understand.”Footnote ⁷ Based on such textual indications, jurists define the Qurʾan as both the meaning as well as the Arabic linguistic structure.Footnote ⁸ In this view, the idea of a “German Qurʾan,” for instance, is a contradiction in terms because the Qurʾan is Arabic by definition. Only the revealed Arabic text can be described as being the Qurʾan.

The prevalent view that Qurʾanic Arabic is divine, miraculous, and impossible to imitate has obvious implications for translation. This understanding emerges out of the Prophet Muhammad's challenge (taḥaddī) to his detractors to bring forth a text that could rival the linguistic splendor of the Qurʾan.Footnote ⁹ Muslim theologians formalized this idea with the concept of the “inimitability” (īʿjāz) of the Qurʾan. Most scholars define inimitability as the inability of any human linguistic creation to replicate the Qurʾan's style and eloquence, which have miraculous qualities.Footnote ¹⁰

Given the importance of Arabic language to the very definition of the Qurʾan and its miraculous nature, the prospect of translating the text into other languages has posed a theoretical and practical problem for most Muslim thinkers. Jurists feared, among other things, that translations would distort the Qurʾan and fail to convey its true splendor because the miraculous aspects of the revealed Arabic text could not be transmitted. In addition, jurists expressed concern that someone might attempt to substitute the revealed Arabic text with a translation, potentially leading to the neglect of the original, as in the case of the Latin or English translations of the Bible.

Only certain members of the Hanafi legal school defended the permissibility of Qurʾan translations in ritual contexts based on a controversial opinion of Abu Hanifa Nuʾman bin Thabit (d. 767). This opinion gave license to Persian speakers to recite Persian-language translations of the Qurʾan within their daily prayers, regardless of whether they knew how to perform them in Arabic. Abu Hanifa contended that the Qurʾan consisted of the meaning contained within the Arabic linguistic form rather than the linguistic form per se. Moreover, he held that the meaning of the Qurʾan was the locus of its inimitable quality. Abu Hanifa's successors Muhammad abu Yusuf (d. 798) and Muhammad al-Shaybani (d. 804) accepted the recitation of translations in prayer conditionally. They stipulated that people who do not know Arabic may recite in their own language until they learn the Arabic original. Once they know the Arabic version, they must recite in Arabic, given that the miraculous nature of the Qurʾan inheres in both its linguistic structure and meaning.Footnote ¹¹ In the late Ottoman and early Turkish-republican contexts, virtually all the partisans in debates on translating the Qurʾan were Hanafis, and they referred frequently to these early legal opinions of the Hanafi school on Qurʾan translations and their ritual use.Footnote ¹²

Despite juristic concern for Qurʾanic Arabic, oral and written translations of the text have played an important role in the teaching and explanation of Islam to non-Arabs since the early years of the Muslim community. Turkic translations of the Qurʾan have a long history, dating back to at least the 13th or 14th century,Footnote ¹³ and there are dozens of extant interlinear manuscript translations from the 15th to 19th centuries.Footnote ¹⁴ Often scribbled below the calligraphic Arabic Qurʾanic text, these translations in terms of format make no suggestion of replacing the Qurʾan or of being equal to it, nor do they appear to have been used for ritual recitation, as most lack any indication of vowel markings.Footnote ¹⁵

Qurʾan translation and Turkish-language Qurʾanic commentary became issues of discussion for Ottoman-Turkish intellectuals beginning in the late 19th century.Footnote ¹⁶ As the print-based public sphere expanded between the Constitutional Revolution of 1908 and the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the perceived need to understand the Qurʾan in one's own language bloomed among the intelligentsia. Just one month after the restoration of the Ottoman constitution in 1908, when press freedoms expanded, a debate erupted on whether Qurʾanic commentaries should be composed in Turkish, involving the famous writer and journalist Ahmed Midhat (1844–1912) and the Islamic scholar and future Sheikh ül-Islam Mustafa Sabri (1869–1954).Footnote ¹⁷

A Muslim-modernist journal in Istanbul, Sırat-ı Müstakim (The Straight Path), began to publish Turkish renderings of and commentaries on Qurʾanic verses immediately following the 1908 revolution—although without referring to them as “translations.”Footnote ¹⁸ Musa Jarullah Bigiev, a Russian Muslim reformist who wrote in Turkish and published in the journals of Istanbul, argued that translating the Qurʾan was not only permissible but also obligatory.Footnote ¹⁹ Kılıçzade İsmail Hakkı's manifesto, “Pek Uyanık Bir Uyku” (A Very Vigilant Sleep), envisioned translating the Qurʾan into Turkish, along with opening the gate of ijtihād and arming every Muslim with “a gun, a thousand rounds, and a bag with three days worth of fresh bread always ready” as measures that would have to be taken to strengthen the empire.Footnote ²⁰ Writer Ubeydullah Efgani proclaimed that the fundamental holiness of the Qurʾan lay not in its language but rather in its meaning and contended that translating it was a religious obligation.Footnote ²¹ Even the conservative journal Hayrʾül-Kelam (The Best of All Speech) published a column that included “translations.”Footnote ²² In 1918, Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924) penned his famous poem, “Vatan” (Homeland), the first stanza of which envisions ritual in the national language and the use of a “Turkish Qurʾan”:

Support for Turkish-language renderings of the Qurʾan was diverse. Not everyone who supported the idea of Qurʾan translation agreed with Gökalp's vision of replacing the Arabic with a Turkish translation and using it to conduct worship in Turkish. In fact, Gökalp was in the minority. A participant in these discussions, Dr. İsmail Hakkı Milaslı, summarized the positions on translating the Qurʾan in the following manner:

Prior to the foundation of the republic in 1923, several authors published partial Turkish-language works of Qurʾanic commentary, which contained translations of Qurʾanic verses, but no one succeeded in publishing a full-length translation using the word “translation” in the title.Footnote ²⁵ In 1914, publisher İbrahim Hilmi tried to distribute an anonymous translation. The attempt to hide the identity of the author—a Syrian Catholic named Zeki MegamizFootnote ²⁶—precipitated a scandal about providing Muslims with a translation by a Christian. A journal article warned the Sheikh ül-Islam's office about the danger this book posed, and authorities prevented its distribution.Footnote ²⁷

1924: FIRST TRANSLATIONS OF THE NEW REPUBLIC

The concern of the ulema and devout intellectuals about translations of the Qurʾan in the early years of the Turkish republic should be appreciated within the context of the marginalization of the ulema and Islamic institutions that occurred steadily following the Constitutional Revolution of 1908.Footnote ²⁸ By April 1924, when the first translations of the Qurʾan appeared, the new regime in Ankara had reorganized the ulema as a compliant Directorate of Religious Affairs (3 March), abolished the caliphate (3 March), eliminated the shariʿa courts (3 March), and closed the medreses (15 March).Footnote ²⁹ The appearance of Qurʾan translations followed on the heels of these revolutionary changes. As the ulema's political power waned, it appeared possible to the devout that the new regime led by Mustafa Kemal might fundamentally alter or marginalize Islam in Turkey.Footnote ³⁰ Worry over who translated the Qurʾan and how they translated it reflected these broader anxieties about the future of Islam under the new regime.

After the foundation of the republic and the destruction of the office of the Sheikh ül-Islam, the ulema establishment lost its ability to block the publication of translations. In 1924, this political shift opened the way for Qurʾan translations, three of which entered the Turkish book market that year. None managed to avoid controversy. The authors had similar backgrounds, all having worked the bulk of their professional lives in the service of the Ottoman state and journalism. Not one of the three had ever worked within the religious establishment, nor did they have professional training in Qurʾanic disciplines. All claimed to perform a religious service and to consult Qurʾanic commentaries. Moreover, all referred openly to their works as “translations” (tercüme), and each provoked a deluge of criticism.

Both translators and critics claimed to champion the best interests of the people (halk). The translators promised to provide accessible texts in simple language to help the Turkish people understand the Qurʾan. In contrast, critics saw it as their duty to defend the people from poor-quality translations by unqualified authors and preserve the meaning of the Qurʾan as understood by the discipline of Qurʾanic commentary.Footnote ³¹

Private publishers released the first two translations during the first Ramadan of the Turkish republic (April 1924): Süleyman Tevfik's Kurʾan-i Kerim Tercümesi (Translation of the Noble Qurʾan)Footnote ³² and Hüseyin Kazım Kadri's Nurʾul-Beyan (The Light of Clarification). The first translator, Tevfik (1865–1939), worked for several years as a French-language teacher and then in a variety of minor Ottoman bureucratic posts until the Constitutional Revolution of 1908, after which he dedicated himself full time to writing and journalism.Footnote ³³ Tevfik was a prolific translator of French, Arabic, and English texts, and the author of a number of compilations and simplified popular books on sundry topics. His translations include Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes; French novels by Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Émile Zola; and Arabic works, including Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's Iḥyaʾ ʿUlum al-Din (The Revival of Religious Scholarship) and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi's Tafsir al-Kabir (Qurʾanic Commentary). His corpus numbers more than 150 works, counting both translations and compilations on subjects as varied as fortune-telling, cuisine, history, language, literature, and writing amulets.Footnote ³⁴ Tevfik saw himself as a “people's writer” and a “collector of anecdotes.”Footnote ³⁵

Tevfik's translation appeared under three different titles in 1924. Tweaking Tevfik's identity, each version used the pseudonym “Seyyid Süleyman el-Hüseyni,” a pen name he used for many works. In this case as in previous ones, “Seyyid” and “el-Hüseyni” appear to have been chosen to bolster the Islamic credentials of the author, connecting him to descendents of the Prophet's family. In an advertisement of the book published in two different newspapers, the publisher Naci Kasım refers to Tevfik with even more copious honorifics, adding “effendi” (gentleman) and “hazretleri” (his grace), a term of extreme deference, to the already inflated “Seyyid Süleyman el-Hüseyni.”Footnote ³⁶ These titles seem disproportionate and disingenuous given that most devout intellectuals considered Tevfik to be a literary hack.

Explaining the reason for the publication, publisher Naci Kasım wrote the following in the introduction:

Kasım refers here to the dearth of tefsir works in Turkish and the prevalent practice of consulting Arabic and Persian Qurʾanic commentaries. He contrasts them with Tevfik's translation that is a “literal translation. . . in a style that everyone can understand.”Footnote ³⁸

This translation met harsh criticism and provoked outright dismissals of Tevfik's character. His previous works on profane and esoteric subjects (including cookbooks published under female pseudonyms and works on sorcery) raised questions as to his credibility to translate the Qurʾan. The influential Muslim-modernist journal Sebilürreşad (The Path of the Rightly Guided) denounced this translation as a “misguided attempt” by an unqualified and morally suspect author.Footnote ³⁹ Rather than analyze the actual translation, Sebilürreşad cast doubt on the reliability and moral rectitude of Tevfik. In order to “give you an idea about the translator and commentator,” the journal published passages he composed on casting spells, parts of which involved the incantation of Qurʾanic verses.Footnote ⁴⁰ The review remarks, “Sorcery is an art, but if it is mixed with Qurʾanic commentary it is a great treason against religion and against the Qurʾan.”Footnote ⁴¹ Although Tevfik's translation contained nothing related to sorcery, his previous works on the subject disqualified him as a reliable author on Islamic subjects.

Sebilürreşad's dismissal of Tevfik demonstrates that an important segment of the devout intelligentsia felt that Qurʾan translators should meet the conventional requirements of moral rectitude and reliability that pertained to other Islamic scholarly disciplines, wherein the quality of knowledge is governed by its source and transmitter as well as by content. The journal implicitly defined translation of the Qurʾan as part of the scholarly discipline of Qurʾanic exegesis. This view differed from the understanding held by the translators and editors of these early republican translations, who viewed translation as standing outside of the Islamic disciplines. For them, translation seemed more a linguistic craft involving the transfer of meanings between languages for which no special Islamic education or face-to-face transfer of knowledge was necessary. They claimed to consult commentaries to assist in their craft, and some even used “tefsir” in the title, but they implicitly defined translation as a separate discipline, distinct from but informed by commentary (although reviews demonstrate that the extent to which they actually consulted commentaries is questionable). Translators and publishers invoked the reliability and prestige of respected Qurʾanic commentaries to add credibility to their works while disavowing that they themselves qualified or even needed to qualify as commentators.

Süleyman Tevfik's translation was not alone on the market. Nurʾul-Beyan (The Light of Explication) by Hüseyin Kazım Kadri (1870–1934) was also released in Ramadan 1924, sparking a commercial rivalry between the two. The publisher, İbrahim Hilmi, had initially intended to publish the book in complete volumes (which he eventually did), but allegedly because some bookstores had heard that Nurʾul-Beyan would appear in shorter installments, Hilmi decided to distribute the translation piecemeal. In fact, it seems that Hilmi rushed to publish the book in an incomplete format in order to compete with Tevfik's translation on the book market and ride the initial wave of public interest surrounding the release of the first translation of the Qurʾan in the Turkish republic. The publishers of both works placed advertisements in multiple newspapers, creating a commercial buzz that devout intellectuals and ulema found disrespectful and scandalous for the Qurʾan.Footnote ⁴²

The publisher attempted to bolster confidence in the reliability of Nurʾul-Beyan, indicating that “a committee that has referred to a number of Qurʾanic commentaries” had composed it.Footnote ⁴³ However, Kadri was the true author, and the committee of other nonspecialists merely proofread the translation. Like Tevfik, Kadri used a pseudonym, that of “Şeyh Muhsin-i Fani,” a pen name he had used on other works. Kadri had studied at the English trade school in the city of İzmir, where he learned English and French. He obtained knowledge of Arabic and Persian, as well as Latin and Greek, through private tutors.Footnote ⁴⁴ Kadri also had a keen interest in Turkic languages, studying Uygur, Chagatay, and Kazan Tatar.Footnote ⁴⁵ He composed a multivolume Turkish-language dictionary that included examples of words used in “Western Turkish” from other Turkic languages, Arabic, and Persian.Footnote ⁴⁶ During the rule of Sultan Abdülhamit II (r. 1876–1909), Kadri held several bureaucratic positions but left government service in 1904 and dedicated his time to agriculture and study. He joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) before its rise to power and held a seat on the central committee chosen during the first annual congress.Footnote ⁴⁷ Kadri cofounded the newspaper Tanin (Echo), which became an organ of the CUP. After the 1908 revolution, the CUP appointed him to several governorships. However, Kadri later came into conflict with the party and was exiled to Thessalonica, and he and his family fled to Beirut in 1913.Footnote ⁴⁸ After World War I, Kadri returned to Istanbul, where he became involved in the foundation of several political parties and served as a member of the parliament representing the province of Aydın. He held various positions in the Ottoman bureaucracy during the English occupation and then resigned in 1921.Footnote ⁴⁹

A bureaucrat, politician, and journalist, Kadri harbored no illusions about his own competency in Islamic fields of knowledge. In the introduction to his translation, he acknowledges his insufficient training in Arabic language, law, prophetic traditions, and Qurʾanic commentary, indicating that he referred to several colleagues for assistance on these matters.Footnote ⁵⁰ Kadri explains his motivation for writing a Qurʾan translation:

Kadri emphasizes the loss of security and the “difficulties of life” as reasons for the emergence of simplified forms of Qurʾanic commentary and translations. Kadri is most likely referring to the Balkan Wars (1912–13), World War I (1914–18), and the Turkish War of Independence (1921–22) as well as the immense loss of life and sundry deprivations that these wars put upon inhabitants of the late Ottoman Empire. For Kadri, Qurʾan translation is a substitute for the expansive commentary tradition; it is the genre of hard times:

Since the late 19th century, Ottoman citizens had turned increasingly to secular, European modes of education, leaving less time for Islamic studies. In order to understand the Qurʾan, they relied on condensed commentaries, most of which were archaic Turkish-language translations of Arabic and Persian commentaries.Footnote ⁵³ Trying to achieve a genre that provided the benefits of both commentary and translation, Kadri described Nurʾul-Beyan as an “explanatory translation” (tercüme-i tefsiri).Footnote ⁵⁴ The book's format provides the Arabic Qurʾanic verse, then its translation, followed by an explanatory passage.

Nurʾul-Beyan underwent a level of scrutiny and critique that few Qurʾan translations in history have received. The journal Sebilürreşad published a series of detailed articles that enumerated the errors perceived in the translation. Eşref Edip [Fergan], the editor, acknowledged that he respected the translators as persons but argued that they were completely unqualified to attempt a translation of the Qurʾan. In several installments, Edip identified and explained egregious errors, repeatedly asking the translators to acknowledge their mistakes and immediately “pull their hand away from this matter without the slightest protest. . . leaving it to those who are competent.”Footnote ⁵⁵

On 28 April, the head of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Rifat Börekçi, wrote an article warning Muslims that the translations of Tevfik and Kadri contained many mistakes and demonstrated unawareness of the most basic elements of Arabic grammar and the discipline of Qurʾanic commentary.Footnote ⁵⁶ In addition to inaccuracy, Börekçi criticized the quality of Turkish prose in Kadri's Nurʾul-Beyan, arguing that a translation of the Qurʾan, if nothing else, ought to exhibit “the full capacity of expression of the Turkish language.”Footnote ⁵⁷ A Qurʾan translation should be a literary masterpiece, and Nurʾul-Beyan, in his view, failed miserably. The negative reception deeply disappointed Kadri, who wrote several responses to his critics.Footnote ⁵⁸

In September 1924, yet another Qurʾan translation was published, that of Cemil Sait (Dikel) (1872–1942). The son of diplomat and writer Kemal Paşazade Mehmed Sait, Cemil Sait grew up in a literary milieu and published his first article at age thirteen. He attended the prestigious Galatasaray School in Istanbul, where he studied Turkish as well as French, and went on to attend the Ottoman Military Academy. Cemil Sait spent the bulk of his professional career as a military attaché at Ottoman embassies in St. Petersburg and Tehran. In 1908, following the revolution, he returned to Istanbul and reentered the literary scene.Footnote ⁵⁹ He wrote a series of articles in imitation of Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes called “Iran Mektupları” (Persian Letters), in which he criticized current events in Istanbul. He also championed the women's movement by writing a play and a number of articles in the journal Kadınlar Dünyası (Women's World). Footnote ⁶⁰

Sait argued for the necessity of translating the Qurʾan on the basis of practicality. In the introduction to his translation, he pointed out that Arabic speakers form a minority among the world's Muslims and that many Muslims are completely incapable of understanding the Qurʾan in Arabic—a standard line of argument in protranslation repertoires. Given the important role of the Turkic peoples in the Muslim umma, he lamented the lack of a “literal” (harfi) translation in contemporary Turkish.Footnote ⁶¹ In order to legitimize the need for translation, Sait made a distinction between the commentary and translation genres and argued that traditional commentary provided the most well-known information about the Qurʾan based on the Islamic sciences. However, he continued, conventional commentary does not always inform the reader about the exoteric meaning of the Arabic text so much as it provides the personal interpretation of the commentator. The reader unaware of the exoteric or literal meaning of the original then has no means of evaluating the interpretation in the commentary.Footnote ⁶²

Sait offered translation as a literal rendering of the text's exoteric meaning that complements conventional Qurʾanic commentary. He disavowed being an interpreter: “My duty consists of literally translating from Arabic to Turkish. It is known that it is not good for a translator to clarify abstruse or vague points. That duty pertains to the commentators.”Footnote ⁶³ Demarcating translation from Qurʾanic commentary, Sait suggested that translation does not involve interpretation and that his task is to seamlessly transfer information from one language to another. As much as this view conflicts with the contemporary axiom that every translation is an interpretation, his noninterpretive definition legitimized the practice of Qurʾan translation for writers without the conventional credentials for tefsir. The notion that translation is not interpretation but a technical practice separate and distinct from commentary granted theoretical license for authors of various backgrounds, such as Sait, to engage in Qurʾan translation.

Sait's translation met an equally brutal reception in the journals. In addition to his incompetence for the task of Qurʾan translation, critics argued that Sait had not actually translated directly from the Arabic.Footnote ⁶⁴ It soon became unanimous that he had composed the translation based on Albert de Biberstein-Kazimirski's French translation, which had circulated for decades in Istanbul.Footnote ⁶⁵ In a memoir, Sait acknowledges that Kazimirski's translation had inspired him and that he composed the work based on “several different translations,” contradicting the statement in his introduction that he had translated from the Arabic original and consulted a number of respected Qurʾanic commentaries.Footnote ⁶⁶

Ahmet Hamdi Akseki (1887–1951), a leading figure in the Ministry of Religious Affairs, excoriated Sait for translating the attributes of God and accused him of committing libel against God for calling the work a “Qurʾan translation.”Footnote ⁶⁷ As in the cases of Tevfik and Kadri, Rifat Börekçi, head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, issued a warning to Muslims about Sait's translation:

Given the high expectations for Turkish renderings of the Qurʾan, “[t]hese translations, despite being promoted for some time in gilded advertisements in the daily newspapers, caused a deep disenchantment in everyone.”Footnote ⁶⁹ Most devout intellectuals received the Turkish translations of 1924 with disappointment and outrage. A newspaper in the city of Balıkesir reported an incident in the market in which a man saw someone holding a copy of a translation, which he seized, tore to pieces, and then burned.Footnote ⁷⁰ Reviews characterize these translations as “mistake ridden,”Footnote ⁷¹ “distorted,”Footnote ⁷² “atrocious,”Footnote ⁷³ and “awful.”Footnote ⁷⁴ They describe the translators as “negligent,”Footnote ⁷⁵ “unqualified,”Footnote ⁷⁶ and “incompetentFootnote ⁷⁷ and characterize their engagement with the Qurʾan as “misguided attempts,” “deviations,”Footnote ⁷⁸ and “sin.”Footnote ⁷⁹

Despite the disappointing debut of the 1924 translations, Börekçi, like many other devout intellectuals, held onto the hope that a suitable translation and commentary could be written: “We are of the opinion that a complete Turkish translation and commentary of the Holy Qurʾan are necessary. We think that such a translation and commentary will be very auspicious and useful for our nation.”Footnote ⁸⁰ In an article Eşref Edip, a leading critic, pointed out that if the translations had been of a higher quality, he would have celebrated and commended them. Moreover, he viewed Muhammad ʿAli's English-language translation of the Qurʾan as a model for success, admiring its format, respect for the text in terms of paper quality and binding, and its reception.Footnote ⁸¹ He wrote that the most noteworthy thing for Muslims was that the English press compared Muhammad ʿAli's translation of the Qurʾan with the English-language translations of the Torah and the Gospels, which are exemplars of the English language. In contrast, he viewed the Turkish translation attempts as failures in terms of accuracy and style.Footnote ⁸²

THE STATE-SPONSORED TRANSLATION PROJECT

The opposition to uncontrolled translation of the Qurʾan mobilized around the 1924 translations, precipitating calls for parliament to sponsor a Qurʾan translation project. Producing an accurate, eloquent Qurʾan translation now became a “powerful idea among the public.”Footnote ⁸³ On 21 February 1925, the parliament unanimously decided to fund a project to translate the Qurʾan, compose a Turkish-language Qurʾanic commentary, and translate al-Bukhari's collection of prophetic reports (hadith, Tr. hadis) into Turkish.Footnote ⁸⁴ Edip describes the atmosphere in parliament and the general sentiment about the project:

In agreement with parliament, the Directorate of Religious Affairs chose Mehmet Akif (Ersoy) (1873–1936) to translate the Qurʾan and Muhammed Hamdi Yazır “Elmalılı” (1878–1942) to compose the commentary.

Although his father was a teacher at the Fatih Medrese, Mehmet Akif pursued his formal education in the state public schools (mektep) and trained as a veterinarian. After finishing his studies, he worked for the Ministry of Agriculture as a veterinarian and then held several teaching positions. Although Akif obtained extensive knowledge of Islamic disciplines and the Arabic language, he was not a member of the ulema. After the 1908 revolution, Akif cofounded and edited the Muslim-modernist journal Sırat-ı Müstakim, which later changed its name to Sebilürreşad. Akif published the bulk of his poetry in these journals and became a renowned poet with the sobriquet “the poet of Islam.” In 1913, Akif criticized Ziya Gökalp's ideas about nationalism and other antireligious publications of CUP-related intellectuals, provoking a statement of disapproval from the CUP that forced him to leave his teaching post. During World War I, Akif worked on several missions for the Turkish intelligence service (Teşkilat-i Mahsusa) and played an active role in supporting the Turkish War of Independence through public speeches. He composed the Turkish national anthem as well as a vast corpus of poetry and prose.Footnote ⁸⁶ After the establishment of the republic in 1923, Akif joined the opposition in the Grand National Assembly, placing him at odds with Mustafa Kemal's ruling faction. In October 1923, he began to spend winters in Egypt as the guest of his friend and patron Abbas Hilmi Pasha. Beginning in 1925, Akif resided there permanently.Footnote ⁸⁷

Mehmet Akif accepted the Qurʾan translation project with reluctance. He did not consent to calling the work a “translation” and agreed to participate only with the understanding that the final product would be called a “synopsis” of the meanings (meal).Footnote ⁸⁸ He feared that nationalist leaders would attempt to replace the Arabic Qurʾan with his translation and use it for ritual purposes.Footnote ⁸⁹ Moreover, he was concerned that the translation would be published without a commentary, leading to unsanctioned interpretation by unqualified persons.Footnote ⁹⁰

Between 1926 and 1929, Akif worked diligently on the project and completed a preliminary draft, but he refused to submit it, insisting on further revisions. It is likely that Akif decided not to submit his translation in 1928, after parliament eliminated the stipulation in the constitution stating that Islam was the official religion of the Turkish republic.Footnote ⁹¹ He withdrew from the project and returned the advance that he had received.

However, there remained a great desire on the part of friends, readers, and Mustafa Kemal for Akif's translation. Many attempted to convince him to share it during his final years, but Akif remained firm and refused all petitioners. Leaving Cairo for medical treatment in Istanbul, he instructed his close friend Mehmet İhsan to keep the translation in his possession and to burn the manuscript if he did not return. Akif never returned, and his wishes concerning the manuscript were reportedly fulfilled.Footnote ⁹² The translation of Mehmet Akif has become an object of popular fascination, a landmark work of Islamic scholarship in the Turkish language that only a handful of Akif's close friends ever had the opportunity to read.Footnote ⁹³

Muhammed Hamdi Yazır “Elmalılı” took over the translation project in 1931. Unlike the authors discussed previously, Elmalılı was a distinguished member of the professional religious establishment (ilmiye). From the last generation of the Ottoman ulema, Elmalılı possessed a wide range of intellectual and artistic interests. He was a poet, calligrapher, translator, and author. Moreover, Elmalılı studied European philosophy and, in innovative fashion, taught in his medrese courses the works of British philosophers John Stuart Mill and Alexander Bain as well as French philosophers Paul Janet and Gabriel Séailles. He translated these works and published his rendering of Janet and Séailles' Histoire de la philosophie in Turkish.Footnote ⁹⁴

In addition to his intellectual and artistic pursuits, Elmalılı played an active role in politics. He joined the CUP and became a representative of Antalya in the Ottoman parliament. Elmalılı held a number of bureaucratic and teaching positions within the ulema ranks and served as the Minister of Pious Foundations. After the closure of the medreses in March 1924, Elmalılı found himself without a job and spent the rest of his days pursuing scholarly projects largely within the confines of his home under difficult financial circumstances. Elmalılı remained highly respected as a scholar, so the Directorate of Religious Affairs chose him to compose the state-sponsored Qurʾanic commentary and, later, to take over the translation project.Footnote ⁹⁵

The introduction to his synopsis of the meanings and commentary, Hak Dini Kurʾan Dili (The Religion of God, The Language of the Qurʾan), is a remarkable document on the subject of Qurʾan translation. Elmalılı argues with considerable skill and color against the idea that the Qurʾan can be translated and outlines his method of composition. In the opening passages of his introduction, Elmalılı spares no rhetorical flourish in condemning reliance on translations:

Although Elmalılı rejected the term “translation” and discouraged reliance upon one, he felt that explaining the Qurʾan to people was a duty and that he could not refuse to write commentary and “synopsis” that would assist in that task.Footnote ⁹⁷

Elmalılı defines translation (tercüme) as “expressing the meaning of speech in another language in an equivalent expression.”Footnote ⁹⁸ However, he adds further qualifications. A translation is to be equal in all respects:

This definition of translation demands no less than perfect semantic equivalence on all registers, for “otherwise it is not a translation; it is a deficient explanation.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Elmalılı employs the logic that translation means “perfect replication” in another language to the extent that it can be called by the same name as the original text. Because perfect replication of the Qurʾan in Turkish is impossible, Qurʾan translation too is impossible.Footnote ¹⁰¹

Elmalılı also suggests that translation should have functional equivalence. He describes the fragility of translation and its ability to evoke contradictory responses in the reader: “The one who reads a translation is frightened at a point where they should be pleased and pleased at a point where they should be frightened: where there should be peace, there is the proclamation of war, where there should be war they move to make peace.”Footnote ¹⁰²

To reinforce the point that only the revealed Arabic text could be considered the Qurʾan in any respect, Elmalılı cites Qurʾanic verses from which jurists derive the definition of the Qurʾan as an Arabic text: “A scripture whose verses are expounded, an Arabic recitation” (Q 41:3). Moreover, he argues that some names of the Qurʾan also point to the centrality of the Arabic linguistic form (naẓm); hüküm refers to the basis of legal rulings on the Qurʾanic text, tenzil points out that God revealed the Qurʾan in Arabic, and zikr affirms the recited, oral nature of the Arabic arrangement of the Qurʾan.Footnote ¹⁰³

Also in the introduction, Elmalılı criticizes unqualified interpreters of the Qurʾan who base their reasoning upon translations. He writes, “One should not move to deduce legal rulings or enter discussions on problematic matters saying that this or that Qurʾan translation said such and such.”Footnote ¹⁰⁴ In order to separate the dilettantes from the experts, Elmalılı lays down a minimum requirement for anyone who wants to write about the Qurʾan. He argues that, if nothing else, such a person should be able to correctly read a Qurʾanic text that lacks vowel markings. He laments, “But what we see now are people who cannot even properly read a Qurʾan with vowel markings pretending to do independent reasoning (içtihad) based on its rulings and meanings.”Footnote ¹⁰⁵

Elmalılı deplored the phrase “Türkçe Kurʾan” (Turkish Qurʾan), which was popularized in Ziya Gökalp's “Homeland” poem and used in Cemil Sait's 1924 translation and in the 1926 edition of Tevfik's translation. In 1932, President Mustafa Kemal spearheaded an experimental campaign to recite Turkish translations of the Qurʾan at mosques in selected cites around the country, attempting to realize Gökalp's vision of worship in the national language with a “Turkish Qurʾan.” Protests caused the project to be abandoned.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Writing only two or three years after this incident, in 1934 or 1935, Elmalılı submitted a version of the introduction to his commentary that included the line “God forbid a Turkish Qurʾan!” The editors requested that he remove this line, which he did. However, he replaced it with the interrogative, “Is there such a thing as a Turkish Qurʾan, you fool?”Footnote ¹⁰⁷

It is clear that Elmalılı did not want his synopsis and commentary to be used for any religious experiments, and the style and format of his text made it unsuitable for such purposes. Many Turks in the late Ottoman and early republican years had envisioned a Turkish translation of the Qurʾan similar to Luther's German Bible, that is, a text anyone with a basic education could read and understand in clear, simple Turkish—a Qurʾan for every citizen, as expressed in Gökalp's poem cited previously. Elmalılı produced something quite different. Despite his stated intention to write the synopsis in a “plain and terse” style,Footnote ¹⁰⁸ the translation uses difficult vocabulary as well as complex and inverted sentences.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Moreover, the introduction contains numerous untranslated, unreferenced quotations from the Qurʾan in Arabic script, which he uses to prove points throughout the piece.Footnote ¹¹⁰ At times he seems to be writing for an audience that does not need his translation in the first place. In addition, the format is not conducive to reading the translation as an independent text because lengthy commentary passages interrupt and divide the verses.

Rather than an accessible rendering of the meanings of the Qurʾan, Elmalılı's magnum opus is an erudite, multivolume work of Qurʾanic commentary that includes translations of the verses. It was not the Qurʾan for the people that late Ottoman intellectuals had imagined would communicate the meaning of the text in simple language. Elmalılı's Hak Dini Kurʾan Dili is one of the most formidable pieces of Islamic scholarship composed in the Turkish republican period. In recent years, Elmalılı's “interpretation of the meanings” has achieved renown in many circles as the best Turkish translation and continues to serve as a key tefsir text in Turkish divinity schools.Footnote ¹¹¹