The Minsk Translation of the Qur’ān of the 17th Century
https://doi.org/10.22311/2074-1529-2026-22-1-59-79
Abstract
The subject of this study is a unique Arabic- script manuscript of a translation of the Qur’ān created in Minsk by Imam Uryash ibn Ismā‘īl Shlemovich in 1686. The aim of the work is to introduce complete data about this artifact into scientific circulation, prove its authorship and protographic nature, and determine its place in the history of Islamic thought in Europe. A comprehensive approach was applied in the study, including codicological, paleographic, and comparative textual analysis of the Arabic, Ottoman, and Old Belarusian texts. The results are as follows: first, the author, Mullah Uryash Shlemovich, was identified based on archival sources (the Magistrate books of Minsk, 1679); second, a Turkic protograph from the 1580s was discovered, which explains the manuscript’s bilingualism; third, the translation’s affiliation with the Māturīdī school of kalām was established through textual comparison with Tabṣirat al- Adillah by al- Nasafī); and finally, a scribal error (homoioteleuton) was detected, marking subsequent manuscripts as copies of this manuscript. The scientific novelty of the research lies in qualifying the Minsk translation for the first time as an independent tafsīr that integrates classical Islamic exegesis into a European linguistic context. This finding confirms the existence of an autochthonous Muslim tradition of Qur’ān translation into a European language beyond polemics. The significance of the study consists in introducing a source that revises preconceived notions about the boundaries of Islamic scholasticism and makes it possible to determine the place of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth in the history of Qur’ānic hermeneutics.
Keywords
Minsk Tafsīr,
Uryash Shlemovich,
Qur’ān,
Arabic- script manuscripts,
Grand Duchy of Lithuania,
Māturīdīsm,
history of translation,
textual criticism,
17th century
УДК: 297.1:091:03=163
About the Author
M. M. Ovezov
Muslim Religious Association of the Republic of Belarus
Belarus
Belarus
Maksat M. OVEZOV, Doctor of Islamic Studies, deputy mufti
29 Griboedov St., 220035, Minsk
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Review
For citations:
Ovezov M.M. The Minsk Translation of the Qur’ān of the 17th Century. Islam in the modern world. 2026;22(1):59-79. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22311/2074-1529-2026-22-1-59-79
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