A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Qur'an in Tamazight Published — in Saudi Arabia

A translation of the Qur'an (or as Muslims would say, of the meanings of the Qur'an, since only the Arabic text is the literal word of God) into Tamazight has been completed — at Medina in Saudi Arabia. According to this article (in French),  which refers to it as the "first" Qur'an in Tamazight, an earlier translation published in Morocco in 1999 was withdrawn from sale after controversy erupted. The article alludes to some concerns in Algeria that the translation, which allegedly is comprehensible regardless of the form of the language spoken, might promote Wahhabi teachings.

I'm not certain but this may be it. But back in 2007 Lameen Souag noted another "first" translation into Tamazight, which he referred to as "more like the last first Tamazight Qur'an." That post spells out the history in some detail, and no, this one definitely isn't the "first" translation.

UPDATE: See Lameen's comment and link in the comments.

2 comments:

Lameen Souag الأمين سواق said...

Yes, this is the same one - except at that point it was only a partial translation, and now it's been finished. Echourouk is unreliable enough first-hand, but in this case bladi.net has made it worse - the original article cites universal cross-comprehensibility as a goal but don't claim that it actually attains it. The article is: http://www.echoroukonline.com/ara/articles/159816.html

ramy said...
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