15:19, 24 May 2004

Reading Koran in Russian prohibited in Dagestan

The Spiritual Administration of Moslems of Dagestan has imposed a ban on the distribution of Russian translations of the Koran. A ban has also been imposed on the works of all the nine Islamic theologians both medieval and modern and on the production of the five largest publishing houses that print Moslem literature. The Spiritual Administration grounds these measures on "the necessity to intensify the fight against Wahhabism."

One have not been able to buy the Koran in Russian in Makhachkala mosques for a month already, the ban applying even to the translation by Nuri Osmanov, who was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation for it.

It should be noted that in many mosques in the world, lines from the Koran are read in Arabic first, and then in the language of the country where the divine service is held. Therefore modern translations of the Koran are so popular all over the Islamic world.

Director of the Institute for Religion and Law Anatoly Pchelintsev said books could be seized from the market only by a court decision.

Source: Gazeta.ru Website