Iran to host Int’l Confab on Quran Translation

Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabaei University is to hold the 1st International Conference on Quran Translation. The conference, which will start from Dec.14-16, is being organized with the cooperation of the university and the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO).

The festival’s press conference was held on Tuesday in ICRO with the attendance of the head of the university’s English Translation Department and the festival’s secretary Hussein Mollanazar and head of Translation and Dissemination of Islamic Sciences and Humanities of the ICRO Ali Dehgahi.

“The festival will introduce and evaluate Quran translations in 8 languages by expert and Quran translators of different countries including China, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, France, Russia and Spain”, he said.

“The festival will also evaluate 70 issues related to the translation of Quran which will also hold the history of Quran translation”, he noted. The event will also hold a sideline section which will exhibit the translations of the Holy Book into 150 languages as well as 140 Quranic plates in different languages.

“Seven prominent translators as well as Dr. Gholamali Haddad Adel will be the keynote speakers of the festival,” he said. Currently the Iranian Center for Translation of the Holy Quran supports the Quran translations worldwide, however ICRO is its representative outside the country, he noted.

Ali Dehgahi, for his part, said: “Currently some 6,000 languages have been identified in the world. Comparing the holy books, we learned that that the Bible has been rendered in 2,500 languages while Quran is translated into 146. The supreme concepts of Islam should be introduced to the non-Muslims which will indeed require the translation of the holy Quran into other languages.”