More than 150 Turkish translations of the Qur’an have been published in Turkey over the last hundred years, which means that any new translation is hardly likely to contain many surprises. Still, every year a couple of new translations appear: be it some kind of voluminous translation with scholarly commentaries prepared by a committee of established academics, or, alternatively, an individual’s reflection on the Qur’anic text. One relatively recent example of the latter is Ali Rıza Safa’s ‘Kur’an Gerçek’, first published in 2014 by Ileri publishing house in Istanbul to some critical reviews. There have been several editions of this work, which has been presented in two formats: one with additional introductory matter and commentary (printed in 2014 and 2018), and the second containing only the translated text (printed in various editions, the last of which I can trace to 2021). All editions have been produced by the same publisher, with the title of more recent versions being changed to Kur’an-i Kerim Gerçek, i.e. ‘The True Noble Qur’an’. More recent editions have also seen some ‘corrections’ to the translation itself. In 2016, a presentation of the first edition in the Turkish city of Kayseri led to a minor scandal: a group of local Muslim scholars complained to the regional government that it contained ‘tahrīf’ (i.e. ‘distortion’) of the text by the author and requested that distribution be halted. However, this did not lead to any legal issues for the author or bans on distribution, as happened with Recep İhsan Eliaçık’s ‘Yaşayan Kur’an ‘(‘The Living Qur’an’) in 2023 (see: https://gloqur.de/quran-translation-of-the-week-150-an-anti-capitalist-translation-yasayan-kuran-the-living-quran-by-recep-ihsan-eliacik/). But, what was really so controversial about ‘Kur’an Gerçek’?
First of all, not much is known about Ali Rıza Safa, especially his educational background. He has also published some other books on religious issues, for example, ‘Gerçek Aydınlığında Gerçek Din’ (‘True Religion in the Light of Truth’, Istanbul, 2021), although he does not seem to have any links to the Turkish ulema network – as a rule, it is primarily graduates of the numerous ilahiyets, i.e. ‘theology faculties’, who are engaged in religious publishing. There is also absolutely no information about the author provided in any editions of the translation, although the blurb on the back cover starts with the interesting political claim that ‘If it was not for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Turkish nation would not have been able to read the Qur’an in Turkish’. A short introduction (‘Sunuş’, lit. ‘Presentation’) to the 2021 edition also mentions Atatürk twice: first in a dedication of the translation to a great personality of Turkish history, named as a ‘Büyük Kurtarıcı’ (‘TheGreat Saviour’) of the Turkish nation; and secondly in a statement made by the translator that it was Atatürk who made the Qur’an accessible to readers after a ‘one thousand’ year ‘ban on reading it in Turkish’. This statement raises a couple of questions: yes, Atatürk can be said to have had in impact in this context, as the modern understanding of a Qur’an translation as an independent work (as opposed to a tafsīr) was arrived at during the period of national reform implemented in the newly established Republic of Turkey under his rule. Yet, many (if not most!) traditional Muslim scholars in Turkey associate post-Atatürk Kemalism with secular rule, and usually regard his attempts to ‘Turkize’ Islam, such as implementing the practice of reciting the Qur’an in Turkish, as something more challenging, verging on heresy.
When it comes to the actual text of ‘Kur’an Gerçek’, one might expect some kind of ‘secular Kemalism’ to be reflected in its language as well: analysis of Turkish translations produced over recent decades shows that sometimes authors use more Arabic-based (i.e. Qur’anic) religious vocabulary, while other use more vernacular Turkic words. For example, if we take into consideration the second verse of the first sura, most contemporary Turkish translations render this as something like ‘Hamd, âlemlerin Rabbi Allah’adır’ (‘Glory to Allah, The Lord of the Words’), i.e. as a kind of ‘Turkized’ version of the original Arabic wording al-ḥamdu li-llāhi rabbi l-ʿālamīn. This is the case in, for example, the extremely popular translation by Yaşar Nuri Öztürk (which has been printed more than 150 times since 1993), and even in the recent poetic translation published by Tahsin Varol (in 2020), which has ‘Hamdolsun Allah’s Herkesın Tanrısına’ (‘Glory be Allah, God of everything’).
Instead, Ali Rıza Safa opts for ‘Evrenlerin Efendisi Allah’a övgüler olsun’ (‘Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Universe’). One may note here his unusual choice of word to translate the Arabic rabb: while almost all Turkish translators use rabb (a word that also exists in Turkish religious vocabulary), Ali Rıza Safa opts for ‘Efendi’, which is a kind of secular vernacular form of address to any authority. The only translator to have made this choice before him was Edip Yüksel, a controversial protagonist of ‘reformist Islam’. It also looks as if Ali Rıza Safa has followed Edip Yüksel in his critical stance towards dependence on the Sunna: in the 2018 edition, commenting on Q. 2:79, he refutes the use of the so-called ḥadīth qudsī in Muslim tradition, asserting that the only revelation the Prophet received from God was the Qur’an. In his translation of other religious terms, the translator continues his domestication strategy. For example he even translates al-masjid al-ḥarām (‘the sacred mosque’) as ‘Kutsal yakarış evi’ (‘the holy house of prayer’) in his rendition of Q. 2:144.
It also seems that for Ali Rıza Safa, this ‘Turkization’ of the text was not just a linguistic issue, but also extended to religious practice. In the introductory section of the 2018 edition, he openly states his opinion that the Qur’an should be read in Turkish during the obligatory prayers, as full understanding of its words can ‘increase the spiritual depth of the prayer’ (‘namazın derinliğini de artıracaktır’). It thus appears that Ali Rıza Safa regards the Qur’an in translation as being of spiritual equivalence to the Arabic text, in accordance with a 2021 study written by a Turkish Diyanet official called Bayram Köseoğlu (‘Kur’ân Meâlleri Kur’ân Hükmünde midir?’ [‘Are the Translations of the Quran the Same as the Quran?’], Dergiabant, 9:2 (2021), 705–724). This explains the controversy over Kur’an Gerçek during the Kayseri book fair in 2016: the translation, with its deliberate ‘de-Arabization’ strategy, would definitely be rather challenging for more traditional religious circles. It is precisely because of this that ‘Kur’an Gerçek’ remains a marginalised work, although it is a somewhat interesting one in terms of understanding the complexities of contemporary debates on secularism and traditionalism in Turkey.
Mykhaylo Yakubovych