Tajikistan president, ImamAli Rahman:
“We translated and interpreted the #Quran into our national language (Persian/Tajiki) so that people would read and understand it, rather than blindly becoming suicide bombers and killing themselves in a haram way (like the Taliban).” pic.twitter.com/1AMpW2TUSn
— Ahmad Sharifzad (@AhmadSharifzad) December 17, 2025
He appears to think, if he is sincere, that understanding the Qur’an will lead fewer people to become jihad terrorists. Actually, it’s likely to have just the opposite effect, as believers will read exhortations to “kill them wherever you find them” (2:191, 4:89, 4:91, 9:5), “strike the necks” of the unbelievers (47:4), “strike terror in the enemies of Allah” (8:60, cf. 3:151 and 8:12), and much more. As for suicide bombing, readers will find Allah promising paradise to those who “kill and are killed” in his service (9:111).
Eddie says
I couldn’t find a single word of love and compassion in the Qur’an
It seems it is about intolerance of non believers and killing them. No positive message of hope or forgiveness – how is it ever called “HOLY” ?
Perhaps I missed the good bits.
I am not an Islamic scholar but to me there does seem to be unnatural influence in the creation of Islam.
A brilliant mind created an enduring and barbaric mafia code. Something beyond man.
We must acknowledge it’s evil has stood the test of time.
Was this divine intervention into the world of men?
Or was it not Gabriel who visited their “Prophet” but Lucifer ?
Alkflaeda says
I agree with your conclusion – we are told that Mohammed’s visitant crushed his chest, which is typical of trance mediumship, not of Biblical angelic encounters. If you check out https://www.raymondibrahim.com/06/20/2022/zakaria-botros-87-and-still-boldly-challenging-islam you will find another of Mohammed’s supernatural encounters, which, to my mind, puts the matter beyond any doubt.
CryHavoc says
I have some Qur’ans. What needs to be understood? I finished buy English/Arabic version in only 5 days ( though I read ‘The Ascent of Man in high school). Kill infidels? Go to heaven! Killed by infidels? Go to heaven! You don’t get to heaven in Islam by being peaceful. Muslim males are not taught self control so the only way to deal with their behavior like this is deadly force. I recommend a telescoping baton. ( I have three of them.)
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Uh, the qur’an has existed in Farsi for centuries: how do you think the Iranians were such experts in it from the Middle Ages? And yeah, for a country that has been embracing its Iranic heritage (like elements of Zoroastrianism), they’ll find that those citizens who understand the qur’an better will start opposing such policies
Also, what do the Tajik authorities plan to do about other islamic literature, such as the hadiths, tafseers and sira? Translate them as well? Or try to figure out what is authentic? They were actually doing well by trying to rediscover their Iranic roots: maybe they should stick to that, and encourage apostasy from islam
SKA says
I am hoping that among the Tajiks who, like the Azerbaijanis, at least gained greater literacy during their Soviet periods, there will be readers who will note the absurdities in the Qur’an much as Thomas Carlyle did when he read it in translation. Islamists once used to oppose translation into other languages because, i believe, doing so demystifies it.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Ali Sina described that the start of his apostasy was after he read the qur’an. I think he may have read it in Arabic, rather than Farsi, though I couldn’t be too sure. Incidentally, Tajiki is very much a derivative of Farsi: only difference is that being a part of the Soviet Union as long as they were, their script became Cyrillic rather than Nastaliq. That may well be what the Tajik leader was describing: make it readable for them
There are 2 things about the “-stans” (and Russian provinces that are muslim, like Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chechnya,…) that make them different from most other muslim countries, even ones as close as Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey
⮞ Like all religions, islam was completely censored during the Soviet regime, so that come 1992, all these newly independent countries had no idea what it was to be muslim, and really didn’t care. The same Soviet leaders remained in power there, like Karimov in Tashkent, and they made sure that they cracked down on any islamic activity
⮞ There was a reformation movement called “Jadid”, which is the closest thing in islam to the Protestant Reformation movement in Christianity. That philosophy was unique to the Russian empire (it emerged during the Tsarist reign), and never spread outside its borders. Not even to the Ottoman empire, which had ethnic similarities w/ the muslims in Russia, most of whom are Turkic
gravenimage says
Tajikistan’s president: ‘We translated the Qur’an into our national language so that people would understand it’
……………………………………………
Wasn’t the Qur’an in Arabic so that would-be Muslims could understand it?
Then, the earliest Farsi Qur’ans date from the mid-7th century–some of the earliest translations of the Qur’an from Arabic. And the earliest Tajik-language Qur’ans, using Perso-Arabic script, date from around the 8th century. So why would the Tajik president consider this anything new?
SKA says
Truthfully I believe the use of the Arabic script for non-Arabic languages impeded mass literacy. It was only after Atatürk introduced his modified Latin-based alphabet and after the Central Asian SSRs imposed the Cyrillic alphabet that mass literacy was raised in those nations. But even today about 20% of the Qur’an is incomprehensible in its “pure Arabic” form which is apparently closer to Aramaic than to spoken modern Arabic.
gravenimage says
Could be–but I don’t think Islam is so ignorant purely because of Arabic script. I doubt this is the main problem–more what Islam teaches.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Maybe not 7th, since the islamization of Iran started under the Samanids. But yeah, by the 9th and 10th century, the qur’an was very much translated to Farsi. I’m not sure there was any Tajik dialect then: “Tajikistan” was a part of the Samanid sultanate, which had capitals first in Samarqand and later in Buqhara. Even today, both cities have major Tajik populations, despite being in Uzbekistan
The only way this would be new is if the qur’an was transcribed (within Tajiki) from Nastaliq to Cyrillic, so that all Tajiks could read it. How they react after that – whether they apostatize, or become jihadists – is anyone’s guess
gravenimage says
Well, Arabs did invade Persia in the mid 7th century.
But my main point was that any semi-literate Tajik should have ben able to read the Qur’an ling since. It was not translated in Tajikistan just recently.
Alkflaeda says
Excellent. Now we can pray that when they understand what their holy book really contains, they will realise that the god of the Qur’an is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and will follow in the footsteps of those who have converted to Christianity or Judaism.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Actually, Tajiks are Iranic people, and therefore not likely to be interested in a religion that’s more genuinely Abrahamic. When they became independent, they declared their national founders to be the Samanid sultanate, that ruled Iran during the Abbasid caliphate, from nearby Samarqand and Buqhara. At the time, they had a good relationship w/ Iran, since in the Soviet Union, ethnicity was emphasized more over religion (same reason Azerbaijan has more affinity towards Turkey than Iran)
However, over time, those relations deteriorated, but Tajikistan is still into its Iranic heritage, such as the Zoroastrian festival of Nowroz and other Zoroastrian cultural attributes. They’ve not been into islam much – shi’a nor sunni, since a civil war that tried to make Tajikistan a copy of Afghanistan next door. Incidentally, unlike Iranians, Tajiks happen to be sunni, just like their neighbors – the Afghans, the Kyrgyz, the Uyghurs….