Language of the Qur'an: Translation, Science, and Religion in Turkey (Religion and the Human)

How do Muslims make sense of a scripture they believe was revealed fourteen centuries ago? In Languages of the Qur'an, anthropologist Yunus Doğan Telliel takes readers into the lives of Turkish Muslims grappling with this very question.

Following years of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey, Telliel explores two of the most powerful forces shaping how Muslims relate to the Qur'an today: translation and science. Secular reform in Turkey has made reading the Qur'an in Turkish both possible and controversial, raising the question of whether God's word can truly be rendered in another language. At the same time, more Muslims have begun to read the Qur'an through the lens of modern science as they seek new ways to explain their scripture's relevance to the present day. Through conversations with believers navigating belief and doubt, Telliel reveals how modern Muslims engage with these theological questions, challenging one another to explain how and why they understand divine revelation as they do. The result is a new portrait of a scripture continually reimagined in a rapidly changing world of science and technology.

Fresh and accessible, Languages of the Qur'an offers essential reading for anyone interested in Islam, the relationship between science and religion, or changing understandings of religious language in the contemporary world.

Yunus Doğan Telliel is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Rhetoric and Director of the Great Problems Seminar Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.