Italian Academic Tells Why He Started Translating Quran
A webinar titled “Quranic studies in Italy with a view on Quran’s translation by Abdulwahab Ciccarello” was recently held at IQNA to discuss academic Quranic studies in the European country.
Mohammad Taghi Amini, Iranian cultural attaché in Italy, was the first speaker of the webinar who pointed to the activities of a number of Italian universities in the field of Islamic studies.
He described Ciccarello’s work as one of the most precise Italian translations of the Quran.
Born in a small village near Venice in 1965, Ciccarello studied Italian literature in his country. He learned Arabic after living in the UAE for several years and through his travels to Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Tunisia.
“I got acquainted with a number of teachers who thought Arabic in the university and became interested in the language. I was a Christian at that time but studied other religions, especially Islam, I become interested in it,” he said, adding that he converted to Islam in 1985.
Asked about his motivation for translating the Quran, Ciccarello said “There was an increase in the number of Italians who were converting to Islam in the 1980s and hence there was a need for an Italian translation of the Quran. There are other translations in the market as well but most of them have an academic perspective and their translators are mostly non-Muslims. Their translations are not wrong but have a secular, historic, and material view on the text.”
“So I felt that there is a need for translating the Quran from an Islamic viewpoint to make it clear that the words of Allah are different than those of any human being.”
The first edition of the translation was published in 1993, he said.
“Although the translation of the Quran ended years ago, I still review the translations to improve it.”
There is no separate academic course for the Quran in Italy and it is being discussed under the subject of Islamic studies, he said, adding that only two universities in Palermo and Venice have Islamic studies.
Some professors have written books and articles about the Quran and most of them have had an orientalist view. Muslims, most of the time, do not agree with the viewpoints of these works and this is common in the west, Ciccarello added.
“My translation was completed with the help of a committee comprised of experts in Arabic and Italian languages as well as Islamic scholars,” he said, noting that the committee started the work in 1998 and since then several editions of the translation have been published, the last one in 2021.
“We used tafsirs written by both Sunni and Shia scholars so as to have a better understanding of the Quran,” Ciccarello said, adding that the translation tries to use modern language so that readers can understand the concepts easier.
