One of the advantages of living in Cairo is that the city remains an international nexus for scholars and practitioners working in interfaith relations, Islamic studies, and Eastern Christian studies. At a 2023 conference at the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (IDEO), I was pleased to meet Dr. Mykhaylo Yakubovich, a Ukrainian scholar of Islamic studies and translation, who was writing a book on Qur’ān translation in Saudi Arabia. His book, The Kingdom and the Qur’ān: Translating the Holy Book of Islam in Saudi Arabia, has now been published and is available open access here.The book contains many important and fascinating insights on the history of modern Qurʾān translation, the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qurʾān in Medina, and Islam in Saudi Arabia more generally.  Recently, I was able to interview Mykhaylo on these and related themes. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher with The Global Qurʾānproject at the University of Freiburg directed by Professor Johanna Pink. 

Our interview touches on 20th-century Islamic debates about the translatability of the Qurʾān, the role of the King Fahd Complex, Salafī tafsīr, the Muslim community in Ukraine, and Mykhaylo’s translation of the Qurʾān into Ukrainian, the first complete Ukrainian translation from the original Arabic. We also discuss the origins and significance of al-Muntakhab fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm (The Select Interpretation of the Holy Qurʾān), a Qurʾān translation and commentary published by the Ministry of Awqāf here in Egypt. An excerpt of the interview can be found here. 

I would like to thank Dr. Yakubovych for his willingness to provide this interview and we look forward to his future scholarship.

Matthew Anderson

Director - Center for Arab-West Understanding

Executive Editor - Dialogue Across Borders (Brill)

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March 9, 2025