Russia overturns Qur'an translation ban

In September, Russian authorities banned a translation of the Qur’an into Russian by Azeri theologian Elmir Kuliyev on the basis that it breached article 282 of the Criminal Code for the "incitement of national, racial, or religious enmity ."

Russian authorities have lifted a ban on the translation of the Qur’an – a decision that has overjoyed Muslims across Russia .

In September, Russian authorities banned a translation of the Qur’an into Russian by Azeri theologian Elmir Kuliyev on the basis that it breached article 282 of the Criminal Code for the "incitement of national, racial, or religious enmity ."

The Kuliyev translation was among 2,000 other publications that were banned since 2002 for this reason. 65 Islamic books were banned by the same court in the southern city of Novorossiysk .

These boks include works by classical Islamic scholars Imam An-Nawawi, Ibn Hisham and Imam al-Ghazali, as well as more recent Turkish Muslim thinkers Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Fethullah Gulen and Osman Nuri Topbas .

Rushan Abbyasov, the deputy head of the Council of Muftis of Russia, told Moscow Times “We were expecting the ruling to be overturned. We actively participated in the appeals process, and our theologians demonstrated that Kuliyev's translation was in no way extremist .”

He added, “The district court was incompetent, making a decision solely to foment a popular reaction, and the regional court realized that .”

On Tuesday, the Krasnodar Regional Court overturned a September ruling by a court in Novorossiysk, a city in southern Russia, to ban the widely read translation of the noble Qur’an by Azeri theologian Elmir Kuliyev .

Explaining the reason behind the overturning of the ban, political analyst Alexander Verkhovsky said, "The decision was made by a low-level court with doubtful competencies ."