Turkey donates 3,000 Qurans to Spanish Muslims

By Sorwar Alam

ANKARA (AA) – A group connected to Turkey’s top religious body has donated 3,000 copies of the holy Quran to Muslims in southern Spain, the foundation announced on Wednesday.

In a statement, the Turkiye Diyanet Foundation (TDV) -- connected to the Religious Affairs Directorate, or Diyanet -- said Spanish translations of the Quran also including the original Arabic text had been distributed to Muslims in Granada and Seville in Andalusia, southern Spain as part of the campaign, “Let my gift be the Quran.”

In the campaign, launched jointly by the TDV and the Religious Affairs Directorate to meet the need of many Muslims worldwide for the Quran, more than one million copies of the holy scripture have been distributed across the world, including to countries in Latin America and Asia Pacific, said the statement.

Mecit Balci, who sits on the group’s board of trustees, and Abdurrahman Cetin, its deputy director general, took part in the Quran distribution ceremony that arose to meet the need of Andalusian Muslims, it added.

The Diyanet Foundation has been organizing and promoting projects to translate the Quran into various languages, and to date has done 17 different translations.