Summary

In this workshop, the speakers discussed the role of translation and a sense of community shared by ulama in modern empires: The Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire.

In his presentation titled “Non-Turkish Official Versions of “the Ottoman Constitution”: Translators, Publication and Responses,” Dr. Takamatsu discussed the translators of the Constitution, the relation between the translated texts, and the responses of subjects in the Ottoman Empire focusing on the publication of multilingual official versions of the “Ottoman Constitution” promulgated in December 1876. He noted the following ideas: the translations were provided by non-Muslim bureaucrats in the government; some of these translators later became high officials; the conventional theory, which says that translations other than the Arabic translation are secondhand translations of the French translation, isn’t necessarily correct; and it is, in particular, highly probable that the Greek translation was made to be a translation faithful to the Ottoman-Turkish original text. Furthermore, he mentioned that letters of appreciation written in various languages were provided after promulgation of the constitution by various groups and the promulgation of the multilingual constitution brought on these responses from subjects. During the question and answer session, participants asked various questions, such as how different the meaning of the letters of appreciation provided to the government were compared to other letters provided before then and why the Greek translation was not deeply influenced by the French translation. The speaker replied to the former question that the letters of appreciation were different from the others in the way that their wording was not stereotyped, and to the latter question that it seems better to consider that each translator’s judgement affected the translations.

In her presentation titled “A Muslim Community as Imagined through a Biographical Dictionary: Rida’ al-Din b. Fakhr al-Din’s Athar,” Dr. Isogai discussed the “Āthār,” a biographical dictionary of ulama written by Ridā’al-Dīn b. Fakhr al-Dīn, an ulama born in the Volga region and his knowledge about the history and community of the region. The speaker mentioned that Rida’ al-Din compiled the “Āthār” with the intention of recording people who provided educational activities for the community and that he considered the Islamization of the Bulgars as the beginning of history of the Volga-Ural region, as well as presented that the “Āthār” can be considered to describe the human connectivity among ulama in the history of the Muslim community in the region. Based on these thoughts, the speaker showed that the publication of the “Āthār” awoke a response in the ulama, the readers of the dictionary, in which we can find out the formation of a sense of community through published media. During the question and answer session, the participants asked questions about the impact of ulama and books written in other regions on the work of Rida’ al-Din, as well as left a comment suggesting the reconsideration of the relation between previous research and the speaker’s perspective and the further discussion on the meaning of words and the geographical scope of discussion as seen in the book of Rida’ al-Din to improve the speaker’s argument.