A Ukraine We Don’t Know: The Qur’an, Crimean Philosophers, and the Islamic Intellectual Tradition | Mykhailo Yakubovych

🎙️ Dear friends, we are delighted to present a new episode of Philosophical Community, a project by the Sententiae Community!

▪️ Host – Vlada Davidenko.▪️ Guest – Mykhailo Yakubovych, a Ukrainian scholar of Islam, Orientalist, and translator, Associate Professor at the University of Freiburg, author of the first complete Ukrainian translation of the meanings of the Qur’an, and one of the leading scholars of the philosophical and manuscript heritage of the Crimean Khanate.

This time, we discuss Islam as an intellectual tradition and explore a part of the history of philosophy in Ukraine that still remains largely unknown.

Together with Mykhailo Yakubovych, we discuss:

🔹 his intellectual journey from Ostroh to the study of Islamic philosophy, as well as the multiconfessional intellectual world of Volhynia;

🔹 why Islam should not be understood as a closed and homogeneous tradition, and the place of Ukraine, Crimea, and the Northern Black Sea region in its history;

🔹 the Ukrainian translation of the Qur’an and whether there is, in fact, a fundamental difference between “translating the Qur’an” and “translating its meanings”;

🔹 the challenges of developing a Ukrainian language of Islamic philosophy: how Arabic philosophical concepts can be translated and how to strike a balance between precision and accessibility;

🔹 the philosophical tradition of the Crimean Khanate – its thinkers, manuscripts, schools, and intellectual networks, which allow us to see Crimea not as a periphery but as part of the broader world of Islamic thought;

🔹 and, finally, how our understanding of the history of philosophy in Ukraine might change if we restore its Muslim intellectual heritage to the picture.

A conversation about translations and manuscripts, Avicenna and Crimean philosophers, the boundaries of what we call “philosophy” – and about Ukraine as a meeting place of different intellectual traditions.

🎥 Listen to the new episode of Philosophical Community!