The aim of this seminar is to create an inter-disciplinary discussion on the role of other languages in the early Islamic world. New interests in the multi-lingual situation of various medieval entities call for an investigation into the various languages in use under the first caliphs, through the Umayyad period and into the beginnings of the ‘Abbāsid reign. North African coins bearing a fragmentary rendering of the Shahāda in Latin, the early Greek translation of the Qur’ān, as well as the purported translation into Persian by Salmān al-Fārisī, the companion of the Prophet, are only some samples of the multilingual Qur'ānic material that may be addressed in this seminar. Epigraphic, legal, and administrative, but also historiographical, biographical and liturgical texts containing Qur’ānic snippets, phrases or even whole verses, have in many instances been disregarded, as exceptional aberrations from the norm, and scholarship has therefore contributed to the common notion that Arabic was the only accepted language for the Qur'an from the outset. By bringing these ‘exceptions‘ together a more consistent pattern, reflecting actual practices, becomes attainable. Papers will deal with any languages other than, or in addition to, Arabic, and from all geographical areas and social strata.

After the seminar, we intend to have the contributions published in our new Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies (JTMS; de Gruyter): http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jtms