Reading the Quran in Bosnian — the Korkut translation

Korkut was born in Travnik, Bosnia, in 1904. He studied Arabic and Islamic sciences at Al-Azhar in Cairo and went on to teach Arabic at the University of Sarajevo. His Quran translation was the work of a lifetime — careful, scholarly, and aimed at Bosnian readers who understood the cadence of the language deeply but were not fluent in classical Arabic.

He died in 1975, two years before the translation was officially published. The Islamic Community of BiH (Islamska zajednica) and Orijentalni Institut in Sarajevo took on the work of seeing it through to print.

There are several Bosnian translations of the Quran — Mlivo, Karić, Pandža, and others — each with their own merits. Korkut is the dominant one for three reasons:

1. Scholarly grounding — Al-Azhar training and a lifetime of Arabic philology. 2. Beautiful Bosnian — the prose has the dignity of classical religious language without being archaic. It reads aloud well. 3. Wide endorsement — used by the Rijaset Islamske zajednice u BiH and present in nearly every Bosnian Muslim household.

It is what most people mean when they say 'the Bosnian Quran'.

On Deen Path you can read the entire Quran with Korkut's translation alongside the Arabic and the English (Sahih International) translation, with audio recitation by Mishary Alafasy. Open the Quran reader. All 114 surahs are free, no sign-in needed.

The BS toggle in the translation picker shows or hides Korkut's text under each ayah. Combined with the audio, this is a good way for Bosnian Muslims to read along and start to recognise Arabic phrasing.

Korkut died in 1989; under Bosnian copyright law (life + 70 years), his translation is technically still in copyright, held by his estate and the publishing house that released it. Most Islamic apps and websites use it under an implicit-permission practice — the publishers have not enforced and the wider goal is the spread of the Quran's meaning. We use it gratefully and credit it on every surah page.