Finnish national radio to broadcast Koran as knowledge input

Finnish national radio Yle will soon broadcast Islamic holy book Koran in Finnish language, the broadcaster said on Tuesday.

The broadcasts will be aired on Yle Radio One, a channel for cultural programming and classical music. The same channel airs Christian devotional programming twice a day and church services on Sunday.

Beginning on March 7, the new series include 60 half-an-hour installments and cover the whole book.

The Programme Director of the channel Kaj Farm said the readings of Koran are not religious programming but rather general knowledge input.

The translation is done by Finnish professor Jaakko Hameen-Anttila.

Hameen-Anttila underlined the fact that Koran is read in its entirety, and not just select parts. Each installment will be preceded by a discussion between the translator and Anas Hajjar, a leading imam in Finland.

While the decision by the national broadcaster has been welcomed by the Islamic community in Finland, the publicity has given the opportunity to deal with the practical problems of educating imams and teaching Koran in Finland.

Islam is a small minority religion in this Nordic country with protestant Christianity as its main religion.

First Islam believers arriving in Finland were tatars from Russia in the 19th century. Most of the estimated 40,000 Muslims in Finland today arrived after 1990, mainly from Africa and the Middle East.

The Islam communities in Finland face financial problems in educating imams. According to a recent survey by a private organization, half of the some 50 imams in Finland have not received any training.

In Finland, the two national Christian churches, the Lutheran and the Greek Orthodox, have the right to levy taxes collected on their behalf by the national revenue service. Other religious communities receive a small grant from the government, but have to find the rest on their own. Endit