[FIRST ISLAMIC PRINTING HOUSE IN JAPAN / TATAR ÉMIGRÉS / DIASPORA PRINTING] شراءيط الايمان و يس شريف / Serâît ül Imân ve Yes-i Serîf. [i.e., The Five Pillars and the prayer of Yasin]
N. A.
Matbaa-yi Islâmiye, Tokyo, 1934.
Contemporary wrappers. 12mo. (16 x 11,5 cm). In Tatar with Arabic letters and Arabic, the colophon is in Japanese. 33, [1] p. Some chippings on the pages’ extremities, browning and slight stains on pages and covers, contemporarily stapled and bound with contemporary wrappers. Overall, a good copy.
An extremely rare first and only edition of The Five Pillars of Islam in the Tatar language, accompanied by the Yasin prayer in Arabic. This work was printed at the first Islamic printing house established in Tokyo, one of only 39 publications produced by Muslim Tatars who migrated from Russia to Japan.
According to Dündar, this book, dated May 25, 1934 (Showa 9), was distributed free of charge among Muslims in Japan.
In the early 20th century, groups of Tatars migrated from Kazan, Russia, to Japan. Led by the Bashkir émigré Imam Muhammed-Gabdulkhay Kurbangaliev, who had fought for the White movement during the Russian Civil War and arrived in Japan in 1924, the community organized under his leadership. In 1935, the Tatars in Japan established their first mosque and school in Kobe, followed by another mosque in Tokyo in 1938, supported by Kurbangaliev’s organization. Additionally, the Mohammedan Printing Office in Tokyo, a second Tatar group, published the first Qur'an in Japan and produced a Tatar-language magazine in Arabic script, The Japan Intelligencer, which continued until the 1940s. Following World War II, most Tatars emigrated, while those who remained adopted Turkish citizenship in the 1950s.
Dündar 18., Not in Özege., As of November 2024, no copies of this work are listed in OCLC.