We are happy to announce that our book "Islam and the Wonders of Creation: Animal Kingdom", by the late Annemarie Schimmel, an influential German scholar of Islamic studies, has been translated into and published in the Turkish language.
The Turkish translation was published by Ketebe publications on 1st March 2026. The original English edition was published with an Arabic translation in one volume by Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation in 2003. The book is based on a lecture delivered by Schimmel at the headquarters of the Foundation in London in the year 2001.
Annemarie Schimmel focuses in this book on the extent to which Islamic culture has taken interest in the animal kingdom. So much so that animal names have been used as human names, animal stories have featured in literature and animals’ examples have been used to explain ideas, theories and concepts. This in addition to the many similarities drawn from the animal kingdom found in literature and poetry.
Professor Schimmel has surveyed the mention of animals and birds by Muslim authors and reviewed such mentions in a number of languages in which she is proficient, namely Arabic, Turkish, Sindi and Persian. Special attention was given to poetry in this regard. She holds that animals form an important part of the Islamic heritage, as the mention of animals has been made in the Qurʾān more than in any other holy book. She also points out that animals can be symbolic for profound spiritual truths.
