Mostabserin center interviewed him
Ibrahim Sawada is a 38-year-old Shiite Japanese translator who translated the thirtieth part of Qur'an into Japanese which took him six months. He is the son of the most famous Japanese Shiite scientist Hojjat-ul-Islam Ibrahim Tatsu Ichi Sawada has been studying at Islamic school in Qom for seven years, He completed Islamic courses until the postgraduate level (master's studied) after about three years he graduated from Islamic school and returned to Japan.
during the interview he talked about his main motivation for studying at Qom school said" :I am a Muslim, and in order to learn about the teachings of Islam, I decided to study at the Shiite school in Qom out of my curiosity and my father's recommendation, since my father also used to write the entire Qur'an in his handwriting in Japanese, he encouraged me to translate Qur'an".
When asked if he had read other translations, he replied, "Yes, I have read the Persian translations of Qur'an, Tafsir al-Mizan and Tafsir al-Nu'mani. But unfortunately, no one has translated Quran into Japanese before"
And about Japanese government's reaction to his Islamic and Quranic activism, he replied that the Japanese government is neither encouraging nor preventing. He told us that the translation of Qur'an and learning Islamic studies affected on his relationship with God: "spiritually, I became closer to god, and on the other hand, the more I study and learn about Islam and God, the more I see how small I am before God."
He also stated that the most prominent problems he faced while translating the holy Quran were the lack of an auxiliary authority fluent in Japanese and familiar with Islamic sciences, and financial issues were also on the other hand. But the biggest problem was the difference in the structure of Arabic and Persian from Japanese, "for example in Arabic and Persian the words of command and advice are widely used, but not in the structure of the Japanese language. in Japan people do not have any knowledge of Islam, for instance they do not know what the doomsday is? For this reason, I am working on translating the entire Qur'an into Japanese so that they get to know Islam better"
And about the question how he became a Muslim, he answeraed: "In 1972, after the oil crisis, the conception of Islam became known for the first time in all countries. At that time some Japanese were curious about Islam and Muslim countries and my father was one of those people. he researched and studied about the Islamic religion and fortunately, he became a Muslim and was attracted to the Holy Quran. "I too converted to Islam following my father (in my childhood) and since that time, in the style and traditions of Muslims, we read Qur'an every day."
He added that he read Quran first time in English: "It was translated by a Shiite scholar, sent to us by someone from India. I would like to point out that some people think that Islam is a very difficult religion, and I do not agree with this idea, in my opinion, it may be because they feel that Islam is different from other religions. The difference is that the implementation of rules in Islam is the same, meaning that ordinary people and clerics have the same duties, but in Christianity and Buddhism, the duties of ordinary people and clerics are separate from each other."
And about his work now in Japan he mentioned to us that he manages a center called Ahl al-Bayt (PBUT) that established by his father teaches Islamic law and lessons of the Holy Quran and also works on translating Quranic verses, as well as teaching Persian language.
