CAIRO, March 19, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – An international Muslim organization has completed translating the meaning of the last ten juz’ (ten thirties) of the Noble Qur’an into the Korean language.

The Riyadh-based World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) has further printed 1,000 copies of the Korean-language juz’, planning to print four thousand more.

“The translation has been done under the supervision of scholars and the printing was scrutinized by WAMY’s Asia committee,” WAMY Secretary General Saleh Al-Waheibi told reporters on Friday, March 18.

“It keeps them close to the divine source of their religion and helps them recite the Noble Qur’an,” Waheibi added.

The Korean language is spoken in both North and South Korea as well as in some areas in neighboring China and Japan.

South Korea has a Muslim population of some 35,000 people out of a total of 48 million.

Forty-six percent of the population has no religious affiliation, 26 percent Christian, 26 percent Buddhist, and one percent Confucianist, according to the CIA World Fact Book.

Islam entered South Korea during the 1950-1953 Korean War at the hands of Turkish troops who were part of a United Nations multi-national force fighting alongside South Korea against communist North Korea, according to the Web site of the Korean Middle East Association (KOMEA).

The first Muslim Society was established in South Korea in 1955 to be replaced in 1967 by the Korea Muslim Federation (KMF), which was officially recognized by the government.

The government has further established Arabic and Islamic departments in four universities across the country.

KOMEA was established as an independent organization in September 2002 by a number of Arab and South Korean professors and specialists in the Middle East affairs.

It helps enhance cross fertilization and economic cooperation between South Korean and the Middle East.