Kitabistyka: źródła, metodologia i perspektywy badawcze

The paper contains a synthetic discussion of original and little known philological manuscripts which had been created since the 16th century by Tatars – Muslims of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – as characteristic Slavic aljamiado. The preserved manuscripts in which Slavic languages – Polish and Belarusian – were recorded in the Arabic alphabet are enormously important for the history of both languages and the Slavic-Oriental language relations. Various types of these historical texts (kitabs, chamails, tajweeds, etc.) contain the first, that is the oldest (16th century), translation of the Quran into a Slavic language (Polish) recorded in the Arabic alphabet (so-called tafsir). These sources are studied within the framework of an original philological sub-discipline of Kitab Studies whose origin and development should be credited to Professor Anton Antonovich from Vilnius University. The author of the paper discusses the research methodology pertaining to these sources, particularly the transliteration of Slavic texts recorded in the Arabic alphabet into the Latin alphabet, and introduces prospective major research tasks for Kitab Studies.