Jakub Szynkiewicz

Jakub Szynkiewicz (April 16, 1884 – November 1, 1966) was a Doctor of Philosophy as well as Oriental Studies, chosen as the first mufti of the newly independent Poland in 1925.

Jakub Szynkiewicz was born to a Tatar family on 16 April 1884 in Lyakhavichy (Lachowicze) in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (from 1921 to 1939 part of Poland, today western Belarus).

He translated a number of verses from the Quran from Arabic into Polish, published in 1935 under the title Wersety z Koranu.

He was central in the plans to build a mosque in Warsaw that was interrupted by the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939.

[3] During World War II he served as Mufti fuer die besetzten Ostgebiete.