Jakub Szynkiewicz

Jakub Szynkiewicz ( born April 16, 1884 in Ljachowitschi, then Russian Empire, † November 1, 1966 in Waterbury, Connecticut ) was the first Grand Mufti of independent Poland.

Jakub Szynkiewicz was born in 1884 in Ljachowitschi (Polish Lachowicze ), in what is now Belarus. He came from a Muslim family of Lipka Tatars. In 1904 he finished his schooling in Minsk and then studied engineering and Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg.

A doctorate in philosophy, he finally received in 1925 from the University of Berlin. On 28 October of the same year, he was finally elected the first Grand Mufti of the Muslims in Polish Wilno.

He then translated parts of the Qur'an from Arabic into Polish, in 1935, his book was published Wersety z Koranu (verses from the Koran ). During his time as Grand Mufti Szynkiewicz was manufactured contacts with Muslim communities around the world. For his work in the Islamic community in Poland in 1936, the Order of Polonia Restituta it was awarded.

His goal is to build a mosque for the then Muslim community in Warsaw, could not be realized after the German attack on Poland in 1939. In occupied by the Nazis in Poland Szynkiewicz first collaborated with the Germans and was appointed " Mufti of Ostland ". In 1944 he left Poland. After the war, he eventually settled in Egypt and never returned to the now communist Poland. After Nasser's seizure of power he moved to the United States, where he eventually died.