ROME, Italy: The translator of holy Quran into Spanish Jafar Gonzales said that Spanish Islamic texts do not find ways into the libraries of Spain because of their improper translation.

Participating in the second day of an international seminar of Iranian-Spanish cultural dialogue with the central theme “Religion in Spain” last week, Gonzales discussed Spanish Islamic texts and said, “Almost 500 million people speak Spanish, the second most frequently spoken language in the world after English.

“There have not been many translations of Islamic texts into Spanish over the past 30 years, but lately there has been more research in this direction,” he remarked.

Gonzales who has been living in the holy city of Qom for 10 years learning Persian and Arabic languages, added, “There has been a kind of fear toward Islam in the country over the past 500 years avoiding the increase in the number of Islamic texts that have been translated.

“In the first part of the 20th century, a Christian cleric began his research on Islam, helping to increase the number of Islamic texts translation,” he explained.

He later mentioned that almost 500 books from the Sunni sources and 50 by the Shiites have so far been translated into Spanish, adding, “Unfortunately some of the texts do not possess world-class quality.”

Gonzales has completed four translations of the Holy Quran into Spanish over the past few years.

Several Iranian and Spanish scholars gave lectures at the 2-day seminar held in Tehran.