Haljand Udam

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Haljand Udam (born 1936; died December 17, 2005) was an Estonian orientalist and translator. He graduated Tartu University as a geologist, but soon became interested in Eastern culture, including Ancient Iranian literature. He studied oriental philology in Tashkent university and Moscow State University, where he defended his candidate's thesis in 1971 (samas kaitses ta 1971. aastal väitekirja (“On the Special Semantic Aspects of the Persian Suphi Terminology”). Udam has translated several works from Arabic (Ibn Tufail), Persian (Rudaki, Saad, Ali Safi) Urdu, Tadjik etc into Estonian, including Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat. Some of his articles on orientalism have also been published in foreign language magazines. Just before his death, Udam managed to finish the translation of Quran into Estonian language. It is scheduled to be published somewhere in 2006. Udam was also known as one of the few Conservative Revolution supporters among the Estonian intellectuals.