Thursday, January 19, 2012

The World's Largest Qur'an


A calligrapher created the 500kg book to show that his country's rich cultural heritage and traditions had survived the war.

From a piece in the Guardian...

The lavish book, with pages measuring 2.28 metres by 1.55 metres, has been certified as the world's largest by the Afghan ministry of Haj and religious affairs, according to the Kabul cultural centre that houses it.

The previous claim to the title was for a copy unveiled last year in Russia's Tatarstan region.

The Afghan Qur'an weighs 500kg and its 218 pages of cloth and paper, bound inside an embossed leather cover made from the skins of 21 goats, cost over £300,000 to create.

Mohammad Sabir Khedri, the master calligrapher behind the project, worked with nine students on a design that combines gold script with millions of tiny colourful dots, forming highly symbolic decorations around the giant pages.

"I wanted to use as many tasteful colours as possible to make this holy book look beautiful," he said, standing beside his enormous creation in a room built specially to house it.

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