Pakistan’s Quran mountain is running out of space

Haji Muzaffar Ali, the administrator of Jabl-e-Noor, examines an old copy of the Quran in a tunnel where ancient copies of the holy book are preserved on the outskirts of Quetta. — AFP

Deep inside the dry, biscuit-coloured mountains surrounding Pakistan’s south-western city of Quetta lies an unexpected treasure: a honeycomb of tunnels bursting with cases of Qurans, hidden safe from desecration.

The hill known as Jabal-e-Noor, or “Mountain of Light”, has been visited by hundreds of thousands of people since two brothers turned it into a shrine for Islam’s holy book, some copies of which are up to 600 years old, officials who run it say.

“We have buried at least five million sacks of old Qurans,” says Jabal-e-Noor administrator Haji Muzaffar Ali.

But the mountain’s labyrinth of tunnels is steadily nearing capacity.

Hundreds of sacks packed with copies of the holy book now lie exposed on the hillside as administrators struggle to create space for them.

The problem is especially thorny in Pakistan, where any disrespect to the Quran can inflame accusations of blasphemy, punishable by death — whether by the state or at the hands of a vigilante mob.

Islam’s holy text is believed by Muslims to be the word of God spoken through the Prophet Mohammad directly to humankind. For that reason the words themselves are held sacred, meaning Muslims must dispose of their old Qurans with great respect.

Religious scholars approve of two ways: by wrapping the book carefully in a cloth and burying it in the ground, as at Jabal-e-Noor, or placing it in flowing water so the ink is washed away from the pages.

But the man behind the mountain, affluent 77-year-old businessman Abdul Sammad Lehri, has an idea that, if realised, would prove both risky and revolutionary: building one of Pakistan’s first-ever Quran-recycling plants.

The move could turn Lehri’s shrine into a target.

In neighbouring Afghanistan in 2011, around 1,000 angry demonstrators partially destroyed a paper mill that had been accused of recycling the Quran into toilet paper.

But, perhaps surprisingly, scholars in Pakistan say it could work.

“The scholars... approve recycling of Quran and if a recycling plant is reusing the pages of Qurans, there is no harm,” says Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, chairperson of the Pakistan Ulema Council.

So long as the words are removed, and the solution used to remove it disposed off in accordance with Islamic teachings, leading scholar Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman says, “then you can use those pages to reproduce or manufacture cardboards or anything”.

Existing plants in Pakistan do not recycle Qurans because of the restrictions involved, Irfan Qadir, secretary of the Punjab Quran Board, which monitors the collection and disposal of pages of Koranic verse, said — such as only Muslims being allowed to take part in the work.