It took three years and 57 pints of his own blood for Saddam Hussein to have a special copy of the Qur’an printed, and today, no one in Iraq knows exactly what to do with it.

 

Saddam commissioned the work on his 60th birthday in April 1997 and took possession of the completed product in September 2000. “My life has been full of dangers in which I should have lost a lot of blood,” he explained, “but since I have bled only a little, I asked somebody to write God’s words with my blood in gratitude.”

 

The blood-inscribed 605-page holy book now sits locked away in a Baghdad mosque. Sheikh Ahmed al-Samarrai, head of Iraq’s Sunni Endowment fund, says the special Qur’an is worth millions of dollars, but could also stir more trouble than it’s worth, if revealed to the public.

 

The Iraqi government today is dominated by the Shia majority, and wants nothing from Saddam’s past to rekindle the spirit of the Ba’ath Party (that now is outlawed) or energize any Sunni loyalists determined to recapture control of the country.

 

Abbas Shakir Joody al-Baghdadi, the calligrapher who transcribed the Saddam Qur’an, now lives in Virginia.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Qur'an Etched in Saddam Hussein's Blood Poses Dilemma for Iraq Leaders (by Martin Chulov, The Guardian)

A Bloody Koran has the Muslim Faithful in Turmoil (by Paaul McGeough, The Age)

Iraqi Leader's Koran 'Written in Blood' (BBC News)