Mountain Makes a Sacred Storehouse for Old Korans

Fourteen years ago, a Pakistani tractor dealer, Allah Noor Davi, saw a white-bearded man burying tattered Korans at a graveyard, a gesture of piety toward Islam’s holy book.

That inspired Davi to start a labor of religious love: to dig a labyrinth of tunnels into the barren Chiltan Mountains in southwestern Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. There, Korans are laid to rest, along with sack after sack of papers bearing scriptures, much of it Koranic verses salvaged from newspapers and magazines.

Jabal Noorul Koran, or Mountain of Koranic Light, near the city of Quetta, is unique in Pakistan. It’s a sacred storehouse, with carpeted walkways lined by sacks.

Davi, now 40, says he got the idea when he realized there was nowhere suitable to dispose of damaged Korans. Religious tradition favors two options, he said, “One is burying Koranic pages in graveyards and the second is putting them into rivers or the sea.

“A new idea came into my mind: to dig tunnels.”

With the help of Mir Abdus Samad, the old man from the graveyard, Davi set up a charity, hired laborers to start digging and placed tin boxes across Quetta for residents to deposit damaged scriptures. Word spread, and material now comes from as far away as Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.

Davi said about 10 truckloads arrive each month to be sorted and entombed.

Korans in repairable condition are rebound and donated to mosques, religious schools and the poor. Historic volumes -- some dating back 300 years -- are preserved in glass cases in the tunnels.

Most of the texts are in the original Arabic script, but there are also translations in Urdu, Pashto, English and Russian. They vary from rough handwritten manuscripts to elegant calligraphy on yellowing parchment.

One fine volume, published in New Delhi in 1926 when Britain ruled the subcontinent, offers five translations by different scholars: two into Persian, three into Urdu.

The Jabal Noorul Koran labyrinth consists of 56 interlinked tunnels, seven feet high and eight feet wide, stretching for 5,880 feet -- more than a mile. Sacks of sacred text are piled inside, often with wishes written in Urdu by visitors.

“Oh God, please remove all the hurdles for the PhD of Noreen and make her PhD thesis successful,” says one.

“Oh God, please allow my father to recover so he should be safe from any disease and be healthy,” says another.

Some are more militant. “Whoever denies the jihad is an infidel,” says one.

Another urges prayers for the release of Hafiz Saeed, a Muslim leader who fought Indian forces in disputed Kashmir. That wish came true; Saeed is now free.

Jabal Noorul Koran has become a pilgrimage site, receiving about 200 visitors on the busiest days, Friday -- the Islamic Sabbath -- and Sunday.

Male and female visitors are segregated except on Wednesdays and Thursdays, which are designated “family days.”

Faizullah, 29, who works as the security guard at the labyrinth, said part of his job was to stop people from walking on the arid hills above the tunnels.

“If I stop somebody and tell them that down there we have Korans, they are always thankful to me for stopping them from committing a sin,” said Faizullah, who goes by one name.

The complex appears set to grow. Some stretches of tunnel already are full, and two laborers, paid $5 per foot of tunnel they dig, continue to work on the dry, stony earth with picks and shovels. The costs of labor and maintenance are covered by the charity’s governors, supplemented by visitors’ donations.

Since digging started in 1992, Davi says, there has never been an accident, even when a magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck in 1997, its epicenter just 70 miles from here.

Davi said the tunnels survived “without a single stone falling ... because of our Islamic cause and the help from almighty Allah.”

Associated Press correspondent Naseer Kakar in Quetta contributed to this report.