Persons who have had the fortune of visiting the Sacred Mosques in Makkah Mukarramah and Madinah Munawwarah may have noticed that two types of Qur’aans are placed on the shelves here. One copy has a green cover and the other a blue cover. Those who are not fluent in reading Arabic find that they prefer the ‘Blue Cover’ Qur’aan because the text herein contains the ‘ Extra Iraabs’, ie: Zabar, Zer, Pesh etc, which allow for easier and correct recitation.

We find a similar situation with the Holy Qur’aan in Arabic Braille.Although Braille Qur’aans are available from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, etc, non-Arab individuals prefer the Qur’aan that is printed or embossed in Pakistan because of the extra diacritical signs in the Arabic text. However, the manual Braille printing press that was in existence in Karachi since the early 1940’s is now obsolete. Production has ceased, leading to a crisis in meeting the overwhelming need for Braille Qur’aans the world over.

Madrassa An-Noor for the Blind took up the need of composing a digital braille version of the Holy Qur’aan. Alhamdulillah, after years of effort in proofreading and editing by our team of sighted and blind readers around the world, we are now printing this Qur’aan at an embossing press in Mumbai, India.

Unfortunately, the demand for these Qur’aans far outstrips the supply, even with all the efforts put in by the printing houses in Arab and non-Arab countries. A Braille Qur’aan consists of 6 volumes, each volume comprising 5 chapters weighing about 11 kilograms in total. The text is embossed onto thick brown paper so that the Braille dots are crisp and clearly raised, making it easier to read and also ensuring the text remains legible for a longer period. The production of these Qur’aans is therefore quite expensive. Alhamdulillah, this represents a unique opportunity for you to sponsor towards the cost of printing a Braille Qur’aan. The Hidaya or gift of each set of six volumes is R1000. Help us in fulfilling our aim of distributing these Qur’aans to the thousands of Blind people around the world. Your contributions will help us meet this urgent need.