Bible and tell them it’s the Holy Quran

The board has proposed a recycling plant for Qurans, he says, but no action has yet been taken by the government.

At Jabal-e-Noor, named after the mountain in Saudi Arabia where the Prophet (pbuh) is said to have received the first verses of the Quran, the idea exists only in the minds of Lehri and his team for now.

Visitors to the mountain can leave donations but pay no fee to enter, and Lehri says they need the funds. “We want to install the plant and dig out more tunnels, but have no resources,” he explains.

Lehri’s passion for protecting the words of the Quran began in 1956, he tells AFP during an interview at his home in Quetta, surrounded by medicines and newspapers.

He spotted a newspaper with a large picture of the Holy Kaabah lying on the floor of a friend’s car, he says. Picking it up, he vowed to make it his mission to forever safeguard holy images and words.

In 1992, he says, he and his brother Abdul Rashid were running a stone-crushing business on a property leased in the hills outside Quetta.