Family in Hyderabad, India, engraving Quran verses on iron plaques

A family Hyderabad, the capital of southern India’s Telangana state, is engaged in the fascinating and painstaking task of engraving the Holy Quran on iron plaques.

A family Hyderabad, the capital of southern India’s Telangana state, is engaged in the fascinating and painstaking task of engraving the Holy Quran on iron plaques.

Once completed, it will be a unique piece – a Quran inscribed on flattened hard metal.

Seventy-year-old Shabbir Ahmed is a retired chief designer in the Government Printing Press.

A resident of Tappachabutra, he started the project and he was aware that it will not be completed in his lifetime. His two sons, Mohammed Abdul Wasif and Mohammed Abdul Kareem, have promised that they will carry on his work.

His forefathers were also engravers and designed logos and emblems for the Asif Jahi rulers (the Nizams) and their departments. His two sons are also engaged in the engraving work.

Ahmed is engraving the holy verses on 18-gauge 17×12 inch plaques, on both sides. So far he and his sons have completed 28 plates. To engrave the verses, they fix the iron plate on a frame, and take a lump of clay which is called raal. A photocopy of a page of the Quran is pasted on the lump of clay for making impressions of the letters using dots. Thereafter, they begin incision with small sieves.