CAIRO: An estimated 40,000 copies of the Quran containing major errors were recently discovered on the shelves of bookstores and with street vendors.
Errors included missing chapters from Islam’s holy book – up to eight chapters were missing – as well as errors in the sequence of the pages, with verses that belonged to one chapter replacing others.
The mistakes are the responsibility of the workers at the print shop and aren t related in any way to a revision of the Quran, Sheikh Abdel-Zaher Abdel-Razek, head of the research and translation department at the Islamic Research Center, told Daily News Egypt.
The copies were published by Elmasrya Publishing House that was licensed by the Islamic Research Center, an affiliate of Al-Azhar, to print and distribute 40,000 copies.
The missing chapters in some of the copies included Surat Al-Mumtahina, As-Saff, Al-Jumua, Al-Munafiqoon, At-Taghabun, At-Talaq, At-Tahrim as well as three quarters of Surat Al-Mulk.
Furthermore, some pages of Surat Al-Hashr were replaced by pages from Surat Ash-Shura, and the last pages of Surat Al Jathiya were replaced by pages from Surat Al Mulk.
Abdel Razek explained that binders combining a number of pages may sometimes fall off a table and get mixed up so the worker puts them back together in a different order without revising them, so the copy is printed with errors.
If the print shop was found responsible, it will be penalized, and if it happens again, their printing rights will be revoked, Abdel Razek said.
These kinds of mistakes are inevitable and will always exist as long as the printing process is run by human hands; however, the final copy must be revised before it is distributed in the market, Abdel Zaher said.
Similar mistakes occurred before but the all copies were successfully collected from the market.
