The big history of Albania’s tiny Quran

The ritual is always the same. Mario Prushi carefully washes his hands and face before kissing and pressing one of the world's smallest Qurans to his forehead.

For generations, the postage stamp-sized book has been passed down in his family, surviving wars and one of the world's most fanatical "godless regimes."

Scholars say it is one of the smallest Qurans on record, with the minuscule holy book held inside a silver case blackened with age.

"We have kept it from generation to generation with absolute dedication," Prushi, 45, told AFP at his home in Tirana.

Just two centimeters wide and one centimeter thick, the book almost disappears in the palm of Prushi's hand, and it can only be read with a small magnifying glass embedded in its case.

The Quran is difficult to date in the absence of scientific analysis, but according to Elton Karaj, a researcher in Koranic studies at Beder University in Tirana, the 900-page copy has been around since at least the 19th century.

"This Quran was printed in a very small format, one of the smallest in the world. From its appearance, its publication dates back to the end of the 19th century. It is an extraordinary work, very valuable. It is fortunate that this copy is in Albania," said Karaj.

But its size is not the only remarkable thing about the Quran. It is also responsible for converting the Prushi family from Catholicism to Islam.

"My great-great-grandparents were digging the ground for a new house in the Djakovica region of Kosovo when they found the perfectly preserved body of a man buried there," said Prushi.

"The Quran was found intact laying over his heart."

The family took the discovery as a divine sign and embraced Islam.

His grandfather, an...