The 500-year-old Quran manuscript is being restored under the supervision of the National Taiwan Library. The historical artifact was given two years ago by Taiwanese Muslim Faisal Hsu, a volunteer for the Tzu Chi Humanitarian Relief Foundation, to a specialist named Hsu Mei-wen, who works as a book repairperson at the Taiwan Book Hospital, which is affiliated with the Taiwan National Library. Hsu states that the historical item he has been repairing for months is Taiwan’s oldest manuscript of the Quran.
“The book was in very bad condition and at first I was afraid to touch the case. The skin was stiff and had been infested with insects. After repairing the cover with special oil, I worked on each page one by one. To be loyal to the original, I cleaned each sheet five times and looked for matching paper. I was able to find this paper in 8 months,” Hsu said.