KUALA LUMPUR: It is heartbreaking to see copies of the Quran and religious books damaged by recent floods piled up at the Darul Kalam Quran disposal centre in Raudhatul Sakinah near here.

       They will be respectfully disposed of in order to protect the sacred verses.

       Overseen by the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Department (Jawi), each page will be dried on tables or hung dried under canopies by centre volunteers.

       The pages will then be burned until only ashes remain and placed in a well behind Darul Kalam or scattered at sea.

       “The disposal of damaged copies of the Quran is one of the saddest things to do, but we cannot arbitrarily throw the holy book.

       “So, the best way to dispose of them is to dry the pages before burning them in a furnace – 10kg at a time. Each session will take about two hours,” Abdul Mu’az Jabai told Bernama yesterday.

       The 33-year-old was among the more than 40 volunteers at Darul Kalam.

       Nor Jasliza Akmar Jasmani, 40, could not hold back tears seeing the Quran copies covered in mud.

       “Most of them were probably from mosques and tahfiz,” she said.

       Ahmad Rashidi Yaakob, 40, said volunteers would separate the holy books from other books and magazines upon receiving them.

       Meanwhile, Jawi Research Division senior assistant director Anisah Musa said one of the main challenges was to separate books that were wet and stuck together.

       “Before this, the ashes were interred in a well at Darul Kalam, but due to the large volume of holy books damaged in the floods and the limited space at the centre, we decided to dispose of the ashes at sea,” she said.

       She also urged the public to follow the proper method of disposing damaged copies of the Quran.

       In a statement, Jawi director Datuk Mohd Ajib Ismail said that so far a total of 25.28 tonnes of damaged Quran copies were received from individuals, schools and the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation.

       “Insya Allah, Jawi will carry out a donation campaign or wakaf al-Quran initiative in collaboration with mosques and surau in the Federal Territories for those affected by the floods,” he said.