A copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, kept at Ningxia Museum in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, has been identified as the smallest Koran in the world.

Weighing 1.1 g, with a length of 19.6 mm, width of 13.2 mm, and thickness of 6.1 mm, the Koran is covered with mauve kraft paper with ethnic designs, the Egyptian national emblem and Arabic text reading "This is a worshipful Alcoran, only people with clean mind and body can carry it, Islamic Calendar 1312." (1892 AD)

Experts noted that though small, the Koran is delicately packed with clear Arabic print. The book was preserved in a small iron box.

He Xinyu, a researcher from Ningxia Museum said that the mini Koran was carried by a Chinese Muslim from Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia to Ningxia, but it had no historical provenance.

All signs indicated that the book came to Ningxia before 1949. It was excavated in 1959 and has since stayed in the Ningxia Museum except when it has been on exhibition tours.

The Koran was appraised as a state-level cultural relic in 1996 by the State Bureau of Cultural Relics.

He said that the Ningxia Koran was much smaller in size and weight than the Koran discovered in Zhengzhou in central China's Henan Province, which was listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest in the world.

( May 17, 2002)