With his old, dilapidated car, the seventeen-year-old Muhammad Salem Al-Ayasrah, 71, collects old and torn Qur’ans.
To clean, maintain and arrange them, then reuse them by distributing them to mosques and Quran memorization centers, or exporting them to African countries.
Al-Ayasrah spent about 50 years in the same manner, touring the governorates and cities of the Kingdom in search of torn Qur’ans, carrying them in his hands and re-honoring them. Those Qur’ans and presenting them to those in need.
He spends more than 300 dinars ($ 420) on his volunteer work every month from his own pocket and donations from philanthropists. His work is not limited to collecting Qur’ans only, but rather he collects various school, cultural and scientific books, and brings them to his library in the city of Sakib in Jerash Governorate in northern Jordan, then arranges them on Special shelves waiting for those who need them.
The seventieth, the Ayyasah, searches bags full of damaged Qur’ans (Al-Jazeera)
Packaging and export
University professors, students and teachers at Quran memorization centers are visited in his private library, looking for scientific or literary books, dictionaries or exegesis, and they take whatever they want from them when they leave the library for free.
"During the last period, we were able to export more than 6 thousand copies of the Holy Quran to African countries, such as Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, Mali and others, with the help of charities working there," Al-Ayasrah says to Al-Jazeera Net.
He continues, "The Qur’ans exported to Africa are among the Qur’ans that I collect from garbage containers, and paper bags lying on the side of roads. I maintain and clean them and do what is necessary for them, and if the cover is torn, I send them to the National Library to maintain them there."
Al-Ayasrah contributes - through copies of the Qur’an available to him - in supplying the newly established mosques with their need of the Qur’ans, as well as associations for memorizing the Qur’an, and public and private school libraries, and he is not skeptical to providing any educational or educational facility that it needs from the Qur’ans available to him.
According to Al-Ayasrah, the Jordanian National Library (a governmental institution) provides a set of assistance, the most important of which is the maintenance and recycling of old Qur’ans to be usable, in addition to providing the library with copies of the books available in its private library.
Al-Ayyasrah established a special incinerator for Qur’ans and dilapidated religious books that cannot be repaired (Al-Jazeera)
Private incinerator
In his transport car there are dozens of bags, some of which contain Qur’ans suitable for use, and some of them were burned and damaged or damaged, and he collects them in special bags and destroys them by the method of burning.
Al-Ayasrah says that, with the help of benefactors, he was able to create a special incinerator for the Koran, religious and school books.
He added, "Whenever a large quantity of it collects, I put it in the crematorium and set it on fire, and what is left of the ashes I collect and bury it in a special dump to preserve the environment and respect the Book of God and the names of Majesty written on paper."
Age, strength, back curvature, and slender body
Al-Ayasrah did not prevent him from continuing his work, and he now uses workers on his trips to the cities of the Kingdom to collect the Qur’ans and books, and his preoccupation is to save what can be salvaged from them and send them to the needy Muslims around the world.
Al-Ayasrah maintains the torn Qur’ans in preparation for their redistribution (Al-Jazeera)
Books for free
Al-Ayasrah opens the doors of his library to anyone in need of knowledge. He says that last month a professor visited him at a private university, accompanied by a number of foreign students studying there, looking for textbooks that required them, and the professor and her students got what they wanted for free and free of charge.
In his extended conversation about his work, he remembers a beautiful incident, for one time when he entered one of the large waste containers to extract a bag of the Holy Qur’ans and religious books, he fell on his hand in the container, and remained in it for a period of time, shouting and shouting until the ambulance came and took him out of there, and refused to get out of the container Except the bags of the Koran with him.
Al-Ayasrah opens the doors of his library to anyone who needs knowledge (Al-Jazeera)
Preserving the book of God
Al-Ayasrah concludes his speech by calling on the Jordanians to preserve, reverence and respect the Book of God and not to throw it in the garbage containers, and to provide it with any copies of the Qur’an that are in excess of the families' need for their maintenance and the use of others.
Al-Ayasrah charitable initiative received admiration and attention from the Jordanian monarch, King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, and an honorary meeting was held by the king for Asrah at the Jordanian royal court a few days ago, and praise for his work.