Hameed Shaheen
Pakistan came into being in the name of Islam but no visible standard was set for printing of this Holy Book for a long time, although print standards were fixed for primary level teaching books; so for a long time printing of the Holy Quran continued on substandard news print papers; this inattentiveness towards standardization of Quran printing resulted into split of Pakistan; however after passage of one and a half year to the tragic separation of East Pakistan the then parliament approved an act on the insistence of the Ulema and the people; the act bound the publishers to print the Quran on 52 gram paper; and for sometime the publishers fulfilled the printing requirement set in the parliamentary act; perhaps it was the miracle of respecting the standards of Quran printing that the economic doors of the Middle East opened to the Pakistanis, a wealth galore occurred; but the disregard and the incidents of defilement of the Quran reached an alarming degree; chapters after chapters got lost; however common people took to their responsibility to arrange proper protection of the Quran; an elderly person Mohammad Nazamuddin took special interest and his Quran Protection call reached the corridors of power in the provinces and the federation of Pakistan; the constitution of the Punjab Quran Board was made, Quran Complex came on ground; and finally Quran protection laws and rules were framed, printing standards were improved; printing on imported would have been costly but God Almighty chose a pious person Mr Tariq Mahmood Pasha, a bureaucrat; he was Secretary Religious Affairs during tenure of Mian Mohammad Shehbaz Sharif as Punjab Chief Minister; Mr Pasha did a lot of active service for the standardization of printing/publishing of the Quran; Mr Pasha took first initiative for the location of propter sites/places for construction of Quran Wells wherein the used loose pages of the Quran could be buried safely; it was on the Raiwind road that a piece of land measuring 13 kanals was selected and five Quran Wells were built ensuring purity of material and construction works; each well could accommodate 25,000 sacks of loose pages of Quran; it was ensured to protect the buried matter from moisture; electric machines were installed to lower the sacks into the wells;
Mr Pasha’s own field of job is finance; he was taken as Additional Finance Secretary as per recommendation of the then Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar, Mr Pasha further rose to the upper ladder and was made Chairman of the FBR; it was in his that capacity that imported paper for Quran printing was made duty free; it was prescribed that only the provincial governments and the federal govt could import the Quran quality paper; anyhow importation of quality paper was assigned to the Auqaf registered publishers; now the Holy Quran is being printed/published on quality paper and for this pious process credit of goodness goes to Mr Tariq Mahmood Pasha and initially to Mr Mohammad Nazamuddin. God bless them with fortification of Faith and Ease of Life!
