 Bajramshahe Jetullahu is a Muslim Kosovar woman showing her mettle in writing a Brailled volume of the Noble Qur'an for the blind and visually impaired in the Balkans' Albanian-speaking countries, who many never have known about the word of God without these books.
"It is my cherished dream to help the Albanian-speaking blind Muslims to read the Qur'an," Jetullahu, the head of the Blind Women Association in Kosovo, told IslamOnline.net in an interview.
The mother of four and grandmother of eight has so far converted one-third of the Qur'an into Braille.
"There are nearly 2,500 blind Kosovans who are unable to read the Qur'an. I'm trying to make their dream come true," she said.
Jetullahu, 60, said that Braille volumes of the Bible can be found everywhere in the Balkans.
"But there is no a single Braille version of the Qur'an," she lamented.
Devised in 1821 by Frenchman Louis Braille, the method is widely used by blind people to read and write.
Each Braille character or cell is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each.
Challenge
Jetullahu said funds are the major challenge because she cannot afford alone the Braille mission.
"Every Braille page of the Qur'an costs 80 euro cents, let alone the printing press which costs 4,700 euros," said Jetullahu.
Jetullahu had almost done with a Braille Quran early 2006 but was down on her luck after her house was devoured by a massive fire.
"I lost the hard-won Braille Qur'an to the fire," she recalled with a heavy heart. "Only 80 pages were remaining to get the job done."
But she never lost her resolve and began from scratch last year.
"But it will take too much time and efforts this time as I'm using a modest press," she said.
Jetullahu said the burnt version was funded by the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) through the Islamic Sheikhdom in Kosovo.
Kamal Moureni, deputy dean of Islamic Studies faculty in Pristina, appealed to Muslims worldwide to fund the Braille version of the Qur'an.
"We have a responsibility to help all blind Muslims in Kosovo and Albanian-speaking countries such as Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro to read the Qur'an," he told IOL.
Kosovar Muslims have already taken the initiative to fund the long-awaited project.
"We have raised 2,000 euros from mosque-goers in Pristina for Jetullahu's project," said activist Sadat Musa, noting that the entire project would cost a total of nearly 7,000 euros.
Islam is the official religion of UN-administered Kosovo, which is seeking independence from Serbia with Muslims making up more than 95 percent of the population.
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