Qur'an etched in Saddam Hussein's blood poses dilemma for Iraq leaders

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

It was etched in the blood of a dictator in a ghoulish bid for piety. Over the course of two painstaking years in the late 1990s, Saddam Hussein had sat regularly with a nurse and an Islamic calligrapher; the former drawing 27 litres of his blood and the latter using it as a macabre ink to transcribe a Qur'an. But since the fall of Baghdad, almost eight years ago, it has stayed largely out of sight - locked away behind three vaulted doors. It is the one part of the ousted tyrant's legacy that Iraq has simply not known what to do with.

The vault in the vast mosque in Baghdad has remained locked for the past three years, keeping the 114 chapters of the Muslim holy book out of sight - and mind - while those who run Iraq have painstakingly processed the other cultural remnants of 30 years of Saddam and the Ba'ath party.

"What is in here is priceless, worth absolutely millions of dollars," said Sheikh Ahmed al-Samarrai, head of Iraq's Sunni Endowment fund, standing near the towering minarets of the west Baghdad mosque that Saddam named "the Mother of All Battles". Behind him is the infamous Blood Qur'an, written in Saddam's own blood.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/19/saddam-legacy-quran-iraqi-government

[myrna minx]

1. Dethklok didn't even think of that. Nor did Vlad Tepes.

Surreal.

[hlthe2b]

2. Well, I'd say those who needed retribution...

got the blood of Saddam many many fold over. May they face turmoil over what to do with it many fold over as well.

No, I don't defend Saddam, but there is nothing about his end that is not filled with rank hypocrisy and ghoulishness.

[sabrina 1]

20. I couldn't agree more. I was horrified by

what was done to him and to other members of his regime. Human decency requires that we treat enemies humanely. That was a horror show that should have been stopped by the U.S. who were in fact responsible for any crimes he committed, since he was their puppet for decades. In fact Ronald Reagan was so fond of him that he over-ruled a rare unanamous vote in Congress NOT to provide Saddam Hussein with dual purpose chemicals.

I would hope that anyone else who thinks about being a puppet of the U.S. would remember what happened to SH.

[crikkett]

23. 'Human decency' is soooo 20th century. n/t

[madokie]

25. If I remember correctly, Saddam was the most visited foreign head of state to the Reagan/poppy

white house. On the other hand Arafat was the most visited at the Clinton white house. I'm sure theres a lesson in there somewhere but not sure what it is. :-)

[PufPuf23]

3. Saddam was secular but also a politician in the Islamic world. NT

[GoddessOfGuinness]

4. It's part of their history...

...and should be preserved as such.

[Posteritatis]

5. Once again, reality beats up fiction and takes its lunch money

Who'd believe something like that if they saw it in a novel or movie?

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. There are MANY plot devices that I go... nope

will not fly.... only to open the paper...

[nolabear]

6. Definitely belongs in a museum.

I kind of hate to let him get away with it, but you have to hand it to him; it's a brilliant way to remain a part of history--literally.

[customerserviceguy]

10. Then you risk it becoming a sort of shrine

What would the Allies have done with a copy of Mein Kampf written in Hitler's blood? If you had put it in a museum, it would be the very center of the neo-Nazi movement.

[Bragi]

15. Do odious artifacts always create shrines?

It's worth considering whether we should stop trying to destroy historical artifacts associated with bad things. Maybe we should keep them, put them on display, and surround them with interpretative material which makes it clear how and why the era and matters depicted are reprehensible. Free speech works better than suppression.

[customerserviceguy]

16. I'm not sure about that

What makes this a particularly puzzling case is that it combines the sacred and the profane.

I do think the Allies were wise to not mark a gravesite for Hitler, though.

[Bragi]

26. Case in point -- the "Luitpoldhain" in Nuremberg

I suppose the right answer is always situational, but I am reminded of the preservation of the "Luitpoldhain" parade ground where the Nazis held their annual rallies in Nuremberg.

There was a referendum years ago about whether to raise the area and build on it, or leave it as is. The decision was to leave it as-is, and it is a site that I found to be very moving to visit.

For me, it spoke to the massive scale of Nazism, and it's totalitarian nature. The visit made me even more skeptical of the claim that Germans really didn't really know what was going on.

[crikkett]

24. I think they'd try to clone him.

[LawnKorn]

7. According to the American Red Cross, Saddam was giving blood at four times the recommended rate

From the Red Cross Website

You are eligible to donate 'whole blood' every 56 days.

The Red Cross will only let donors give one pint every 56 days. Saddam gave 27 liters, or about 57 pints. It should have taken him 3192 days or about eight and a half to nine years.

If true, he lost a lot of blood in two short years.

[bemildred]

8. And we think US politics is weird. nt

[Lord Magus]

9. The Iranian spy puts in his two cents:

Several prominent politicians, such as Ahmed Chalabi, one of the key opposition figures to Saddam, are adamant that anything connected to the executed dictator must go.

"The best talent in Iraq was ordered to produce monuments which are designed to suppress the people," says Chalabi, who headed the National Deba'athification Commission in the early years after Saddam's removal. "This is very destructive for the psyche of the Iraqi population. This is a clear reminder of the consequences of totalitarianism and idealising a person that embodies evil. They have brought nothing to Iraq. They are not worth celebrating. They have nothing aesthetic to offer. I am for removing them."

Why this scumbag isn't in prison is beyond me. Have him and Cheney be cellmates.

[BenzoDia]

12. Alright, so 27 liters of blood over two years is about over a liter a month.

1 liter is close to 2 pints. So he's basically doing two Red Cross blood donations every month.

He must've been woozy donating that much blood.

[Ian David]

13. This sounds like something from a Vincent Price movie. n/t

[Ian David]

14. Big fucking deal. I transcribed The Kama Sutra with my own sperm. n/t

[Boojatta]

18. Did you do it at a rate of two pints per month?

[Ian David]

29. Yes, I did. And I didn't even get a prostate infection. n/t

[RZM]

17. He must have got the idea from that Kiss comic book n/t

[jberryhill]

19. Toss it. There has to be a procedure for destroying used/damaged ones after service life /nt

[slackmaster]

21. I'd burn it

I'm just sayin'...

[Kablooie]

22. Now that's an interesting idea. I think I'll do a copy of Dracula in my blood.

Either that or Green Eggs and Ham.
I can't decide which.

[Hosnon]

27. Fascinating.

It's right out of Tomb Raider or something.

[surrealAmerican]

28. I can't help but feel bad for the calligrapher of this work.

Imagine being a skilled craftsman known for this.

[marshall]

30. How long before it's offered up on eBay?

It'll show up sooner or later.

[marasinghe]

31. too bad for saddam. he's upstaged even in death - by his american masters.

popeye & dumass bush, the putrescent cheney & rumsfeld the himmler caricature -- etched the history of modern Iraq, in the blood of a million murdered Iraqis. even saddam hussein couldn't quite match that.