Patna: Forget about fiction bestsellers or celebrity memoirs, the hottest selling book at the Patna book fair is the Quran with more than 500 copies being bought - mostly by non-Muslims.
The high demand among non-Muslim readers for the holy book of Islam has surprised salespersons at the fair, which started Dec 1 and ends Wednesday.
"I sold nearly 500 copies of Quran in the last one week. A large number of people have been inquiring for the book, but my stock is exhausted," said Mushtak Umri, sales manager of New Delhi-based Goodword Book.
Umri said he had never come across such a tremendous response to buy the Quran. He sold around 250 copies of the Hindi translation of the Quran and over 100 copies of the English version.
"Over 75 percent buyers were non-Muslims," Umri added. He sold less than 25 copies of the Arabic and Urdu translation of the Quran.
According to Umri, he had sold nearly 250 copies of the English translation of the Quran at a book fair in Mizoram last year. "That was also a record as Mizoram has a large Christian population," he said.
A salesperson of Maktabe-e-Imarat Sharia said many Hindus purchased the Hindi translation of the holy book. "They told me that they want to read and know Islam from its original text and sources."
Manish Sinha, who was one of those who bought a copy of the Quran, agreed, "We wanted to know more about Islam."
"We came to know about the demand of books on Islam among non-Muslims, it is a good sign," said Ratneshwar, the fair's main organiser.
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