TEHRAN - Work has begun on the world's largest intarsia Qoran by Seyed Farshad Maleknia, a prominent craftsman and artist from the city of Qom.

He said that work began on the Qoran at the beginning of this year and so far five pages have been completed so far.

In case other master craftsmen help in the project it will be completed in about three years; otherwise the job is estimated to take bout six years, Maleknia said.

The Qoran will be written on 110 pieces of wood, each measuring 120 by 240 by 4.5 centimeters, with the surface of the intarsia Qoran made of walnut wood, and the verses carved out from wood of the box tree, and the illustrations out of wood coming from sour orange trees.

"We will try to put all the diacritical marks of the verses of Qoran precisely as they appear in the oldest copies of the Holy Qoran," He added.

He underlined that every sheet of the Qoran will cost 45 million rials and the total cost is estimated at 50 billion rials.

He said that from the beginning of the work two purchase proposals have been received from Islamic countries that are yet to be considered.