819, [5] printed pages in Arabic. Fine 'India' paper. Lithographed text and marginal decoration within ruled borders. Patterned endpapers. Richly decorated opening double page frontispiece, top margin torn away. Fully vowelized text set in a frame, verse separators, sura headings and section markers in the margins printed in black throughout. Unpaginated. An excellent example. Original engine turned silver metal locket incorporating magnifying glass. Slightly later blue pencil inscription on vlank page and dated 25th.September, 1943. 25 x 38 mm. Original red calf with slightly faded gilt curlicue decoration stamped on spine and covers. Welsh, 4177. OCLC, 1056953795. WorldCat locates three copies worldwide (Amsterdam University, Middlebury College, and Amherst College Libraries). Miniature Qurans were printed at the press of Hans Steinbrener since the early 1900s; with the new millennium, the shop closed down and ceased production. These miniature editions of the Qur’an, with their elaborate gilt leather bindings and attached magnifying glass, count among the finest examples of their kind and as masterpieces of Bohemian printing and craftsmanship. "The firm advertised itself as the continent's largest producer of artistic bindings for prayer books and the largest publisher of prayer books [...] This publisher supplied a market ranging from Manila to New York" (Marija Dalbello, "Franz Josef's Time Machine: Images of Modernity in the Era of Mechanical Photoreproduction", in: Book History, Vol. 5 [2002], pp. 67-103).