‘Luxurious’ Book on Makkah unveiled

ABU DHABI -The most ‘luxurious’ homage to the holy city of Makkah was revealed on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi in the form of a 37 kilogramme book containing 850 pages, and worth around £1,500 – 2,000 (Dh8,200 – 11,000).

The bilingual English and Arabic book, each measuring half-a-metre square, hand-binded is printed on in-house made silk fibre paper.

The book published by Kraken Opus will be released during Ramadan this year.

The book follows the release of IMAX movie also titled “Journey to Makkah”, produced by Cosmic Pictures and SK Films, which is being screened at the Emirates Palace here over this weekend. Both the film and the book are based on the first pilgrimage to Makkah made by Arab traveller and writer Ibn Battuta in 1325.

The pages are mostly of photographic excerpts taken from the movie’s footage. Around 2,000 of them have been chosen from over four million images. Despite the size of the book, the book’s distribution will include general retailers such as bookshops – especially in the UK – but it will also be available through direct and corporate marketing for both governments and private companies around the world.

“We already have a pre-order of 150 copies placed by an education authority in England, which they want to use as learning material in schools”, said Karl Fowler, the founder partner of Kraken Opus.

“We expect that the winning bid will surpass the world-record of $ 1.5 million paid for the first edition of ‘Manchester United Opus’ in 2007”, said Fowler.