Iran’s Consulate-General in Munich received on last Thursday two rare Quran manuscripts of an Iranian private collection from Munich Police, found during an investigation into missing items of the collection.
An Iranian living in Munich since 1962 was a lover of Iranian manuscripts belonging to splendor of the past Iranian civilization. He died in 1997 at 86, leaving the collection to his heirs, who found that some items of the collection were missing. They talked to a private detector to launch investigations, where the private detector and later Bavarian criminal police investigator suspected of a former confidant, also an Iranian-German dual citizen, who had been frequenting the private collection.
They investigated the suspect’s home and found 174 antiquities in December 2011. The antiquities found were estimated to worth €3 million. The suspect was tried in March 2016 where he had confessed to stealing the antiquities from the collection. Still missing is an exquisite Divan of Hafiz belonging reportedly to 550 years ago. Bavarian police had called the public for help in finding the precious manuscript.
Divan of Hafiz has golden inlay and is estimated to worth more than €1 million. The heirs presented Bavarian state library with two exquisite volumes of the manuscript to acknowledge the good offices of the police; however, two Quran manuscripts, according to a will by the collection owner, were delivered to Iran’s National Library with Abdollah Nekounam, Iran’s Consulate-General in Munich attending the ceremony where Mr. Nekounam expressed gratitude to Bavarian state police for their efforts in returning the rare manuscripts to Iran.
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