Sales of the Quran, the holy scripture of Islam, have quintupled in the United States since Sept. 11, according to the book's main U.S. publisher.
Penguin Books is attempting to airlift reprints of the Quran in from the United Kingdom to meet demand for the book, sometimes spelled Koran. Muslims believe the Quran is the word of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad 1,400 years ago.
"We've definitely sold more Qurans than Bibles since Sept. 11," said Jim Scott of the New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton. "The Quran has been selling really strong. We've pretty much run out of most of the editions."
Interest in Islam has skyrocketed since hijackers commandeered four airplanes full of passengers and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing more than 5,000 people. One of the terrorists allegedly had a copy of the Quran in his luggage, and several reportedly carried letters citing sections of the Quran as inspiration for their violent acts.
Purchasing the Quran appears to be one way that Americans are trying to understand what happened Sept. 11.
"They want to find out what this religion is all about, and to answer the question everyone is asking, 'Why do they hate us?' " said Yvonne Y. Haddad, professor of Christian-Muslim relations at Georgetown University. "Everybody is looking for some part of the Quran that says if you kill people, you will go to heaven, even though that is a misinterpretation of the Quran."
Interest in Islam is suddenly pervasive. Friday, Oprah Winfrey dedicated her television talk show to the topic "Islam 101."
Booksellers say that since Sept. 11, not only have sales of the Quran risen, but biographies of Osama bin Laden, books about grief and a new book on bioterrorism are selling briskly.
"Anything and everything we had on the Middle East, terrorism, the World Trade Center and bin Laden sold out," said Dana Brigham, manager of Brookline Booksmith. "Of course, we didn't have a lot, and publishers were caught off guard, so it's taken some time to get anything back in."
There are multiple English translations and editions of the Quran, which was originally written in Arabic. But the most commonly stocked, according to bookstores, is the Penguin Classics paperback edition, and Penguin says sales have risen from 1,200 a month to an estimated 6,000 a month since the terrorist attacks.
"Sales are up significantly — we're seeing about five times the normal rate of sale," said Maureen Donnelly, director of publicity for Penguin Books. "Right now, we're out of stock."
American Muslims, who have been aggressively courting public opinion by holding open houses, setting up lectures on topics such as jihad and setting up speaker bureaus in an effort to counter the image of Muslims as terrorists, are delighted.
"I think people right now are trying to get to the source of things, trying to understand what Islam is all about and what do Muslims stand for," said Hossam Gabri of the Islamic Society of Boston. "It's a very good development that people are trying to understand the Quran and are going to the one thing that is the unifying factor for Muslims around the world."
The big bookstore chains do not release sales information, but a spokeswoman for Borders Books said the phenomenon is nationwide.
"We've seen an increase in sales of books about religious topics, as well as any topics related to the Middle East," said Jenie Carlen, manager of public relations for Borders Group Inc.
Carlen said the Quran is among the top-selling religious books at the chain's stores nationwide. She said other hot sellers are "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War" and world atlases.