Russian President Vladimir Putin has yet again made headlines after a video of him kissing the Holy Quran during his visit to a mosque in Chechnya went viral on social media.
The gold-encrusted Holy Quran was presented to Putin, 71, as a gift from the “Prophet Jesus” mosque in Grozny, Chechnya, during his first visit to the region in 13 years.
The “Prophet Jesus” mosque, where Putin received the Holy Quran, is a newly-constructed religious site in Chechnya’s capital, which holds significance for Muslims in the region.
In the video, Putin is seen accepting the Holy Quran as his gift and showing respect to the Islamic faith by kissing it.
He also posed for pictures with Chechnya leader Ramzan Kadyrov, with whom he visited the newly constructed mosque in the capital while holding the Holy Quran.
This, however, was not the first time Putin received the Holy Quran as a gift.
Last year, during his visit to a historical mosque of Derbent in the Dagestan Autonomous Republic of the Russian Federation, the Russian leader met with Muslim representatives and received a copy of the Holy Quran as a gift in celebration of Eid ul Adha.
At the time, Putin said that while the desecration of the Holy Quran is not seen as a crime in some countries, it is penalized in Russia.
“In our country, this is a crime both according to the Constitution and the penal code,” he said.
“The Quran is sacred for Muslims and should be sacred for others,” he said as he thanked the representatives for the gift. “We will always abide by these rules.”
His remarks came after Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban the Holy Quran in Sweden, desecrated the holy book of Muslims repeatedly outside the Stockholm Central Mosque, as Muslims in Stockholm celebrated Eid ul Adha.
