25-year-old Iraqi Hussein al-Kharsan aims to take an unusual path to fame: writing the longest copy of the Koran in the world, AFP reports.

Kharsan says the scroll is to be between 5,500 and 6,000 meters long, or 3.4 and 3.7 miles. His aim, he says, is to set a Guinness World Record.

If that happens, it will be another entry on the Islamic holy text, which expressly prohibits the consumption of alcohol, in a record book conceived by the managing director of a brewery.

The copy of the Koran was supposed to be shown this year, when Najaf was to be the Islamic Capital of Culture, but that project has been postponed indefinitely amid serial delays and allegations of corruption.

Kharsan, who began participating in Arabic calligraphy competitions when he was just nine years old, writes on four pieces of white paper that are each 1,500 metres long.

He has succeeded in copying 13 pages of the Koran since he started his work about a month ago. Guinness World Records does not have any entries for the longest Koran, but the largest printed copy measures two meters (6.5 feet) high and 1.52 meters (4 feet, 11 inches) wide, and was unveiled in Russia last November.

The smallest copy, printed in Cairo in 1982 and owned by a Pakistani man, is 1.7 by 1.3 centimeters (0.66 by 0.5 of an inch), but still 571 pages long.

The biggest book in the world, meanwhile, measures five by 8.06 meters (16.4 by 26.44 feet) and weighs some 1,500 kilograms (3,306 pounds). It is on the life and achievements of the Prophet Mohammed, and was unveiled in Dubai in February.