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Blind Qur'an reader denounces violence and calls for peace in Afghanistan 

The village medicine woman caked the baby's eyes with a concoction of opium and tobacco, telling his parents it would cure his ailing sight. When the bandages came off two months later, he had lost 90 per cent of his vision. He was totally blind by 16.

But Barakatullah Salim, now 57, regards his affliction as a blessing.

He memorized Islam's holy book, the Qur'an, by age nine

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