High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The 2005 Quran desecration controversy began when Newsweek`s April 30 issue contained a report asserting that United States prison guards or interrogators had deliberately damaged a copy of Islam`s holiest book, the Quran. A week later, Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker, reporting the words of Pakistani politician Imran Khan: "This is what the U.S. is doing—desecrating the Koran." This incident caused upset in parts of the Muslim world.