"Exhibit illuminates the divine art of the Quran" PBS NewsHour 12/7/2016
Excerpt
SUMMARY: A major exhibition on the art of the Quran is being billed as the first of its kind in the U.S. Sixty-eight of the most important and exquisite Qurans ever produced are on view now at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. Jeffrey Brown reports on the vast variety of manuscripts on display and the beauty, history and hard work behind each masterpiece.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): In the charged atmosphere at this time around the role of Muslims in America comes what is billed as the first major exhibition on in the United States on the Quran.
Jeffrey Brown reports.
MASSUMEH FARHAD, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: This is one of the great highlights of the exhibition. It's a Quran from the early 14th century, from about 1330, signed by a great master.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Signed?
MASSUMEH FARHAD: Signed.
JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.
A holy book, as a work of art, the Quran, sacred to some 1.6 billion Muslims around the world. A new exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., presents 68 of the most important and exquisite Qurans ever produced.
Dating from the late 7th to early 17 centuries, they come from many parts of the Islamic world and are part of the collection of the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul. That's where Sackler chief curator Massumeh Farhad first saw them.
MASSUMEH FARHAD: I realized that these were true works of art, that every single one of them was astounding in its sort of mastery of calligraphy, of the styles, and also of the scale of the works.
And that is something that, to me, was very important, and motivated me in trying to organize this exhibition, because I thought it really shifted my perception of what these works are. And I'm hoping that it will also shift the perception of the visitors who come to the museum to see the exhibition.
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