Windows on the history of important milestones in the Islamic arts

"Words from the East" ... a journey into history and rare Qur’an manuscripts

• A rare Qur’an from the Mamluk period.

  From the source

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The exhibition "Words from the East", organized by the Sharjah Book Authority at its headquarters, until the third of next May, opens wide windows on the history of Islamic arts, the art of copying the Noble Qur’an and the historical transformations that it has undergone, besides hundreds of manuscripts, maps and paintings, a wing is dedicated to the holdings of the Minister of Health and Community Protection. The Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs, Abdul Rahman bin Muhammad Al Owais, to display manuscripts of the Qur’an dating back hundreds of years, written by the most famous calligraphers of the Islamic world.

The pavilion reveals worlds and topics that have occupied many researchers and scholars specializing in Islamic arts, and displays a rare Ottoman copy of the Holy Qur’an dating back to 1827 AD. However, the value of this copy is not only its age or the period it expresses, but rather in the hand of the calligrapher who wrote it, as it is one of the The few wise copies of the Qur’an were written by women artists, as it came in the handwriting of Sherifa Zulaikha Khatami al-Saadi bint Hajj Abdi Zadeh Basari Yari.

Accuracy and quality

This copy of the presented manuscripts not only raises the question about the most famous calligraphers known in the history of Islamic arts, but rather reveals the level of accuracy, quality, artistic patterns, schools, and even the materials and colors in which the Qur’an was copied. The names of the surahs are written in white ink on a golden ground decorated in green, and on the margins of the pages are golden mashrabiyas decorated for tithes and parties, while signs of intonation are in red ink.

Milestone

This is not what the exhibition stands at only, for a visitor to the exhibition can stop at a Qur’an in one of the great calligraphers who constitute milestones in the history of Islamic arts. He finds a manuscript by the famous calligrapher Omar bin Ismail, written in 1685 CE in the naskh script, and it is striking that it begins with Surat al-An'am and ends with the end The Noble Qur’an, as is the tradition in some schools of copying the Qur’an, begins with two illuminated panels.

The exhibition brings its visitors back to a period that historians call Timurid in reference to Tamerlane, in a manuscript of the Qur’an dating back to the fifteenth century AD, and it came by the calligrapher Joanmurd bin my brother Muhammad bin Bayazid al-Sururi, and the importance of this manuscript is due to the importance of the stage in which it was written, as it is the golden period for the development of calligraphy. Arab, especially the thuluth line. The Sururi manuscript represents the 14th part of the Holy Qur’an, and it was written in Thuluth script. The visitor’s journey continues between places and times to read the development and contrast of the schools of copying the Holy Qur’an from the heart of Samarkand historically, passing through the countries and cities of the Ottoman Empire to Egypt and the Levant during the Mamluk period. From the Qur’an it is written in thuluth script in black ink on dark paper dating back to the Mamluk period.

The visitor of the exhibition "Words from the East" stands in front of an articulated historical movement from the biography of the Arab region to explore a copy of the book "Description of Egypt", which was completed during the French campaign that Napoleon led against Egypt (1798-1801 AD) and includes 23 large volumes decorated and numbered with golden inscriptions. .

The visitor to the exhibition has the opportunity to see the efforts of a team of scholars and artists who recorded Egypt in all its cultural, geographical and anthropological details, and drew pictures of its inhabitants, markets, mosques and squares, so that standing in front of these volumes and looking into their pages seemed to return to the life of Egypt in the early nineteenth century.

The story of “Words from the East” does not end with these distinct manuscripts from the Noble Qur’an. Rather, it begins when the exhibition is divided into five sections that display paintings and pictures of landmarks, cities and personalities, including old pictures of Makkah during the Hajj ceremonies, pictures of Dubai and Sharjah, and another that reveals maps and models of the ball. The floor dates back to the early 17th and 18th centuries, along with manuscripts for the first and early editions of the most famous timeless literary works and books, in addition to a collection of antique paintings and posters for a number of countries in North Africa and the Middle East, which were used as advertisements for airlines, railways, tourism and exhibitions.

Sections

The exhibition is divided into five sections: the first presents manuscripts from the Holy Quran, while the second section displays paintings and pictures of landmarks, cities and figures, and the third section collects maps and models of the globe, and the fourth section presents manuscripts for the first and early editions of the most famous eternal literary works and books, and the fifth section reveals a large group of Old paintings and posters.

Personal belongings

The exhibition includes personal belongings of Abdul Rahman bin Mohammed Al Owais, Minister of Health and Community Protection, Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs, and Mohammed bin Ahmed Al-Murr, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the “Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Library”, in addition to holdings from “Juma Al Majid Center for Culture and Heritage”.

Sessions and seminars

The exhibition organizes a number of discussion sessions and seminars, presented by a group of experts and specialists in history and archeology, during which they discuss the importance of manuscripts and their future in the world, and their role in documenting peoples, cultures and cognitive achievements.

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