First major Quran exhibition in US set to open

Thursday October 20, 2016

“The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts” exhibition will bring 48 manuscripts and folios from the museum in Istanbul together with manuscripts from the various collections around the world.

Forty-seven centuries old handwritten Qurans from Turkey will be presented Saturday at the first major Quran exhibition in Washington at the Smithsonian Institution.

The Qurans were brought from the more than 100-year-old Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul. The exhibition will also include 18 Qurans from the permanent collections of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M.Sackler Gallery-both part of the Smithsonian.

The manuscripts are among the most important ever produced from geography spanning Turkey to Afghanistan and covers almost 1,000 years of the history of Islamic art between the 8th and 17th centuries.

In addition to the exhibition, there will also be several seminars and panels on Islamic Art, curator tours, family-friendly hands-on art activities, storytelling performances and live demonstrations of calligraphy and illumination.

A Quran symposium will also take place Dec. 1 at the Turkish Embassy.

Organized by the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry and the Smithsonian Museum, "The Art of the Qur'an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts" will be on view through Feb. 20.

Officials from the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry and the Turkish embassy are expected to attend the exhibit's opening sponsored by Turkish Airlines, the Koç Holding and the Doğan Group.