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Bit by bit...From Arab News, with thanks to Eschwapp:
RIYADH - In a move to promote understanding between Islam and the West, Saudi Arabia has donated about SR13 million to a leading British museum for the creation of a new Saudi and Islamic gallery. The money has been donated to Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University, the oldest British museum, on the personal initiative of Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation."The Islamic gallery will be attached to Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, which already has a rich collection of exhibits from the Middle East and Islamic world," Saudi and British officials said yesterday.
Ashmolean Museum was the first museum in the world to be opened to the public when it was officially inaugurated way back in 1683, according to the Guinness Book of Records. The museum's treasures include rare exhibits from various Islamic countries.
The officials said the money from Prince Sultan will pay for a new Saudi and Islamic gallery, which will help to portray Islamic culture and civilization in right perspectives. It will also help fund scholarships for Saudi students at Oxford University.
"I am very pleased that the new student scholarship scheme will enable 10 Saudi students to study at Oxford," said Prince Sultan.
"It will be an honor for our students to attend this ancient seat of learning, amongst students from around the world," said the prince, while appreciating the facilities at Ashmolean, which also houses a significant collection of art and archaeology from eastern and western civilizations....
Posted by Robert at April 22, 2005 8:32 AM
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I doubt that the Saudis would add to the Ashmolean, much of value which would distract the visitors from Alma Tadema, Fra Angelico and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Maybe it will become like the Islamic art department of the Louvre, where multi culti hippy types and their feminist mothers gasp in awe at arabic teapots and screech in delight whilst gazing at tunisian ceramic. The absence of arab visitors in any museum anywhere in the world and the wanton destruction of the Kabul museum and Bamiyan statues tells us all we need to know about islamic interest in art.
Of much more concern is the money the Saudis are giving to Oxford. This money is poison. I know of no one in any university ever, who has taken a principled stance and refused to take wahhabi money. The result of this shameful behavior, is intellectual dishonesty in every single western university Middle East Studies department.
Didn't anybody's parents ever teach anyone integrity?
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at April 22, 2005 9:17 AM
How generous! Throw a bone to the suckers, so they bend over and spread 'em...
Posted by: Terminator at April 22, 2005 10:03 AM
"which will help to portray Islamic culture and civilization in right perspectives"
So there will be exhibits showing limb amputations, beheadings, stonings, and whippings? And pictures showing dhimmified infidels wearing special clothing, cowering before their Islamic masters while paying jizya? And sculptures of old men beating their very young wives, or brothers "honor"-killing their sisters? Maybe a video demonstration of FGM?
Although from what I understand, portraying the human form is forbidden in Islam, so conveniently for them, these sorts of displays won't happen & the infidel world will remain in the dark. Instead, gallery viewers will have to satisfy themselves with pictures of mosques, and that boring calligraphy stuff, which is only good for bathroom tiles and pottery. None of this really represents Islamic (ahem) "culture" and "civilization" (guffaw!).
at April 22, 2005 11:32 PM
Sounds more like a cataloging expedition, to note down what is to be 'taken back' when the Restored Caliphate succeeds.
And what infidel art is to be destroyed.
As one earlier Muslim noted:
"If it agrees with the Koran, we don't need it. If it disagrees, we don't want it."
I can see the smashed statuary, burned oil protraits and gutted museums on the horizon.
And hear the caterwauling of muezzins. Like the screech of chipped fingernails on a cosmic blackboard.
Crying out the death of the mind.
Posted by: BigSleep at April 23, 2005 1:38 AM
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