“At this time in our history in our country, it’s so important that we do this, so that knowledge rather than ignorance shall prevail.”
So an exhibit of rare old Qur’ans is going to promote “knowledge” over Trumpian “ignorance.” All right. Will these ancient Qur’ans unkill the 49 people murdered by an Islamic jihadist in the name of Islam and jihad in Orlando? Will they raise from the dead the 15 people murdered by Islamic jihadists in San Bernardino? Will they bring back to life and restore the lost limbs of those killed or maimed by Islamic jihadists at the Boston Marathon? Will they undo Chattanooga? Fort Hood? Garland? 9/11?
If not, they’re simply not going to have the outcome that the organizers of this exhibit want.
“Exhibit of rare Korans seeks to restore Islam in US eyes,” AFP, October 21, 2016:
A first US showing of rare old Korans opens Saturday in a Washington museum, highlighting a different side of Islam at a time when the religion’s image in America has been scarred by a divisive presidential campaign.
More than 60 Korans and Koranic texts, dating from as far back as the late seventh century and considered works of art for their exceptionally fine calligraphy, will be featured in “The Art of the Qur’an,” running through February 20, 2017, at the Freer and Sackler museums, home to the Smithsonian Institution’s Asian art collection….
The exhibit touches lightly on the messages of the Koran. “We are above all an art museum,” the show’s deputy curator Simon Retting told AFP during a news briefing Thursday….
Lucky for them. If they got into the message of the Qur’an, their exhibit would most certainly have exactly the opposite effect from the intended one.
“We wanted to really show the variety of manuscripts,” said Massumeh Farhad, the show’s chief curator.
The Korans on display, she noted, come from all parts of the Muslim world, from Iraq to Afghanistan and Turkey.
Thus, there is a Koran on parchment copied by a calligrapher in Iraq or Iran between the late eighth and early ninth century. Another imposing Koran, measuring some six feet by three feet (two meters by one meter) and dating from 1599 in the Iranian city of Shiraz, is done in colored ink with gold-encrusted letters.
“Today, when you look at a Koran, it always looks the same — it’s a printed copy with a green color, one basic size,” Farhad told AFP.
Really? I have about 20 copies of it, and each one looks different.
“What is remarkable here is the incredible variety of them, the size, the scale, the scripts… Especially when you think that the Koran is the same identical text copied over and over and over again. So you can’t do something different. It’s the same thing.”
The show’s opening comes just over two weeks before the US presidential elections of November 8, amid a polarizing campaign in which Republican candidate Donald Trump often stigmatized Muslims, saying at one point that he would ban all Muslims from the United States, at least for a time….
Trump did not, of course, ever say that he would ban all Muslims from the United States.
“Now, it is true that the exhibit is opening just at the moment of the elections, with highly charged public rhetoric around Islam,” Retting acknowledged.
“But as our mission is to promote and spread understanding, it is opening at a very opportune moment to allow the American public to have a different image of Islam.”
The show represents “a tremendous opportunity for dialogue between cultures” and an occasion to “build bridges,” he added.
“Hundreds of thousands of people will come to this exhibition and learn about the Islamic world, its art, its culture,” said Richard Kurin, under secretary for museums and research for the Smithsonian, which operates most of the museums in the US capital.
“At this time in our history in our country, it’s so important that we do this, so that knowledge rather than ignorance shall prevail.”
Tensions and misunderstandings about Islam have been growing in the United States, Kurin continued.
“If we can help bridge that gap through this museum… we will have done our job.”