Negotiations between the Turkish and U.S. (The remaining manuscripts drew from the Freer|Sackler’s own collections.) To coordinate a loan show of this scale is no small feat, not least when you take into account the failed military coup that took place in Turkey in July 2016, and the purge of civil servants that followed.
The exhibition showcased over sixty manuscripts, two-thirds of which were borrowed from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Istanbul. The curators of the show, Massumeh Farhad and Simon Rettig (both of the Freer|Sackler), had their work cut out for them. Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Istanbul, TIEM 531 (Photograph: Freer|Sackler staff) A view of the introductory galleries of the exhibition, with a massive, single-volume Qur’an from Safavid Iran, dated June 1599, in the foreground. Given the rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric and Islamophobic attacks, some might say an exhibition like this one was timely. It is worth letting that point sink in: the very first large–scale exhibition of Qur’an manuscripts in the United States was mounted in 2016–17 at a governmentally administered museum. “ The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures From the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts,” which closed on February 20, was the most ambitious exhibition of Qur’an manuscripts ever undertaken in the United States. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., a few blocks from the White House.
In October 2016, during the final month of a fractious presidential election that saw the GOP contender (now President of the United States) campaign on a promise to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the country, an exhibition of Qur’an manuscripts opened at the Arthur M. Yael Rice on Islamic Book and Manuscript Arts in America
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