Exhibit at Smithsonian captures art of the Qur’an

Islam prohibits the depiction of God or prophets, and some Muslims believe drawing any animate being is also forbidden. Certainly no such images appear in the Qur’an, its central holy book.

So there are no pictures in the first major exhibit of Qur’ans in the United States, The Art of the Qur’an, at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery on the National Mall until February 20. But the more than 60 Qur’ans on display present a visually stunning tour of more than 1,000 years of Islamic history, told through the calligraphy and ornamentation that grace the sacred folios.

“We can convey a sense of how artists from North Africa to Afghanistan found different ways to honor the same text,” said Julian Raby, Sackler director. “They found different forms of illumination and binding to beautify the manuscripts they had copied. But above all they developed different forms of script to express, in a dazzling array of calligraphic variety, the very same text. The results could be intimate; or they could be imposing. But in every case the scribe invested his calligraphy with piety.”