'Part
1'
We noticed amongst the comments in
the museum's Guest book, one young man who wrote 'Boring, nothing for children', while
another young lady asked, "Could something be written as a kind of guide for
children?' That all seems very reasonable and thought provoking, and so here is a first
attempt to write about a few of the things that can be seen in the museum.
Although the museum is quite a large
Arab/Islamic one, there is little space at present to create a section just for children.
However, many of the objects in the museum will appeal to them, and learning a little
about those areas that are perhaps more difficult to appreciate is actually fascinating
when a little of the background and history is understood. For instance there is, I think
in the Freer Gallery in the United States, a delightful early manuscript painting. It
shows a calligrapher (a writer) sitting in the balcony of a minaret and practising his
writing. I think he was writing the letter Kaf. The story goes that this
was during the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258AD. The calligrapher had run up
the steps of the minaret to escape the fierce and bloody fighting going on in the streets
below. As he ran he managed to grab his pen, ink and some paper determined to continue
with his daily writing practise. He was the well-known calligrapher Yaqut Al-Musta'simi
and he actually survived the Sack of Baghdad. One of the Qur'an he wrote is in the
museum's collection 
Papermaking came to the Arab world in the
eighth century from China, and the museum does have an early eighth century manuscript
written on paper. Before that date the Arabs had written on flat camel bones, the sides of
rocks and on parchment, which is prepared leather from animal skin. Click
on camera to see picture
Paper, was exported to Europe through
Muslim Spain via Egypt and Syria. Calligraphers train at their craft for many years before
they become a Master and have to write every day so that the muscles in their
hand remain supple.
Some may think that six year olds find
little to hold their attention. But 1 and others have found this to be quite untrue. In
fact it has been noticed that the younger visitor often shows a considerable and
intelligent interest in the Qura'ns and manuscripts in the museum. They have been
appreciative of the different forms of writing, even though at such a young age the
students are only just learning to write Arabic and cannot yet read well. Some were able
to pick out the letters they had learned, and they were admiring of the shape of the
letters in their different styles. Just to name one of the beautiful manuscripts there is
a Qur'an written by a very famous calligrapher Hamdullah Al Amasi who taught one of the
Turkish Sultans in the sixteenth century.
Many styles of script developed over the
centuries and one called Ghubar or Dust was written in fine, clear
but minute writing. This was first used for pigeon post messages, but eventually tiny
Qur'an were written and Ghubar as a writing style became quite popular. The
museum has a number of these Qur'an with their tiny, but perfectly written forms. |
