Washington, D.C. is one of my favorite places to visit in the U.S.

The history, the museums, the memorials, the architecture – I feel right at home as an art historian. One of the highlights of my last visit was an exhibition at the Sackler Gallery titled “The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts.”

The show was certainly full of treasures from all corners of the Islamic world. There was a lot of anticipation leading up to my visit to the Sackler Gallery. I was already familiar with the exhibition through my interest in Islamic art and because I had used it to teach a couple of my lessons as a T.A. How would the real deal compare to the interactive online features? It was incredible.

The image above was a standout (although it’s incredibly hard for me to choose one favorite from the show). These are two folios from a Qur’an produced in the Timurid period (ca. 1400). You don’t really get a sense of scale from the photo, but the folios actually measure 1.77 x 1.01 m. That’s a only little smaller than your average door frame. According to the exhibition catalog, the folios would’ve measured 2.25 x 1.5 m with their original borders. The large pages magnify the boldness and precision required from the calligrapher to produce such an impressive work. I had to remind myself that this and essentially all of the other Qur’ans on display were painstakingly written by hand.

It was great to experience this exhibition – not only as an art historian and art lover but as a Muslim. I enjoyed being able to appreciate each and every Qur’an for its aesthetic beauty and for its meaning. I loved being able to make the connection between the scores of remarkable, diverse mushafs and the remarkable, diverse Muslim world.