King Abdulaziz Public Library launches Qur’an collection in ‘message of peace’
RIYADH: King Abdulaziz Public Library launched a rare Holy Qur’an Exhibition on Thursday in Riyadh to celebrate World Heritage Day.
The event aims to highlight the richness and peaceful practices of Islamic civilizations.
“We are proud that this exhibition is connected to serving the Holy Qur’an, the Two Holy Mosques and the Islamic civilizations,” said Faisal bin Muammar, the King Abdulaziz Public Library’s general supervisor.
“The goal of the exhibition is to celebrate the richness of the Islamic culture and the Holy Qur’an in this great month of Ramadan,” Muammar added.
The collection, consisting of 267 copies of the Qur’an and 20 highly valuable museum copies, is unique because of the characters, type, font, decoration and dates of the texts, most of which were written between the 10th century and 13th century A.H.
The library’s general supervisor said that the exhibition also highlights the diversity of Islamic civilizations.
“The library has set up an exhibition that contains distinguished models of the Qur’an collection, which contains about 300 copies of the Qur’an, including a very rare collection that differs in terms of place, time, calligraphy method and the nationality of the calligrapher,” said Bandar Al-Mobarak, general manager of King Abdulaziz Public Library.
“We have Qur’ans from India, Timbuktu and China, and you can distinguish between them by the fonts used,” he added.
The library and its surrounding institutions around the Kingdom have spent more than 30 years collecting the best manuscripts from around the world to share.
Muslims around the world have long decorated Qur’ans with Islamic embellishments such as geometric lines, patterns, shapes, Arabic fonts, vegetal motifs and colors, transforming the texts into works of art.
In light of recent events in Sweden, the Qur’an Exhibition is another way for the Kingdom to reinforce the peaceful practices and values of the Islamic faith.
“We know that in Islam and especially in Saudi Arabia, we respect every religion and every culture, and we respect the civilizations of others,” Muammar said.
“I am sure that whoever commits an ugly act like what has happened in Sweden is not concerned about his own beliefs or his own religion,” he added.
The general supervisor stressed that the exhibition is not a response to the events in Sweden, but rather a peaceful exhibition to highlight ancient manuscripts of the Holy Qur’an.
“Whatever they do (in Sweden), they want the others to react in a violent way so this is not the best way to respond — ignoring them is the best solution,” he said.
“I am speaking on behalf of King Abdulaziz Public Library — the best answer to (the events in Sweden) this is to do exhibitions and to send …….
Source: https://www.arabnews.com/node/2068251/saudi-arabia