Ottoman History Podcast - Exploring the Art of the Qur'an

Episode Date: February 10, 2017

Episode 297 with Massumeh Farhad & Simon Rettig hosted by Emily Neumeier Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud The preeminent position of manuscript painting and poetry at the Ottoman court has been well established by historians, yet the equally important practice of commissioning and collecting sumptuously decorated copies of the Qur’an--the sacred text of Islam--has been less explored. The role of the Qur’an in the artistic culture of the Ottoman world is just one facet of the landmark exhibition The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. The show traces the formal evolution of the Qur’an, especially in terms of calligraphy and manuscript illumination, with over 60 manuscripts and folios spanning a thousand years and created in an area stretching from Egypt to Afghanistan. Besides having an opportunity to appreciate the level of labor and skill invested in producing such high-quality manuscripts, visitors will also be surprised to learn about the mobility of these books, as they were avidly collected, repaired, and donated by members of the Ottoman court to various religious institutions around the empire. In this episode, curators Massumeh Farhad and Simon Rettig sit down with us to reflect both on the reception of the exhibition in the United States, as well as the process of organizing this collaborative venture between the Smithsonian and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul. « Click for More »

Hello, and welcome to the Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Emily Neumeier. And today I have the great pleasure to be here in Washington, D.C., speaking with Masoumeh Farhad and Simon Reddick, the Chief and Assistant Curators of Islamic Art at the Freer and Sackler Galleries. As many of our listeners may already know, the Freer and Sackler house the National Collection of Asian Art at the Smithsonian Institution, a collective of museums and educational spaces that frame the National Mall in Washington. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. So I should say that both Masoume and Simon have both curated several lovely exhibitions here at the Freer and Sackler. But today we're going to be talking about their most recent endeavor, which is an exhibition titled The Art of the Quran, Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, which is actually, it's unfortunately about to close in about two weeks, right? So it opened on October of 2016, and it will close in a few weeks at the end of February. But I still think it would be, it's interesting to talk about this exhibition really at the tail end of the run of the show and to hear your reflections not only on organizing the exhibition but also the reception of this of this exhibition um in the united states and also on a more international level turning to the subject of this exhibition masume and simon could you uh could you just say a few words of introduction about about the

exhibition if if somebody um were to come to the galleries today, what would they find on display? How is it organized? The exhibition includes almost 70 works of art. Most of them are from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul, who have been tremendously generous in lending us their really unique treasures. What we've done, we've substituted those loans with some 20 works of our own. So it's a mixture of both works that have come from Istanbul and some works that are here. As this is the first major exhibition on the art of the Quran,

and we really wanted to focus on the art history of these incredible manuscripts, that really sort of represents the main thrust of the exhibition is to look at the way the oral tradition the Quran was transformed into a written text the way that the exhibition the the way that the manuscripts are organized, the text is organized, and the way that they vary in size, scale, according to their uses. But with any exhibition on the Quran, it's impossible not to deal with actually what the Quran is. So the way that we have organized it is that the first thing that the view actually experiences

is an oral recitation of the first chapter the Fatiha. The opening. The opening. Because we thought that it's very important to emphasize the orality of the Quran.

And it also, it sort of puts you in a different frame of mind when you hear the recitation. And then the rest of the sort of first floor of the exhibition is really devoted to what the Quran is, how it's divided up the various chapters, and what are the major themes of the Quran, because we felt it was critical for our audiences to get an introduction to some basic ideas about the Quran, especially as there's been such misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the text.

We thought it was important to first introduce the themes and then look at the aesthetic qualities of these manuscripts. And in the second section we look at more the materiality and the physicality of these manuscripts and with this idea of how the Quran as a text came into shape, came into shape, how it was structured visually, how verses were separated one from each other, how titles were inserted between chapters and how the text was laid out on the page.

And that from the earliest times of Islam. So the earliest example we have on view dates probably only a few decades after the death of the Prophet Muhammad through the early 17th century, which is the latest example we have on the show. So we, alongside with like this evolution of format and layout, we display also the how calligraphy came into form and evolved throughout like a millennium and also illuminations so like the art of like sort of like beautifying the word of God and how also illuminations have a precise function which is like helping to understand the structure of the of the Well, I think this is a good point to take a small break. And after the break, we'll actually head out to the galleries

and talk a little bit about a few examples of the Quran, of the Quran exhibition. And yeah, so thanks for listening. So I'm now in the gallery with Simon Reddick, and we are in the galleries talking about a particular object. Simon, could you tell us a little bit more about what we have right in front of us? So it's a copy of the Quran completed in 1571 by a calligrapher called Ferhat Pasha who was also a vizier and married to the daughter of Prince Mehmet, Huma. And this vizier was a very skilled calligrapher. And what you see here is like a clear demonstration

of his skills. It's a manuscript. It looks plain. It's copied in a beautiful Nasi, Nasi in Turkish, with like the verse separators are simple like gilded dots. The title of the chapters are just written in plain gold in Mohacac script.

Nothing in the margins. it's just simply framed. It's just like a beautiful plain copy of the Quran. And we know that Ferhat Pasha used to sell some of his productions. This one in particular is all the more interesting because it was endowed two centuries later by Abdulhamid I to his own tomb and the Quran to his own mausoleum. And this Quran was supposed to be read on his tomb, as he said, for the salvation of his soul. So he endowed it while he was still alive, meaning that he went into the imperial library

in the top cover and selected this volume for his tomb. Because Abdulhamid I was also famous for being a good calligrapher. He had a good hand. So he appreciated art by older masters. And Ferhat Pasha was the pupil of Ahmad Qaraissari. So he was kind of like a big name. And there is mention of it by Mustaqim Zadeh

in the Tufeyhi Al-Totten. So quite an interesting volume. It provides these layers of histories, pure Ottoman history here. There is another volume which is downstairs that relates also to Abdulhamid I. Okay well let's go check it out. So Simon now we're with part due of these two manuscripts. So what do we have here? So we're looking at a single volume Quran copied by Yakut and Mustasimi.

Yakut is probably one of the most famous calligraphers of all time. He lived in the late 13th century. He witnessed the Mongol invasions and allegedly the destruction of Baghdad. And he's famous among the calligraphers because it is said that he recodified the six scripts used for copying the Quran, you know, the Akhlamas Sittay. And here it's one of the few genuine copies we know by him. There was a lot of forgeries, especially in the Timurid period. This one is original, it's written in a very refined Rehan script and you know like Yakut is famous because he was like trimming the nib of his pen particular way that allowed him to trace like a stroke that was half a millimeter wide. So like very, very thin, very, very thin strokes.

So very, very refined. Yeah. Aesthetic. Very refined aesthetics. And also, you know, the way he placed the words on the lines, so the rhythm he creates, which is very novel. You see it's lavishly illuminated with all these medallions in the margin, indicating every tenth and fifth verses, you can see that the illuminations are

contemporaneous with the copy, but the framing lines. The framing lines were added later and probably at the time of when the manuscript was remounted onto a new binding. And you have that extraordinary binding with like filigree leather, mainly blue and gold design that is probably a 15th century work from Tabriz. So we know that the manuscript traveled from Baghdad, where it was made, completed, to Tabriz. And then it reached Istanbul later on.

We don't know when. But what is interesting is that we have a primary source, the by Isfah Nihonji, written in the late 15th century in which the author says that Yakub Beg Akoyunlu offered to the Mamluk Sultan Qaybay for his enthronement a copy of the Quran by Yakut

written in Rayhan script. And it is possible that we are looking at this copy that was sent then from Tabriz to Cairo and eventually when the Ottomans conquered Egypt, the manuscript reached Istanbul. So my head's spinning a little bit. So we just went from Baghdad to Tabriz We just went from Baghdad to Tabriz to Cairo, and then finally Istanbul. Yes. And now Washington, D.C. Not for long, just two weeks back to Istanbul. But what is interesting in Istanbul, the manuscript probably ended in the Imperial Library, in the Topkapi.

the top copper, but it was then endowed by Mahmud II to the tomb of his father, Abdulhamid I. And we saw that previous example by Ferhat Pasha, endowed by Abdulhamid I to his own mausoleum. Here we have another example. It's by a son, Mahmud II, and during this Quran, which is so rare because it's copied by Yakut, that famous calligrapher, to the tomb of his father, who was a really

knowledgeable calligrapher, also, so that he would have appreciated this copy and out to his tomb. And that tells you about like, a bit about like the politics of endowments, you know, from one sultan to another,

and that other individuals would end out to relatives or to sometimes like you know Vizier or Pasha's like copies of the Quran. It the Freer Sackler, Queens and Princesses. So I think we have an example here of a great, an interesting example of women's patronage in the Ottoman court. So if you could say a few words, Masi, that would be great. So this is a Koran actually from Safavidiran from the late 16th century

from the city of Shiraz where a great number of Korans were produced and exported to actually the Ottoman Empire. The person who owned this Qur'an was Nur Banu, the wife of Selim II. And she acquired it in the early 18th century and then endowed it to the Atik Valley Mosque in Istanbul. And this is sort of typical of what happens with many of these Korans, especially acquired by women. They would be then endowed to public institutions.

As you know, Nurbanu was very influential, like many other Ottoman women, and she was critical in opening and maintaining relationships with Europe, especially with the Medicis, with Catherine the Medici. And apparently one of the requests that she had from Catherine de' Medici was a particular lapdog, which they had this incredible exchange going back and forth. But she was also a great patron of both art and architecture and clearly of Korans.

Now, as we talked about the history of these Korans. Now, as we talked about the history of these Korans and their endowment that is contained in the manuscripts, this is a very good example because at some point in its history, the manuscript was transferred to the nearby mosque by Mihrim al-Sultan. So we don't exactly know why. Perhaps they were in need of a Quran. We don't know. But know, but again, we have the story of these manuscripts, in many cases, very well recorded, and we can build their biographies. And you were mentioning Nurbanu Sultan's relationship with some of the great Western dynasties, but also as you mentioned, clearly with this Quran she had also connections with art markets to the east with the Safavids. So could you, can we talk a little bit more about

about what we have in front of us? This is double page. This is the frontispiece. Well, actually what it is, this is a very unusual design from Safa Dhiran, where every line of text is set in a rectangular box of a different color. So the overall visual effect is quite psychedelic. And the double page actually marks the exact center of the manuscript. And in the 16th century, especially with the Safavids

in Iran, illumination becomes very elaborate. The size of the manuscripts grow. They seem to be specializing, especially in Shiraz, in these grand, showy copies of manuscripts, and this is certainly one of them. And it seemed to be ideally suited for display. It would be something to be brought out on a special occasion. Of course, you could use it,

but at the same time, it was impressive, and it in many ways represented Nour Bonnou's sort of piety and devotion, and the fact that she was willing to endow such a grand copy of the Quran to the mosque. Thank you. Welcome back to the Ottoman History Podcast. Again, I'm Emily Neumeyer, and I am here with Masoume Farhad and Simon Reddick talking about their latest exhibition, The Art of the Quran, now on display at the Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, D.C.

So welcome back. For this part of the episode, I thought let's switch gears a little bit and talk about the significant collaboration between two institutions, the Smithsonian and the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum in Istanbul, of which I think many of our listeners have visited and are quite familiar with. So if you could talk a little bit more about the process of organizing this exhibition and working with the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum, that would be great. that would be great. In 2010 the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art actually organized a major exhibition of their Qurans and it was the really the first

time that they had put on display I think over a hundred of their really finest manuscripts. And I heard about this by accident, and I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So I went to see the exhibition, and I was completely sort of overwhelmed by the works on view. by the works on view. I had a casual conversation with the curator about the possibility

of doing something on a much smaller scale in the United States. I said it would be really wonderful to try to borrow perhaps one or two of such manuscripts. That's cute. Start off with your expectations. Small.

Exactly. Yeah. And Sevgi Kutulay, who was the curator, sort of looked at me and she said, well, why not? Let's go and talk to the director. And we did. And to my delight and surprise, he was very receptive as well. And he said, well, yes, let's talk about it. And it sort of seemed that he was thinking perhaps more than one or two.

So I discussed it, of course, with our director. He went to see the exhibition and also thought it would be an incredible opportunity to actually do an exhibition like that. But, you know, it just seems such a remote possibility that we didn't want to get too excited about it. But I sent in my wish list which I have to say was was quite elaborate. I mean I put all the great masterpieces and the museum actually agreed to almost all of them. And then we we started going through all the various steps. As you know, actually at that time, this was in 2000, this was in 2010, 11 by this time. And the museum was actually going to celebrate its centenary in 2014.

So they thought that it would be nice to have an exhibition at the same time in Washington. And we agreed in principle, but they were also undergoing renovation at that time. And as you know, with any renovation, unfortunately, it always takes longer than you expect. So in their case, actually, they were not able to open in 2014 because they uncovered part of the hippodrome in their foundation. As it happens often in Istanbul. And it was very difficult to have the renovation, have the reinstallation, and then also do an exhibition with us. So as a result, we postponed the exhibition. But throughout the time, the museum could not have been more generous and more open to our ideas.

I mean, we were allowed to see everything. There were no issues with the way that we wanted to organize the exhibition because the way that they had organized the exhibition was actually chronological. And we didn't want to do that. That was fine. They really allowed us to really do our own show based on their collection. And I,

sort of thinking back, I'm actually quite amazed by their generosity and also by their sort of approach in letting us, giving us free hand to do what we would like to do. And I will just interject and say here that the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum, the Türkfe Slames Erdem Üzesi, has indeed opened since the renovation. And I encourage all of our listeners to go. It's a fabulous reinstallation with all kinds of video displays. And so check it out. Could you say a few more words about the foundation of the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum? Because it's really of great interest for not only art history, but also for

the history of museums in the late Ottoman Empire, which is definitely very much a hot topic at the moment, with work by Wendy Shaw and Edhem Eldem. So yes, and very briefly, because there is a wonderful essay by Edhem Eldem on the genesis of the museum in the exhibition catalog, in which he really demonstrates how the Ottoman state, you know, at the eve of the First World War, was sort of like struggling to maintain its authority throughout the empire. And that was the time there was a lot of theft in religious institutions and how they decided to not repatriate, but to bring to Istanbul in one sole place all the treasuries kept in these institutions. over like I think 15,000 manuscripts and among them three or four thousand copies of the Quran. We don't know the exact number but and over a period of it took

like 10-15 years I think to bring them all, although the museum officially opened in 1914 but like in the late 20s, so after the creation of the Republic, manuscripts and objects were still coming in which is, I mean it was like an endeavor of like several decades yes this institution is interesting in that it actually bridges as as many institutions do it bridges the the late Ottoman into the Turkish Republic so and that complex as the Museum of Islamic Endowment.

And with the creation of the Republic, I mean, the year after, in 1924, it became the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts. And it didn't move to its current location, which is in the Ibrahim Pasha Palace. On the hippodrome. On the hippodrome. On the Atmedan. Before 1983, I believe, right? Fairly recent.

One other thing that is important to add is that when you look at the collection of the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, in a way, you're also looking at a royal Ottoman collection. I mean, there is the top kapı, of course, but these manuscripts, not only manuscripts, but also the carpets and the candlesticks and the other objects that are in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic art in the in the in the book

holders you know these sort of book stands book stands and these really also just elaborate and beautifully made pieces of furniture for containing these so so these manuscripts so these were these were objects that were commissioned by members of the royal family, many of them women, but also they were collected by viziers, by high-ranking eunuchs, by, of course, again, the sultan and his family. So when you look at the holdings, again, it gives you also, in addition, sort of a glimpse into Ottoman collecting. Do you perhaps have one example that comes to your mind that really encapsulates for you the story of that really encapsulates for you the story of the Ottoman royal family collecting earlier Quran manuscripts and endowing them

and sort of really getting at maybe telling the life of these objects to get anthropological. Well, what was staggering and new for us, for Masume and myself, when we were going through these manuscripts, it's like uncovering several layers of history they had. And because we realized that the Ottomans Because we realized that the Ottomans wouldn't endow a new copy of the Korans to an institution.

That copy had to be old. all ancient not ancient but they were made at least several decades uh prior to to their uh final endowments and so we have timor and quran's we have mamluk quran's being endowed by ottoman by ottomans being like royalty and being avidly collected by the ottomans and one of the vividly collected by the Ottomans. And one of the most, and if not the most superb example, is the Uljayi II Baghdad Quran I mentioned previously, which was made for the Mongol Sultan Uljayi II between 1307 and 1314, and which was endowed to his tomb. I mean, Al-Jaitu endowed the Quran to his tomb in Sultaniyeh. And we know that Suleiman, when he was campaigning in Iran in 1533, you know, stayed in Sultaniyeh and he was with

Rustem Pasha and Shehzadeh Mehmet and they brought back with them, you know, volumes that were kept in the tomb. And interestingly they don't, they didn't take the whole Quran, so the 30 volumes, but only a few of them. And one ended up in the imperial library, in the Topkapi, but others like bear the seal of Shehzadeh Mehmet. And one of them was endowed to the tomb of the prince by Rustem Pasha. And there is a vakfiyyeh, you know, in the in the manuscript yeah a document of pious endowment yes saying that rustem pasha and out to the tomb of the prince uh that volumes or these volumes but there is a later note like i did like two years later uh by rustem pasha saying

that he's upset because uh he noticed that people were taking leaves out of the copy. So he moved these volumes to the mosque of his wife, Suleiman's daughter, Mihirima. And there something happened. We don't know exactly when, but like by the late 17th century these volumes were like taken apart remounted in sort of like disorder like you have several fragments of sections put together and one of the volumes ended up in Leipzig you know in 1694 whereas the other volume was brought back to the tomb of Shehzadeh Mehmet. So with one volume, you have like five or six hundred years of history. And that's what we tried to present in the last section of the exhibitions and how this idea of collecting and endowing

Quran's manuscript worked in the Ottoman Empire. Yeah, this issue of collecting, I think, is really important because oftentimes with manuscript studies, historians of manuscripts, I think the tendency is to focus on what I call, you know, the er moment, the moment of initial production. But in many cases, it overlooks the much longer lives that these manuscripts, afterlives that these manuscripts had, not only in the Ottoman Empire, but also, you know,

now as an object in a museum. I think it would be interesting for our listeners to talk a little, if you could talk a little bit more about how do you, what are some ways we can piece together these stories, the lives of these manuscripts in the manuscripts themselves, you know, in terms of what kind of notices, what kind of pieces of information we can get from the object to reconstruct these stories, to do an archaeology

of these manuscripts, and also in terms of what kind of archival material we have. You mentioned a few things, but if you could talk a little bit more about that. Having the privilege of working with this collection and actually going through the copies of the Quran, which was really, I mean, I think for both Simon and myself was really sort of revelatory because we sort of noticed things that hadn't been noticed or actually probably had not been seen because I'm not sure how often anybody had gone through many of these of these Qur'ans and also given the fact that these Qur'ans had been kept in various mosques and mausoleums around the Ottoman Empire, they were safeguarded, unlike other manuscripts that are in Western collections that had been sort of taken apart and are only fragmentary.

With these manuscripts, you could tell their story or you could reconstruct their biography because, for instance instance by looking through the manuscripts you would find seals you would find inscriptions you know librarians inscriptions but also in in many cases you know endowment notifications like for instance when a manuscript was given as endowment to an institution, there would be notes saying it should be used for recitation, it should be used for teaching orphans, etc. So you know, or at least by looking inside the manuscript,

you would get a sense of how it was supposed to be used. And of course, then you look at these manuscripts in the context of all the amazing endowment documents that are now being published and so many scholars of Ottoman history are now looking at. So now you piece the two together and you get this really rich picture of the role and function of the Korans you mentioned,

especially in their afterlife. Yes. I mean, yes, they were created, and in some cases we know who they were created for, but what sort of struck both of us, what was interesting is how these manuscripts changed hands. Who acquired them? Which sultan or which vizier? And then what did they do with that? the old Jaita Quran is sort of, again, it's sort of classical in that, you know, Sulaiman had it, then Shahzada Mehmed, you know, had it, Rustam Pasha had it, it ended up in Mehramah's mausoleum. So, and that we were able to piece together, again, through endowment inscriptions,

together again through endowment inscriptions, seals, and sort of knowing about the history of the period and sort of putting all that, again, the different pieces in order to create a full picture. To what extent in the collection that's on display, to what extent do you see any evidence of efforts to, on the behalf of the Ottomans, efforts to repair or conserve these older manuscripts during the Ottoman period at the moment of endowment? Do you see any evidence for this? Well, there is written evidence within the manuscripts, especially from the 18th century onward, we have notes by a person who is called the inspector of the two holy cities endowments. Mecca and Medina, of course. Yeah, Mecca and Medina. And who also supervised what is called the Imperial Endowments Treasury.

And that person, like, usually depended, like, on the sultans, like, directly from the sultans. in which the inspector provided the dates of repair and mending made to a manuscript. And for instance, there is a beautiful late 15th century Mamluk Koran made for Amir Khensou, who was the master of the stables of Sultan Khedbey. And so the manuscript was taken from Cairo to Istanbul. We don't know when, but there is a note by Ali Shefikbey, who was the overseer of the imperial treasury under Sultan Abdul Majid I. And he said in that note that he added a new cover. I mean, he repaired the cover, he mended pages,

he replaced the missing folios. And you can see in the manuscripts, like at the end, like folios were missing. So they were replaced and they regilded the illuminations as well. So that just proved that constant care of the manuscripts under the sultan's authority. So these manuscripts were probably in the imperial library,

in the top cafe, before being endowed to institutions. And so they would go through first a sort of like ministry of manuscripts before being endowed. Can I just add a footnote about patronage? Okay, sure. One thing that we noticed as we were going through these manuscripts is the importance of women in acquiring these manuscripts and endowing them both to their own monuments, but also to that of others. And they were very active

in acquiring Qur'ans, acquiring libraries, and really sort of sending them around to various institutions and in that way sort of feel that the women's voices were being heard because they determined again how these manuscripts should be used, how they should be used for recitation, how they should be used for teaching. And I think that's a very important aspect of the use and dissemination of these manuscripts. Thank you for that. And of course, one of the significant events that have happened on the National Wall in the past few weeks, of course, is the Women's March on Washington.

Of course. How could I neglect that? Anyway, so thank you. Thank you for bringing that into the conversation as well. So to turn to start, to wrapping up the conversation, I'd like to ask, you know, you mentioned that this exhibition, like most large-scale exhibitions, have been many years in the making. And when you started planning this, when was it, 2010 or something like that?

When you started planning this, there's no way you could have anticipated this exhibition coming into this current political climate. into this current political climate. So while the, as I mentioned, the show has been up from October and is going down in a few weeks in February, the end of February. So in the meantime, we've had a U.S. presidential election, we've had an inauguration, and we are now into a new presidency here in Washington, D.C., not just a stone's throw away, really. So while you couldn't anticipate that, that has been the case. show means? What do you see as your role as the curators of this exhibition at the Fierce Sackler, on the National Mall, in Washington, DC, in this political climate where there's a lot of tension and misunderstanding and debate about the role of Islam and Muslims in our country? Well, I think even in 2010, when you, or 2011,

when we started thinking of this exhibition, I mean, Islam was already sort of being discussed at length. And so, I mean, I think we sort of knew that it could be controversial. Of course, you know, things just escalated more and more. Knew that that it could be controversial of course You know it things just escalated more and more but but actually I have to admit when we decided on the date of 2016 it didn't even cross our mind that it was an election year and maybe that was stupid

but you know, we didn't think about it and What has been remarkable that both Simon and I have had the support of the Smithsonian through and through we we had a meeting with the sort of the top administration to discuss this exhibition as you know we we have a Board of Regents that includes the chief justice and also um and also actually the vice president and they were informed about this exhibition uh this was this was prior to the recent elections and um everybody gave their okay so in that respect we were um we're very lucky the um the secretary of the smithsonian has been promoting the exhibition and has been very supportive.

Of course, when we opened the exhibition, it was still before the election, but Islam was very much on the front page. It was being discussed by both candidates. And while we really didn't know what to expect, I think now thinking back, the timing could not have been better because the exhibition offered for the first time here at the Smithsonian on the Mall where we had the inauguration and we had the Women's March It offered a different perspective on the Quran. Yeah, and It's for those people who came to see the exhibition

And we've had record attendance and people actually And we've had record attendance and people actually spent actually quite a long time, longer than usual, reading the labels and looking at the objects. So we feel that those who've made the effort to come and learn that hopefully they have left with a different understanding and appreciation of the Quran. And as we all know, day by day things escalate, and there's yet another crisis. So again, we both feel that the timing has been very fortunate, and in a way we couldn't have timed it better. Well, I think it's very safe to say that whether we could have anticipated it or not, this exhibition is certainly an event of our time and I certainly appreciate your work and all

your effort in organizing this exhibition and also of course for sitting down, taking the time and and and talking uh talking with us uh to about the show so thank you very much for your time and it was a pleasure and i will say for our listeners that um as uh as uh simon brought up during during the uh during our conversation uh there is an exhibition catalog that accompanies the show. That even afterwards, I think our listeners would like to follow up and look at some of the essays and the catalog entries in conjunction with the exhibition. We'll have more information about that on the website, including some images from the galleries. And that will all be available on our website

at www.ottomathistorypodcast.com. And again, thank you for listening. I'm Emily Neumeier. Take care. Thank you.