{"id":424,"date":"2010-09-09T14:20:46","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T18:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/?p=424"},"modified":"2010-09-09T14:20:46","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T18:20:46","slug":"a-new-quran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/2010\/09\/09\/a-new-quran\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Qur’an"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we conclude<\/strong> the month of Ramadan and celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the Chapin Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of an Ottoman manuscript Qur’an<\/em> from the mid-19th century, written and decorated in a style which some consider to be the brightest flowering of Arabic calligraphy, and comprising 302 leaves of supreme reverence of the sacred text of Islam.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> This fine example is available to see and consult in our temporary quarters at the Southworth Schoolhouse, together with several printed editions of the Qur’an<\/em>. Among these is the first edition published in the United States, The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mahomet<\/em>, translated from the original Arabic into French by the Sieur De Ryer and then into English by Alexander Ross, printed in Springfield, Massachusetts by Henry Brewer for Isaiah Thomas, Jr. in October 1806.<\/p>\n

As mentioned in a previous post<\/a>, another Qur’an<\/em> from the Chapin collections is on display on the second floor of the Williams College Museum of Art, as part of the exhibition<\/a> The Matter of Theology<\/em>. Written probably in Teheran, by a scribe who has signed at the end Monhany he wrote it 1249 Finished<\/em>, this beautiful and reverently prepared manuscript thus dates from 1249 A.H. (or 1833 C.E.).<\/p>\n

Together with other items from the Chapin Library, it is accompanied at WCMA by a Muslim prayer book from the late 18th century, written in Arabic in the Persian scribal tradition on polished ivory-toned paper and decorated with fine filigree patterns in colors and gold, and our thousand-year-old Megillah<\/em> or Book of Esther<\/em>, a vellum scroll partially unrolled. Though it is associated with the holiday of Purim rather than the new year celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the story of Esther and the Babylonian Captivity of the Jewish nation for centuries has been the most widely circulated Jewish biblical text among the general population. \u2013 RLV<\/span><\/p>\n

Shown is a spread from the Chapin Library’s mid-19th-century manuscript<\/em> Qur’an, with part of its wallet-style binding.<\/em><\/p>\n

Update (September 14):<\/span> The exhibition The Matter of Theology<\/em> at the Williams College Museum of Art has closed. The Chapin Library’s exhibits are available to see in our reading room on request.<\/p>\n

Update (September 22):<\/span> An article about the Chapin Library’s new Qur’an appeared today in the Berkshire Eagle<\/em><\/a> and North Adams Transcript<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we conclude the month of Ramadan and celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the Chapin Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of an Ottoman manuscript Qur’an from the mid-19th century, written and decorated in a style which some consider to be the brightest flowering of Arabic calligraphy, and comprising 302 leaves of supreme reverence of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12248,12251],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exhibitions","category-new-acquisitions"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/vintagepoints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}