MIA Lecture Series

Islamic Manuscript Illumination: Functions, Forms, And Styles
with Dr Muhammad Isa Waley
27 February 2019
MIA Auditorium, 6:30pm

In many of the finest mediaeval manuscripts of the Qur’ān, the beauty of the calligraphy of the Word of God is enhanced by illumination in gold and colours. What is less widely known is that Muslim artists, observing the prohibition of images, also applied non-figurative decoration to many other kinds of handwritten books and documents.

In this lecture Muhammad Isa Waley, who served for 45 years as Curator of Persian and Turkish Collections first at the British Museum and then at The British Library, will present an overview of the functions, forms and styles of Islamic manuscript illumination, illustrated with examples drawn mainly from the British Library. He will show and discuss manuscript illuminations from the Arab Middle East, the Maghrib, the Ottoman Empire, the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Subcontinent, Subsaharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and China.

This lecture will be translated into Arabic.

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Binu Cherian

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