A workshop was organised by our researcher Alya Karame on 16 December 2022.
 

The Qur’an Manuscript in Its Artistic Context
 

Alya Karame organised a workshop at the OIB bringing together scholars working on the Qur’an who are specifically interested in examining the relationship of the Qur’an manuscript to its artistic milieu of production. The speakers were invited to rethink the visual language of the Qur’an vis-a-vis other artistic modes of production. More specifically, the echoes of Qur’anic calligraphy and illumination with other crafts such as ceramics, metalwork, textiles, coins and architecture that suggest local aesthetic preferences and that also shed light on the production of the Qur’an, its artistic patronage and on the agency of its artists. By investigating the process of circulation and translation of Qur’anic motifs across media, the workshop moved the study of these artefacts beyond its codicological foundations towards a broader spatial and social anchoring of the book as object.
 

The participants – Nourane ben Azzouna (Université de Strasbourg), Umberto Bongianino (University of Oxford), Maxime Durocher (Université Sorbonne), Michelle al-Ferzly (University of Michigan), Noha Abou Khatwa (American University of Cairo) and Eloise Brac de la Perrière (Institut national d’histoire de l’art and Sorbonne Université) – offered papers and engaged in lively debates on various subjects, investigating the role of the Qur’an as both a transmitter and as receiver of aesthetic ideas. Terminologies and techniques across media were also discussed, and issues of patronage, craftsmen relationships were among the subjects addressed.