Current Exhibitions

The main hall of the Islamic Manuscripts House features a permanent exhibition displaying a selected constellation of splendid manuscripts and historical documents collected by HIS HIGHNESS SHEIKH DR. SULTAN BIN MOHAMMED ALQASIMI during his wide travels. The oldest of the collection, dating back to the late 1^st hijri century, is a copy of the Glorious Quran written in the naskh script (a smaller round script, one of the earliest scripts of Islamic calligraphy) and preserved across the years.

The artistic beauty of the manuscripts stems from its attractive calligraphic styles, varied ink types and precise lines and drawings. Colorful inscriptions and golden embroideries are perfectly harmonized that one would think they have been printed a by modern equipment.

Physical materials of the manuscripts range between eastern or European paper and deerskin. Some manuscripts are covered in leather, others in cloth and some are adorned with metal ornaments with exemplary accuracy and beauty.

The exhibition displays rare original manuscripts in Islamic jurisprudence, hadith (the science of studying Prophet Muhammad’s Sayings and Teachings), Quran exegesis, the Arabic language, mathematics, medicine, pharmacology, as well as rare original copies of the Glorious Quran.

The pearl of the exhibition is a copy of the Quran identical to that attributed to Uthman ibn Affan, the Third Muslim Caliph -God be pleased with him. The original copy is in Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul. It is famous all over the world. Documentary tracking of this copy shows it was kept in the books treasury in Cairo. In 1226 AH, 1811 AD, Mohammed Ali, Egypt’s ruler back then, gave it as a present to the Ottoman Sultan, Mahmoud II. Since then, that rare copy has been in Topkapi Palace Museum in the Library of Sultan Ahmed III.