![\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/e\/e7\/Arabic_aristotle.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/files\/clip_image001.jpg\")
<\/p>\nApril – June 2009<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
| Opening Reception – \nTuesday, April 7, 2009 4-5 p.m.Middle Eastern music played on the qanun (or kanun) will be performed by Firaz Sultan. The qanun is a plucked string instrument similar to the zither.<\/p>\n Middle Eastern treats will be provided by Ali Baba Restaurant.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Mediterranean civilizations have produced some of humankind\u2019s greatest scientific and intellectual achievements. However, by the 8th century CE this accumulated ancient knowledge was in grave peril of being lost forever. The traditional centers of learning \u2013 Athens, Alexandria and Rome \u2013 were in political and cultural decline, while many pre-Christian European scientific manuscripts were lost or destroyed on suspicion of heresy. Much of what would survive of classical Western knowledge would do so thanks to the intervention of an unexpected savior: the Arabic speaking Muslim scholar. As the Islamic Empire spread out of Arabia, its caliphs directed that surviving ancient manuscripts (Greek, Aramaic, Persian and Indian) be gathered together at official libraries like the Bayt al-Hikmah (\u201cHouse of Wisdom\u201d) in Baghdad and translated into Arabic. This embrace of foreign intellectual traditions was emblematic of the Islamic concept of tawhid, <\/em>which for many Muslim leaders and scholars meant that the highest purpose to which humans could aspire was to learn \u2013 from any intellectual or cultural source \u2013 all one could about God\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n The films will run on April 1, 8, 15, 22 and May 6 and 20, 2009 at 7 p.m. in Meeting Room A at the Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St. Discussions will follow the screenings.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Within a few centuries the Islamic Empire spread from Spain to India, encompassing a wide variety of peoples, languages and cultural traditions \u2013 Arabs, Persians, Assyrians, Jews, Greeks, Egyptians, Berbers, Spaniards, Turks, Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus \u2013 all interacting through the medium of the Arabic language. Indeed, it was mainly in the hands of non-Arabs (and in many cases non-Muslims) that the Arabic language was developed into the premier instrument for scientific, intellectual and administrative discourse of its age. In the early period, scholars working in Arabic were generally polymaths, equally at home in healing the human body as in developing more precise instrumentation for astronomy. The intellectual and cultural ethos shaped by the Islamic concept of tawhid<\/em> encouraged breadth in the research programs of individual scholars, expansive efforts to translate the knowledge of other civilizations, and increasingly, original research in fields ranging from medicine and pharmacology to philosophy and physics, mathematics, optics, astronomy, cartography, mechanics, and many others.<\/p>\n Following the right-to-left direction of Arabic writing, the exhibit moves counterclockwise from the right side (West wall) of the lobby in a thematic arrangement:<\/p>\n Selected Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n Acknowledgements<\/p>\n Exhibition planning<\/strong><\/p>\n Rebecca Routh, Edward Miner, Karl Schaefer<\/p>\n Production and Installation<\/strong><\/p>\n Rebecca Routh, Edward Miner, Karl Schaefer, Khalda Mohieldin, Duncan Stewart, Bill Voss, Kristin Baum<\/p>\n Graphic design<\/strong><\/p>\n Serina Brekke<\/p>\n Special thanks<\/strong><\/p>\n The Middle East and Muslim World Studies Program and the Medieval Studies Program for their co-sponsorship of the exhibit<\/p>\n Dr. Karl Schaefer of Drake University for the loan of his Quran stand, Quranic manuscript leaf, calligraphic posters and Islamic coins<\/p>\n Khalda Mohieldin for the loan of her Sudanese\u00a0tambourine<\/p>\n Edward Miner for the loan of his Omani decanter<\/p>\n Annette Miner for the loan of her Berber jewelry and other Moroccan objects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Exhibitions at the University of Iowa Libraries<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"parent":77,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"pagetpl-exhibits.php","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/80"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/80\/revisions\/827"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/exhibits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |