Islamic Museum

The Islamic Museum is a museum displaying exhibits from ten periods of Islamic history encompassing several Muslim regions and is located adjacent to the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Originally, the Islamic Museum was an assembly hall for the adjacent Fakhr al-Din Mohammad Madrasa (School), built by al-Mansur Qalawun during Mamluk rule of Palestine in 1282 CE. [http://www.archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=13642 Al-Aqsa Library and Islamic Museum] Archenet Digital Library.] The modern museum was built by the Supreme Muslim Council in 1923. Shadia Yousef Touqan was the head planner of the site. Khader Salameh is the head curator of the museum. [http://www.jerusalemites.org/jerusalem/islam/18.htm The Islamic Museum] Jerusalemites ]

Exhibit

The Islamic Museum holds large copper soup kettles used by Khasseli Sultan, the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent dating back to the 16th century. Stained glass windows, wooden panels, faded ceramic tiles and steel front doors, all built in 1564 are other examples of objects in the museum that were given during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. Other displays include, a cannon that was used to announce the breaking of Ramadan, a large collection of weapons, a large wax tree trunk and the charred remains of a "minbar" built by Nur ad-Din in the 1170s and destroyed by an Australian tourist in 1969. It also includes the bloody clothing of 17 Palestinians killed at the Temple Mount in 1990.

Qur'an manuscripts

The museum has numerous preserved copies of the Qur’an which have been donated to the al-Aqsa Mosque during various successive Islamic periods (Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, Ottoman) by individual Muslims, caliphs, sultans, emirs, ulama and others. Each differ in size, calligraphy style and ornamentation – such as gold inlaying. The museum has a collection of 600 copies of the Qur'an. One of the notable pieces in the collection is a hand-written Qur'an whose transcription is attributed to the great, great grandson of the Muhammad. [http://www.ithacapress.co.uk/epages/es109086.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es109086_es120187592164/Products/9781859641323 The Qur'an Manuscripts in the al-Haram al-Sharif Islamic Museum, Jerusalem] Garnet Publishing Book Review.]

Other well-known copies of the Qur’an include one written in Kufic script dating back to the 8th-9th century and the thirty-part Moroccan Rab’ah, bequeathed by Sultan Abu al-Hasan al-Marini of Morocco in the 1200s. The latter is the only manuscript remaining from the three collections that the sultan dispatched to the mosques of the three holiest cities in Islam — Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. In addition, there is a very large Qur'an measuring 100 centimeters by 90 centimeters dating back to the 14th century.

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