Sacred: Discover what we share

Something old, something new, something borrowed

Posted by Colin Baker, Head of Near and Middle East Collections, British Library

Every time I visit Sacred, it never ceases to amaze me that 90% of the manuscripts and printed books on show come from the British Library’s own collection. But, of course, in order to complete and consolidate the Sacred storyline, it was necessary to bring in examples from other collections in the UK and abroad.

One of the privileges of being a curator at the British Library in preparing such exhibitions is the opportunity it offers to travel and have unfettered access to collections which are not normally viewed by the general public.

One such example is that of the Royal Library in Rabat. The three Qur’ans in this exhibition from that collection illustrate well the style of Islamic calligraphy and illumination specific to Morocco and other areas of North Africa.

I find one of these three particularly interesting as the name of Allah (God) is written in gold wherever it appears in the text. This visual highlighting of the divine name, it seems to me, is reminiscent of the practice (among Sufis in particular) of invoking God’s name.

Another item which we were loaned for the first two months of Sacred came from Uzbekistan. That is not on everybody’s list of places to visit, and it certainly wasn’t on mine. But I couldn’t miss the opportunity to travel to Tashkent to see what Muslims believe is one of the five standard copies of the Qur’an commissioned by the third Caliph Uthman about 650 AD.

This Qur’an is kept in an old Islamic part of Tashkent, in a madrasah complex that houses a library. The Qur’an itself is kept in an antechamber in the library in a safe built into the wall (left; click for larger image), and to view it one has to be accompanied by an Islamic cleric. Although we were unable to secure the loan of this original manuscript, we did however manage to borrow a new copy of this Qur’an made on animal skin in 2004 and which is kept in the Tashkent Islamic University.

This new one-off copy on parchment makes me think that the art of Islamic manuscript book production is alive and well today, as is also witnessed in the exhibition for Judaism and Christianity.  Sacred has an example from a private collection of The Ramsgate Esther Scroll jointly produced by a contemporary artist and scribe some ten years ago, as well as an opening from The Saint John’s Bible on parchment, the first monumental, illuminated, handwritten Bible to be commissioned in the modern era. As new digital technologies become short lived and obsolete, I am sure that the traditional book arts will endure…

Bloggers give grounds for optimism

Posted by Rob Ainsley, Sacred website editor

I've been entertained during my coffee breaks this week by the reading through the latest crop of blogs that refer to the Sacred Exhibition.

I maintain an updated digest of blog references to Sacred on our blogs roundup page. But not all blogs that mention us make it in there, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they say what's been said before better; sometimes they don't really say anything at all; sometimes they go to the opposite extreme and embark on a 45-paragraph conspiracy-theory soapbox about how the Shepherd of Hermas is the only true Gospel, etc.

Here's an example of a blog which I haven't included in the roundup for different reasons. Full marks for originality to Gerry Sarnat MD, whose 'SCAT 2 - London Bridges' is written in blank verse. His entry for Sunday 8 July says this about Sacred:

Yet in a half hour, I attend
An ecumenical tear-jerker
At the British Library: twenty
Or so Jewish, Christian, and Muslim
Youth sing songs together in all three
Languages, part of a Sacred Texts
Exhibit on monotheism.

Must admit, I'm not always entirely convinced by Dr Sarnat's poetical approach - the previous verse ends 'Illumined past Ottoman chutzpah', which seems oddly like that randomly-generated filler text you get in junk emails. But at least it's a change from the rambling minutiae of most online diaries.

However, I often enjoy those rambling minutiae. Such as the subject of post-exhibition sustenance: one which has exercised the minds of many bloggers, not least Tim the curry fan, mentioned in my previous post. For example, after Trowsers' hard session of Qur'an- and Bible-viewing, she (?he) returned home with Cassie and "cooked penne with tomato pesto".

But what many people want to complement their Sacred experience is coffee (mentioned in 40 blogs). Lindajoy went for a girly chat with a friend to a coffee shop after her visit, happily switching between debates about the authenticity of Dead Sea Scroll fragment 7Q5, and whether Nicole Kidman can act.  In contrast, Supafly preferred to stoke up on caffeine before the exhibition, perhaps to help speed round all 202 exhibits. JP's enthusiastic account of his visit did not mention coffee, but evidently he is as keen on the bean as me, because his blog drew the comment from a friend, "[I] take it there were a few espressos thrown in?".

Is there a serious point here? I could try to make something out of spiritual versus bodily sustenance, about how man cannot live by pasta quills and latte alone, or perhaps how cappuccinos are named after the colour of a Capuchin friar's habit. But I suspect it's more a little celebration of life, and that for so many visitors, these wonderful Sacred texts are part of life, not some dusty old museum exhibits.

Coffee drinkers or not, every blogger bar none so far has had positive things to say of this exhibition. Grounds for optimism, then.

Technical note about new 'Snap Shots' feature

Just a quick note to let you know about a 'widget' called Snap Shots that we've just added to this blog. This means that when you now move your mouse pointer over a hyperlink on this blog to a page on another website, you'll now get a quick visual preview of the destination page. This will hopefully help you decide if you want to go and visit that page before you actually click on the link.

If you decide that you don't like this feature, just click the 'cog wheel' Options icon in the upper right corner of any Snap Shot window and follow the instructions to disable it. This won't affect how the blog works at all - it just means you get to choose what works for you. And feel free to let us know what you think about it by replying to this post!

Sacred curries favour with the bloggers

Posted by Rob Ainsley, Sacred website editor

This isn't a blog so much as a blog-of-blogs.

The world's bloggers have been visiting Sacred, and writing up their impressions on their Internet diaries - over 1,300 of them so far, according to Google's blog search. You can see a summary on our blog roundup page.

Most of the bloggers are young - under 30, say - reflecting the age of the Web 2.0 generation rather than the typical Sacred exhibition visitor. Though they don't often state their religious views explicitly, it seems pretty clear that there's the whole range of faith groups here: Jewish, Christian, Islamic, atheist and many others, from the devout to the unsure. Quite a few are student visitors from abroad (language learners, exchange students, backpackers); the professionals include film directors, organists, religious academics, software engineers, librarians and teachers.

For some it's a tourist tick-box, in between the British Museum and Camden Market; for others it's a deeply moving spiritual experience. But all, absolutely all, have come away impressed, enlightened, and uplifted.

I've grown quite fond of a certain type of entry, usually by a female north American exchange student or backpacker. It goes along the lines of "We dropped by the British Library. They had a whole bunch of old holy books. It was way cool. Then I bought a bag in Camden Market. Tomorrow we go to Stratford."

It's impossible not to be moved by the reactions of the more reflective bloggers. Take the following, respectively from (one guesses, from reading the rest of their entries) a Jew, Christian and Muslim: "Some of the old Jewish texts and Torahs gave me chills"; "I was very aware of the presence of God as I walked through the exhibits"; "I was so moved that I cried. It was just a beautiful, beautiful exhibition".

Not everyone experiences a spiritual revelation in the exhibition. For many of the blogs, the account of their visit to Sacred is only part of a whole catalogue of activities that day, from the entertaining to the mundane.

But I find precisely those little, personal, everyday details reassuring, as if to emphasise that looking at holy books is not an abstract activity, but a part of everyday life. Such as the chap who extended his multicultural experience in Sacred by going to Southall and having a curry*; the cheerily coping mother whose husband was bored and whose baby daughter kept trying to lick the glass cases and pull the hair of passers-by; the film-maker who was clinching a deal; the student who had to rush out the exhibition to pick up her washing from the launderette before it closed.

Most intriguing for me was the blog entry of Daisy: "Current ex-housemate totals now run at: 2 ordained, 1 married to curate, 1 in training for ordination and 2 potential ordinands. Living with me has an interesting effect on people?!" I've shared houses with people who tempted me to flee to a monastery, too, though I suspect for different reasons to the amiable Ms Daisy.

Anyway, over the next few weeks I'll be keeping an eye on some of the blogs that mention Sacred, and I'll be summing them up and commenting on them here.

*Yes, curry fans, I know: he could have gone up Drummond St, which is much nearer, even Brick Lane. But Southall's variety and quality is unmatched.