Exploring American Qu’ran with Artist Sandow Birk

“If the Qur’an is indeed a divine message to all peoples, what does it mean to an individual American in the 21st century?”

This is the question that artist Sandow Birk contemplated during his extensive travels through the Islamic world, which ultimately led to his nine-year project to transcribe and illustrate the entire Qur’an. Birk will present his project, American Qur’an, which finds connections between the universality of the messages in the sacred text and contemporary American life.

Birk will be joined by Bay Area artist Ala Ebtekar; Qamar Adamjee, Malavalli Family Foundation Associate Curator of Art of the Indian Subcontinent; and Jeffrey Durham, Associate Curator of Himalayan Art, to discuss the roles art has played in religious and political contexts.