The Persian World & West Asia

Inspired by the British Museum’s video Hajj Stories, staff at the Asian Art Museum asked Bay Area Muslims who have performed the hajj to share experiences of their journeys.

Inspired by the British Museum’s video Hajj Stories, staff at the Asian Art Museum asked Bay Area Muslims who have performed the hajj to share experiences of their journeys.

Sneak a peek behind the scenes of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco as staff and Ship Art employees install a colossal statue of a man in the museum for the Roads of Arabia exhibition.

If one had the money, one could acquire an ever-increasing quantity and variety of European goods and luxury wares in 17th-century Isfahan, including Italian velvet, London cloth and handbags, faux pearls and gold clocks. How were these European imports worn and displayed? What did they signify in the increasingly cosmopolitan city of Isfahan, a city referred to as “half the world” by its inhabitants? Dr. Amy Landau will delve into these questions about the social context of European luxury objects in 17 century Persia.

Along with the more traditional jeweled sword and scabbard, this impressive gun served as a ceremonial object, held by one of Sultan Mahmud I’s attendants during state ceremonies. While the flamboyant decoration of the gun lent itself to public spectacle, the experience of extracting its treasures from the gun’s stock is a more personal act. This video reveals the various components of this ornate gun. View this gun in the exhibition, Pearls on a String: Artists, Patrons, and Poets at the Great Islamic Courts (on view at the Asian Art Museum from Feb. 26 to May 8, 2016).

Students will research objects from the Asian Art Museum’s collection and choose one that they think will earn the most money in the marketplace. Then, they will create a commercial to try to sell their object to the class using evidence as to why the object/idea was considered valuable at the time.

The Arabic saying, “Purity of writing is purity of the soul” vividly describes the status of the master calligrapher in Islamic society. It was believed that only a person of spiritual devotion and clear thought could achieve the skill required for this supreme art.

In addition to giving artistic instruction on the art of writing, a teacher of Islamic calligraphy trained a student in how to prepare and use a multitude of materials and tools.

Students create a murakkaalar (calligraphy album) of their name and adjectives that describe their personality written in Arabic. They will make a calligraphy reed and learn to write with it. A kit’alar is a calligraphic work written on a rectangular piece of paper pasted onto a cardboard backing. Equal margins are left around the calligraphy in which the artist decorates with marbled paper (ebru) or illumination. A murrakkalar is a series of kit’alar attached together in an album that resembles an accordion.