Resources

Students analyze objects from South Asia, West Asia, and China to connect to the travel experiences of ancient merchants and traders, develop an understanding of the breadth of the land and sea trade, and explore how art and ideas travel and change over time and place.

Lesson on the individual rituals performed by Muslim pilgrims during the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

“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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Dr. Touraj Daryaee, Howard C. Baskerville Professor in the History of Iran and the Persianate World and the Associate Director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture at the University of California, Irvine discusses Alexander the Great and Persian culture and ideas at the Cyrus Cylinder Teacher Workshop at the Asian Art Museum on August 12, 2013 in conjunction with the Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia exhibition (August 9–September 22, 2013).

Helmet with chain mail neckguard, approx. 1820–1840. Pakistan; Probably Lahore, Punjab province. Helmet of iron overlaid with gold; mail neckguard of iron and brass. Gift of the Kapany Collection, 1998.69.