Museum of Islamic Civilisation opens in Sharjah

Transcript

00:00Looking back at the early years of Islam, Sharjah's Museum of Islamic Civilization has

00:10opened its doors to the public.

00:13It's the first of its kind in the UAE, with 5,000 artifacts on display, some of them for

00:18the first time.

00:20The collections come from all over the region, including as far away as Portugal in the west

00:25and China in the east.

00:27Among the objects are Qurans dating back over 1,300 years and other rare religious manuscripts.

00:34The museum also has a number of state-of-the-art facilities and interactive installations to

00:39help recreate the past.

00:41The curator says presenting history in this way is vital to understanding the evolution

00:46of Islamic culture.

00:47Islamic civilization is not just things that happened in the past, in the first, second

00:51century Hijri, but it's also people are still living today.

00:54We are adding to the civilization, we're continuing what our ancestors have done in the past.

01:00Currently on display are a number of pieces of art on loan from the Museum of Islamic

01:04Art in Berlin.

01:06And while the museum is adopting an international outlook, there's a conscious effort to encourage

01:11Emiratis to better understand their history and help promote it.

01:16Every young Emirati national, or rather Muslim, has a duty towards the Islamic civilization,

01:22has something to contribute, and this is what we're trying to do by this museum, reaching

01:25out to the public and bringing them in and telling them, you know, you have to contribute

01:28as well.

01:29Sharjah's museum's department has made a renewed effort in promoting local culture and history

01:34in recent years.

01:36Concerns over national identity in the UAE have also been in the public eye of late.

01:41And with the opening of this museum, authorities here hope they can go some way in contributing

01:46to that debate.

01:47Ashraf Helmy, Gulf News.

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