HOUSTON, TX.- A special installation is on view through June 2026 in the MFAH Hossein Afshar Galleries for Art of the Islamic Worlds. Celebrating the art of the Qurʾan and publication of the book Sea of Ink, Forest of Pens: The Art of the Qurʾan in the Hossein Afshar Collection, the presentation highlights a dozen masterworks that span from the 7th through the 19th centuries, shedding light on the production of deluxe Qurʾan manuscripts from across Islamic lands over more than 1,200 years. Two contemporary works from the Museum’s permanent collection respond to the Qurʾan in unique ways. On view through June 28, 2026.

The Qurʾan is the Arabic-language earthly scripture of God’s divine, eternal speech. Calligraphy, the art of beautiful writing, enhances the spiritual, philosophical, and semantic significance of the Qurʾan by enriching it through ornamentation. Highlights from the works on view include:

• Folio from a Qurʾan Manuscript. Written in Hijazi script style on parchment, this mid-7th century folio from Saudi Arabia is from one of the earliest copies of the Qurʾan, of which only pages and fragments survive.

• A beautifully illuminated Qurʾan manuscript from Iran, dated AH 1260/1844-45, signed and dated by the calligrapher Mir ʿAbd al-Karim Muhammad Sadiq al- Husayni al-Yazdi.

• Pouran Jinchi’s Tajvid Red 2 (2009) This contemporary ink-on-paper work interprets one of the most important aspects of the Qurʾan, its tajvid, or proper recitation, highlighting the rhythmic and performative quality of the calligraphic act, and shifting the viewer’s attention from a word’s meaning to its sound.

• Haji Noor Deen’s Ayat al-Kursi Scroll (2015). Master calligrapher Haji Noor Deen combines the discipline of the Islamic calligraphic reed pen with the flowing style of the Chinese calligraphic brush in Sini Arabic script to copy the Ayat al-Kursi, or Throne Verse, a widely recited and inscribed Qurʾanic verse believed to offer protection over homes and families.