Old Library Exhibition – Sultans, Syntax & Scripture: Encountering the Islamic World at Queens’

The event will take place on Tuesday, 10th March at 5.40pm in the Munro Room and Old Library. Places are limited so please book here

The lead curator of the exhibition is Dr James White, Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford. Dr White will give a talk introducing the exhibition and its main themes, and there will also be soft drinks, wine and nibbles and an opportunity to view the exhibition.

The exhibition will then be open on weekdays (1.30pm-4.30pm), initially from 11 March-2 April (as part of the Cambridge Festival), and then from 28 April-8 May after which the exhibition will be available to view by appointment for the remainder of Easter Term. Access is via the first floor of the War Memorial Library.

This exhibition explores how Fellows of Queens’ College encountered Islamic societies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, revealing their fascination with the scientific and religious knowledge preserved in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish sources. The Old Library’s holdings vividly illustrate this interest, from the rare Islamic manuscripts bequeathed by Thomas Thompson (d. 1666), an alumnus of the College, to its collection of European translations of major Islamic works on medicine, botany, and theology. Together, these books show how knowledge from the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal worlds entered the College, informed teaching and research, and contributed to a broader Early Modern project of assembling learning across cultural and religious boundaries.

Dr White will also be leading a session for Queens’ ‘Oriental Collection Reading Group’ on Monday 9th March (at 4pm in the Munro Room), titled Orientalism and the Islamic Holdings at Queens’: 19th- and 20th-Century Collecting Practices. The session is open to all, and will involve hands-on engagement with rare books from the Queens’ collections.