Post # 9 - Elias's Post

Katara and the Museum of Islamic Art

On Thursday morning of our study tour, we all met up at the school to take a trip to a coastline shopping center called Katara, and to a new and large museum displaying various forms of Islamic Art from many different regions.

The name Katara is an ancient name derived from the word Catara that was used on maps and publications to name to peninsula of Qatar. Katara is currently a work of art in process. Katara was born out of a long held vision to put Qatar as a cultural beacon radiating in the Middle East through theatre, music, visual art, conventions, and exhibitions. An example of visual art includes the dove housing in the middle of the cultural village.

The stone structure is visually appealing. It has many designs such as straight and meandering lines. Doves can be seen sitting of the posts jutting out from the sides. This structure stands true to traditional Islamic art which generally include round structures and symmetrical designs.

From Katara, we drove straight to the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA). The Museum of Islamic art is relatively new, opening in 2008. The MIA represents the full scope of Islamic art across three continents over several centuries. Its collection includes metal work, ceramics, jewellery, textiles, and glass. Interestingly, the museum was not limited to Middle Eastern art and culture. It included artifacts and manuscripts from areas such as Europe, all of Africa, Central, and South Asia. It encompassed Islam as a whole.

It was very difficult to choose a picture to post for this part of the blog because every picture I had was rich with history and culture. Therefore I chose two pictures to post.

This first picture is an artificial warrior riding on an armored horse. This piece of art likely represented the Crusade period where Islam and Christianity clashed for the first time. The armor and weaponry displayed is concurrent with that time period.

The second picture I chose is of old clocks and calendars known as “Astrolabes”. An “astrolabe” is an astronomical computer relating to time and the position of the Sun and stars. “Astrolabes” are used to show how the sky looks at a specific place at a given time. This should not be mistaken for the traditional Islamic calendar which used the position of the moon as its base for telling time or date.