“Such a Koran no individual might own”: The Biography of a Mamluk Qur’an from Ottoman Jerusalem

Abstract

Much compelling work has been produced on World’s Fairs of the 19th and 20th centuries that discusses the sociological, anthropological, political, technological, and industrial aspects of these ventures. While some catalogs remain, individual objects that were on display at these expositions have received no scholarly attention. This article presents the research findings on such an item, a 15th-century Mamluk Qur’an from Jerusalem that was brought to the United States, alleged to have been displayed at the World’s Fair of 1904 in St. Louis. Since its donation to Oberlin College and Conservatory in 1926 by the Reverend William Eleazar Barton (1861-1930), the celebrated biographer of Abraham Lincoln, this Qur’an has never been the subject of scholarly research. This study places the Mamluk Qur’an at its center, but avoids the recent “back to the object” trend in the field of Islamic art history. Rather, using primary sources (such as written correspondence between the United States and Ottoman governments, personal letters of the Qur’an’s past owners, photographs, and newspaper reports), the article works to contribute to scholarship that explores the “routes” that objects travel, rather than their “roots.” Instead of focusing on a much too familiar story of illicit antiquities transaction, the article explores the Mamluk Qur’an’s biography that testifies to issues of protection of cultural heritage in the early-modern period. Furthermore, the distances that this Qur’an traveled and its fragile state provide an insight into the Ottoman government’s complicated relationships with its Christian and Samaritan subjects at the dawn of the 20th century.