Transfer of artifacts. Photo: cisc.uz
The Mahalla Charity Foundation has donated two historically valuable manuscripts to the Center for Islamic Civilization in Tashkent (CISC), the Center’s press service reports.
The Center’s collection now includes the poem The Story of Hazrat Shahmardan and Sayyid Battal Ghazi, dated 1920, and a Quran copied in 1872 in East Azerbaijan by the Iranian calligrapher Mir Muhammad Nuri, a student of Umar Rushadi. The manuscript is adorned with gold margins.
At the handover ceremony, held during the international forum The Great Heritage of the Past—The Foundation of an Enlightened Future, Dilshodbek Usmonov, Chairman of the Republican Administration of the Mahalla Foundation, described the donation as a modest contribution to the work of the Center. He expressed hope that the manuscripts “will become spiritual nourishment and a source of enlightenment” for visitors.
Both manuscripts will be displayed in the museum exhibition of the Center for Islamic Civilization.
The forum The Great Heritage of the Past—The Foundation of an Enlightened Future was initiated by Shavkat Mirziyoyev. More than 200 scholars and experts from over 20 countries took part, including representatives of national and international academic organizations such as TURKSOY, ISESCO, IRCICA, and Al-Furqan.
The Center for Islamic Civilization is located in Uzbekistan’s capital next to the Khast-Imam complex. The building, designed in the style of medieval architectural monuments, features four portals 34 meters high and a central dome 65 meters tall. It includes a Hall of the Quran, a 460-seat conference hall, and a museum whose exhibitions encompass the entire history of Uzbekistan—from pre-Islamic times to the present day. The Center aims to serve as a hub for studying and reinterpreting the heritage of the past in cooperation with the International Islamic Academy of Uzbekistan and scholarly and educational institutions worldwide.
