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News Release
Office of News and Information
Johns Hopkins University
3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 100
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-3843
Phone: (410) 516-7160
Fax (410) 516-5251
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February 28, 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACTS: Dennis O'Shea
410-516-7160,
dro@jhu.edu or
Akif Oktay, counselor,
Embassy of Turkey, 202-612-6700
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Joint Press Release of the Turkish Embassy and
The Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University today has conveyed to the
government of the
Republic of Turkey the university's portion of the Gold Koran, a
rare
manuscript of Islamic scripture written in gold that has been in
Hopkins'
collections for nearly 60 years.
The university's portion, comprising the first 18 suras, or
chapters, of
the Koran, will be returned by Turkey to the Nuruosmaniye Library
in
Istanbul. It will be reunited there with the remainder of the
manuscript,
which is separately bound.
William R. Brody, president of
the university, presented the manuscript to
the minister of culture of the Republic of Turkey, M. Istemihan
Talay, at
the Turkish Embassy in Washington.
"Johns Hopkins acknowledges that the rightful home of the
Gold Koran is in
the Nuruosmaniye Library in Istanbul," Brody said. "We are
pleased to
restore the manuscript to the people of Turkey."
The minister said he is grateful to Johns Hopkins for
understanding and
agreeing, without compensation, to Turkey's desire to reunite the
separated
portions of a national treasure. Both the minister and Brody
expressed
their thanks to Rahmi Koc, a prominent Turkish businessman and a
graduate
of and recipient of an honorary doctorate from the university,
for his
assistance in bringing about the return of the manuscript to
Turkey.
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The manuscript is written in
Kufic, an early Arabic script. |
Turkey acknowledges that Johns Hopkins had no role in the
removal of the
Gold Koran from the library in Istanbul or from Turkey, which
occurred at
an unknown time between inventories taken in 1756 and 1951.Turkey
also
acknowledged that Johns Hopkins has no knowledge of how the
manuscript came to be in the United States.
The university acquired its portion of the Gold Koran in
1942 as part of a
bequest of rare books. Since that time, the university has
maintained and
preserved the book and made it available for scholars. Its value
was
appraised in 1998 at between 1.2 million and 1.8 million British
pounds,
currently the equivalent of between $1.9 million and $2.9
million.
NOTES
- A high-resolution or JPEG image of a page
from the Gold Koran is available by e-mail. Contact Dennis O'Shea
at dro@jhu.edu.
- Background information on the
manuscript is available online.
Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the
World Wide Web at
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/
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of science and medical news releases is available at the
same address.
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