NARATHIWAT (Thailand): Seventy eight artefacts, including copies of the al-Quran which date back centuries are among the exhibits visitors can see at the newly-opened Museum of Islamic Cultural Heritage and Al-Quran Learning Centre here.
Museum of Islamic Cultural Heritage and Al-Quran Learning Centre committee member Hazamee Saleh said the al-Qurans on display at the museum are between 150 to 1,100 years old.
"Tourists from other countries including Malaysia who are visiting Narathiwat can come to this museum to see these rare artefacts.
"This museum is located in Yingo about 11km from Narathiwat province. Visitors can see the 78 priceless items which are part of the Islamic heritage of Muslims in Thailand, China and Yemen.
"There are also other manuscripts from the Malay Peninsula and from Arab world such as textbooks on hunting, gender topics, linguistics, astrology, astronomy, ship building and navigation and even autobiographies of eminent Muslims," she said.
Hazamee was speaking to reporters when met at the museum. She said there were also items related to the technology founded by Muslims in the old days.
She said these centuries-old al-Quran manuscripts with covers made from leather and pages made from paper or bark need to be carefully preserved.
"Written with black ink in Jawi or Arabic script, these al-Qurans of various sizes have pages decorated in Sino-Malay-Arabian patterns. There are decorated and framed with beautiful golden lines."
She said there are also exhibits on Islamic religious figures and philosophers from the Malay archipelago and the Arab world.
Hazamee said visitors could also discover olden weaponry such as guns, swords and spear; and
and equipment used in the old days of the Malay archipelago such as carts, howdah or covered seats used for riding on the back of animals, sugar cane squeezers, brass bundles, pottery, molds for baking, and lamps.
"The exhibition focuses on the technology used by Muslims in this and other regions during those times."
She also admitted that museum had drawn a lot of inspiration from a similar Islamic museum in Terengganu, Malaysia. She said they used that model in the way it operated this new museum.