The Quran Collection Museum

The Quran Collection Museum

The Quran Collection Museum

Opposite the mosque is the Handwritten Quran Collection Museum, which also hosts an exhibition on the folklore of the Salar ethnic group. The building we saw at Camel Spring that resembles a typical mosque is actually the collection museum. The handwritten Quran housed here is said to have been brought from Central Asia and is one of only three surviving copies in the world, the other two being in Damascus and the British Museum. The Quran is 700 years old and is considered the oldest handwritten Quran in China. It consists of 30 volumes, divided into upper and lower sections, totaling 681 pages. The text is written in Arabic ink with solemn and refined calligraphy. In August 2004, a team of experts dispatched by the National Cultural Heritage Administration conducted an appraisal of this handwritten Quran and preliminarily determined that it may have been produced between the 8th and 13th centuries. In October 2006, authoritative Chinese experts in paper-based cultural relic preservation and restoration carried out on-site conservation and repair of the Quran. The exhibition hall was built with an investment of 2 million yuan and covers an area of nearly 300 square meters. The display layout adopts Islamic architectural decorative styles, with a focus on the theme of the Salar people’s eastward migration.