1976 World of Islam Festival

[Paul McGhee]

In 1976 an interesting World of Islam Festival took place in London and several provincial cities concurrently. This was a complex undertaking, with substantial sponsorship, in which treasures from leading international museums as well as rarities from British collections such as the Burrell in Glasgow were assembled.

One show, in Sheffield and Birmingham, was entitled "Carpets of Central Persia" and the catalogue is quite a learned work by May H Beattie. Another, at London's Hayward Gallery featured a large section of textiles and carpets with a catalogue introduction by Donald King, the distinguished keeper of the carpets at the Victoria and Albert Museum. A third exhibition "The Quashqa'i of Iran" toured seven cities with a mixture of carpets, artefacts and ethnographic photography.

The materials for the festival seem to be widely (and cheaply) available on the Internet so I thought it was worth a mention.