Arabick Roots

The Royal Society are currently running an exhibition on the historical Arabic and Muslim sources of inspiration that the organisation has. Since this weekend was one of the two that they exhibition was open to the non-guided public, a friend and I decided to check it out.

It was a very personal show, both in terms of content and presentation. The Royal Society isn't a gallery or museum, and so the artefacts and show-pieces were dotted around the building in a kind of ad-hoc fashion; this may have made it a little difficult to follow but looking at the free guide we were handed I don't think we missed much. The themes covered included pharmacy, chemistry and alchemy amongst others - all stuff that many may already know originated from an older Muslim world - but the whole personal touch, about how members of the Royal Society itself were the ones to form these relationships made it all very intimate and even more striking.

On the flip side it's probably this personal slant that made the whole thing so limited. We had covered most of the material on offer (as well as checking out the Royal Society itself) within 45 minutes or so. In those terms it's difficult for me to recommend the exhibition for those who have no other business in the area, but if you happen to be passing this weekend or that of the 1st-2nd October then it a nice enough way to kill an hour or so.