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Mikhail Lecture at TMA: "Images of the Virgin Mary in Islamic Lands"
Category: Lectures & Discussions
Event Date:
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Time:
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Location:
UToledo Center for the Visual Arts, Haigh Auditorium
620 Art Museum Drive
Toledo, OH 436020
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Event Details:
Jewish and Christian prophets have been central to Islamic thought and devotion since the emergence of Islam in the 600s. Among them, the Virgin Mary holds a prominent place as the mother of Jesus as well as a prophetess in her own right, to whom an entire chapter in the Qur’an (Surat Maryam) is dedicated. Visual depictions of Mary can be found in Islamic lands within mosaics, metalwares, manuscripts, and paintings, the latter of which accelerated in Iran during the fourteenth century.
Dr. Christiane Gruber is Mehmet Ağa-Oğlu Collegiate Professor of Islamic Art History in the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan. Among others, her areas of expertise includes Islamic figural representation, devotional paintings of the Prophet Muhammad, and Islamic ascension texts and images, about which she has written three books and edited several volumes of articles.
