Review: 1001 Inventions Exhibition. (It's about Islamic Science!)

Me and my girl just had the opportunity to check out the "1001 Inventions - Discover The Muslim Heritage In Our World" (that is a mouthful) exhibition in the Bation House, Melaka. (It is near Kota A'Fomosa.) This is my review of it, but it has no original pictures of my own because I was too cheap to pay extra for photography privileges *sigh*.

The exhibition is not free, the fee is RM15 + (some few cents because GST) for adults, and RM 8 + (some few cents because GST) for students. I gotta say, it is money well spent! The exhibition is really well done, what with interactive booths, games, and superbly costumed actors who act as Islamic scholars. This is the best educational exhibition I have seen so far; I spent about 1.5 hours mesmerised by the entire show.

Emphasize 'United Kingdom', because everyone knows all things that come from Europe is good. Like TESCO

What the exhibition is trying to show is:

• Dark Ages = Very Bright from the Islamic perspective
• Islam contributed to modern science DON'T FORGET IT! (and I will keep repeating that in the exhibition just to make sure.) 

To built the theme for the exhibition, they showed us a nice video of a librarian (who is secretly a scholar from 1000 years ago because, duh, magic) leads a group of students to a secret vault and opens a magic book that summons spirits of the past Islamic scholars to educate these students.

The librarian Badi'al-Zaman Abū al-'Izz ibn Ismā'īl ibn al-Razāz al-Jazarī. Too long, Imma call you Buddy..... Buddy bin Kingsley.

 

Then, we were directed to the exhibition which was about the size of two badminton courts with interactive booths arranged into a few circles. Each booth has a TV screen with an Islamic scholar behind it telling us his/her achievements, and there are plenty of scholars dying to brag to us.

These people with complex names gave me a big headache during high school history back in the days. Except Zheng He, he cool. (Yes he was originally Muslim)

 

Ay girl, of course I will pick up that call.

 

The booths also contained exhibitions to explain in detail what they have discovered or built when they were alive. Some of them might even ask you to participate in their demonstrations. The coolest one I played was the one where 3 scholars behind TV screens asked me to "assist" their surgery.

 

 Yes, I'll help you cut open some bodies.

Ibn Zuhr teaching me how to perform cataract removal surgery! Er... I wouldn't place that scalpel there if I were you.

I was amazed then I finally get to see a model of the "Magnificent Elephant Clock" that Buddy bin Kingsley was bragging so much about. It was large and beautiful but sadly, does not work.

Okay, It looks magnificent. But I stood there 10 minuets like an idiot waiting for it to do something cool.

In summary, this place is very cool and well worth a visit especially if you have kids. This only thing I wished was for this place to have a hangar full of those Arabic costume for some awesome seflies! The exhibition will end in May 2015, but it was in Kuala Lumpur, then Trengganu, then Melaka, so who knows? It might come to your state very soon.