"The Verses of Faith" calligraphy exhibition was opened in Tirana, the capital of Albania, on October 22, 2022.

The exhibition, organized by Albayrak Group under the auspices of Yunus Emre Institute Tirana and with the support of the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey, Albanian Ministry of Culture, Albanian University of Arts and Turkish Youth Foundation (TÜGVA), was attended by Tayyar Kağan Atay, Turkey's Ambassador to Tirana, Albayrak Group CEO Ömer Bolat, TÜGVA President İbrahim Beşinci, representatives of Turkish institutions and organizations in the country and guests.

At the opening of the event, the message of the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), Mustafa Şentop, was read.

In his speech, Ambassador Atay said that they were happy to present calligraphy, one of the most important elements of Turkish-Islamic art, to the appreciation of the participants in Tirana, which he described as the pearl of the Balkans.

Expressing his special gratitude to Albayrak Holding for providing this opportunity, Atay said, "Albayrak Holding is imprinted on the memory of our Albanian brothers and sisters not only in this art event, but also as a group that solved the accommodation opportunity of our Albanian brothers and sisters in difficult situations in a record time after the earthquake disaster in 2019 and quickly completed the construction of 530 houses, and everyone is grateful for that."

36 WORKS IN 3 YEARS

In his speech, Bolat described Turkey and Albania as brotherly and friendly countries and talked about the earthquake housing project they realized in cooperation with TOKİ in the country.

Giving details about the exhibition, Bolat said, "In accordance with our corporate-social responsibility duty and in order to keep alive and develop Turkish-Islamic arts, we have been commissioning calligraphy works on certain subjects from the Quran by our very valuable master teachers for 8 years. Each year we take a specific topic; we hopefully will exhibit in Tirana the 36 calligraphy works made for 3 years from the verses of the Qur'an that started with the words 'Salam' in 2020, 'Rabbil Alemin' in 2021 and 'O you who believe...' in 2022.’’

Yunus Emre Institute Tirana Director Ömer Osman Demirbaş stated that art is universal and appeals to all humanity.

Pointing out that the aesthetic values that emerge in this respect are the common property of all humanity, Demirbaş said, "The art of calligraphy is a gift of Islamic civilization to all humanity in the context of art. All nations that have played a role in the construction of this civilization from history to the present day have also contributed to the development of the art of calligraphy. I would like to thank the Albayrak Group and its valuable team for bringing these works together and making them available to art lovers."

TÜGVA President Beşinci reminded that they carry out projects for the development of young people and said, "We are in a struggle to carry out strong projects at many points from physical development to personal development of our young brothers and sisters in our country and region. In this context, we are proud to host such an exhibition that will develop the intellectual capital of our young brothers and sisters in terms of culture and arts on this blessed path."

Artan Peqin, Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Albanian University of Arts, stated that they hope to cooperate with Yunus Emre Institute in the future and expressed his pleasure to attend the opening of the exhibition.

The exhibition will remain open to the interest of art lovers at the National Historical Museum of Tirana until October 28.