BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now, a special look at art in the Muslim world. It's always had limits because the Qur'an's rejection of all forms of idolatry has been interpreted as a ban on any representation of a living being -- no animals, no humans. So Islamic artists have specialized in beautiful writing, intricate designs, and rich materials and colors. You can see that at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which is showing a collection from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The senior curator there is Tim Stanley.

TIM STANLEY (Senior Curator for the Middle East, Victoria and Albert Museum, London): Islam, as a religion, actually has very little to do with the material world. Islam itself does not prescribe how art should be, apart from very broad rules such as that you shouldn't use human or animal images in a religious context.

The religious objects that we've got in the exhibition include, for example, a minbar.

A minbar is the pulpit that was used by the preacher in the main mosque of the city to deliver the sermon at the noonday prayer on a Friday. It's decorated with very grand patterns and with calligraphy.

We've actually got some of the scientific instruments that were used by Muslims in order to establish both the time of the daily prayers but also the direction of the Ka'aba in Mecca so that they could say their prayers in the right direction.