My father grew up in a small village in rural India, where he memorized the Quran in its original Arabic language, in the same one-room schoolhouse as generations in his village had done before him.

When you walk into the Smithsonian's "Art of the Qur'an" exhibition, you're met with a book that weighs 150 pounds. The tome, which dates back to the late-1500s, has giant pages that are covered in ...