Museum of Islamic Art

About Museum of Islamic Art

Art museum in Cairo, Egypt

The Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo is the largest museum of Islamic art in the world, standing in Bab al-Khalq Square on the edge of Historic Cairo. Its story began in 1881, when Khedive Tawfiq ordered the Ministry of Endowments to gather precious works of art from mosques and Islamic houses, creating the world's first museum of Islamic antiquities in a single room. In 1884 the Mosque of al-Hakim became the home of the "House of Arab Antiquities" under the Committee for the Conservation of Arab Monuments, and the collection moved to its present purpose-built home at the start of the 20th century. The museum holds more than 100,000 objects representing Islamic art from India, China and Iran through Arabia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa and al-Andalus, of which about 4,500 are displayed in 25 halls. The collection includes rare carved woodwork and plaster, metalwork, ceramics, glass, rock crystal and textiles of all periods, and rare Qur'an manuscripts, some written in silver ink on pages with elaborate borders. The museum has also conducted excavations in the Fustat area and organised national and international exhibitions. It closed for renovation in 2003 and reopened in August 2010 after a restoration costing nearly US$10 million; badly damaged by the 2014 bombing of the security directorate opposite, it was restored again and reopened in 2017, and is today one of the best-presented museums in Cairo.

Where:

Cairo, Egypt