Here one can meet the most skillful craftsmen and artists; here is the spirit of the Islamic world and Cairo; here one can smell the curtain of the Kaaba; here is the Museum of Islamic Art, which consists of two floors and houses the biggest collection of works from around the Islamic world, including the most important treasures of the museum – the key from the Kaaba of the Mamluk era and a piece of cloth with the most ancient Kufic script. It is celebrating its 119th anniversary these days.
The idea for the Museum of Islamic Art and Antiquities emerged during the era of Khedive Ismail in 1869. The implementation of the idea began during the era of Khedive Tawfiq in 1880 when Julius Franz (‘Franz Pasha’), an Austrian scholar of Hungarian origin, began collecting artifacts and antiquities relating to the Islamic era in the eastern iwan of the Al-Khakim mosque. By 1882, he had collected 111 exhibits. A small building, ‘the Arab Museum’, was built in the courtyard of the Al-Khakim mosque under the management of ‘Franz Pasha’, who left the service in 1892.
The current museum building was opened on 28 December in 1903 at the Bab Al-Halq Square during the reign of Khedive Abbas Helmi II. Its façade was designed in the style of the facades of Mamluk architecture. Then the name of the house was changed to the Museum of Islamic Art in 1951.
Today the museum houses over 100 000 artifacts relating to the Islamic civilization, the most important of which are the Holy Quran written on deerskin in Kufic script, dating back to the Umayyad era, a cast bronze jug attributed to Umayyad Caliph Marwan bin Muhammad, the last of the Umayyads, a clay pot known as faience, belonging to the Fatimid era, a gold dinar named after Mamluk Sultan Az-Zahir Beibars, a key for the door of the Kaaba made of bronze covered with silver during the Mamluk era when Sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf Shaban bin Sultan al-Nasser Hasan was in power, an enamel glass niche from the Mamluk era, a part of the covering of the Messenger’s tomb made of silk and decorated with inscriptions in Suluth script that reads ‘There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah’ dating back to the Ottoman period.
The museum was damaged after the bombing of Cairo in 2014. It was renovated and reopened to the public in 2017.
As part of the celebration of the 119th anniversary of the museum’s opening, a symposium entitled ‘The Museum of Islamic Art: 119 Years of Discoveries’ was organized in cooperation with the Egyptian Society for Historical Research.
Another symposium entitled ‘Islamic Art: 119 Years of Creation and Work’ was held to review the museum’s holdings, which include a collection of manuscripts and artifacts in the fields of medicine, surgery, herbalism and astronomy. These included exhibits such as astrolabes, compasses and astronomical balls. There were also displays of ancient essentials such as metal, glass and ceramic utensils, jewelry, weapons, wood, ivory, textiles, carpets and much more.
During these days, the museum also organized painting workshops. Visitors were shown a puppet show using marionette puppets, telling the story of the museum’s creation. There was also a concert performed by the Ain Shams University Choir and a performance by Mahmood Yasin Al-Tohami, who sang religious songs.
To mark the occasion, the museum opened the exhibition ‘Read, and thy Lord is Generous’ featuring 100 paintings of the art of Arabic calligraphy in the Islamic world, with calligraphers from many countries such as Thailand, India, China, Japan, Iraq and Egypt among others.
The exhibitions organized in cooperation with the Jamil House of Traditional Arts and the Foundation for Cultural Development will continue until the end of January.
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Photo: Gérard Ducher/Creative Commons 2.5