Islamic art is collected by museums, galleries and private collectors in many countries around the world.
Islamic art is collected by museums, galleries and private collectors in many countries around the world.
The Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) is a museum on one end of the seven-kilometer-long (4.3 mi) Corniche in Doha, Qatar. As per the architect I. M. Pei's specifications, the museum is built on an island off an artificial projecting peninsula near the traditional dhow harbor. A purpose-built park surrounds the edifice on the eastern and southern facades while two bridges connect the southern front facade of the property with the main peninsula that holds the park. The western and northern facades are marked by the harbor showcasing the Qatari seafaring past. In September 2017, Qatar Museums appointed Julia Gonnella as new director of MIA. In November 2022 the MIA became the first carbon-neutral certified museum in the Middle East Region. The museum participates in the Expo 2023 Doha from October 2023 until March 2024, with workshops and events focusing on biodiversity and sustainability.
The Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) is an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a family of institutions created by Aga Khan IV with distinct but complementary mandates to improve the welfare and prospects of people in the developing world, particularly in Asia and Africa. It focuses on the revitalization of communities in the Muslim world—physical, social, cultural, and economic. The AKTC was founded in 1988 and is registered in Geneva, Switzerland, as a private non-denominational philanthropic foundation.
The Aga Khan Museum is a museum of Islamic art located at 77 Wynford Drive in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is dedicated to Islamic art and objects, and it houses approximately 1,200 rare objects assembled by Shah Karim al-Husayni and Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan. As an initiative of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network, the museum is dedicated to sparking wonder, curiosity, and understanding of Muslim cultures and their connection with other cultures through the arts. In addition to the Permanent Collection, the Aga Khan Museum features several temporary exhibitions each year that respond to current scholarship, emerging themes, and new artistic developments. The Museum Collection and exhibitions are complemented by educational programs and performing arts events.
Sir Nasser David Khalili KCSS is a British-Iranian scholar, collector, and philanthropist based in London. Born in Iran and educated at Queens College, City University of New York and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he is a naturalised British citizen.
Museum With No Frontiers (MWNF) is an international non-profit organisation founded on the initiative of Eva Schubert in 1995 in the context of the Barcelona Process Euro-Mediterranean Partnership relaunched as the Union for the Mediterranean). MWNF provides a platform that enables all partners to interact productively and contribute to a transnational presentation of history, art and culture based on equal voices and the equal visibility of all concerned. For that purpose, MWNF develops exhibition formats that do not require moving the artworks, but instead, artefacts in museums, monuments and archaeological sites are presented in situ or in a virtual environment.
The Khalili Foundation is a UK-based charity promoting interfaith and intercultural understanding through art, culture and education. Its founder and chairman is the London-based philanthropist, art collector and scholar Sir David Khalili. A Persian Jew who grew up in Iran, he is notable for having the world's largest private collection of Islamic art. Established in 1995, the foundation has created interfaith and intercultural links through "cultural, academic, sporting and educational programmes".
The Blue Quran is an early Quranic manuscript written in Kufic script. The dating, location of origin, and patron of the Blue Quran are unknown and have been the subject of academic debate, though it is generally accepted that the manuscript was produced in the late 9th to mid-10th century in either Kairouan, Tunisia or Cordoba in Umayyad Spain. The manuscript is among the most famous works of Islamic calligraphy, notable for its gold lettering on a rare indigo-colored parchment.
The Museum of Islamic Art is located in the Pergamon Museum and is part of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Bouchra Khalili is a Moroccan-French visual artist. Raised between Morocco and France, she studied Film at Sorbonne Nouvelle and Fine Arts at École nationale supérieure d'arts de Paris-Cergy. She lives in Berlin, Germany.
The Sharjah Biennial is a large-scale contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in the city of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The first Sharjah Biennial took place in 1993, and was organized by the Sharjah Department of Culture and Information until it is reorientation in 2003 by Hoor bint Sultan Al Qasimi.
A talismanic shirt is a worn textile talisman. Talismanic shirts are found throughout the Muslim world. The shirts can be grouped to four types which differ in style and the symbols used: an Ottoman, a Safavid, a Mughal and a West African one.
John Michael Rogers, FBA, FSA was a British art historian who was an expert in Islamic art history. He was Khalili Professor Emeritus of Islamic Art at SOAS, University of London from 1991 and a published author. In his later years, he was Honorary Curator of the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art.
The Khalili Collections are eight distinct art collections assembled by Nasser D. Khalili over five decades. Together, the collections include some 35,000 works of art, and each is considered among the most important in its field.
Barjeel Art Foundation is a non-profit arts organisation based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The foundation was established in 2010 by Emirati commentator Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi to manage and exhibit his personal art collection. There are over 1,000 pieces of modern and contemporary art in the foundation's art collection. The organisation primarily focuses on artwork produced by Arab artists worldwide and includes paintings, sculptures and installations.
The Khalili Collection of Japanese Art is a private collection of decorative art from Meiji-era (1868–1912) Japan, assembled by the British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist Nasser D. Khalili. Its 1,400 art works include metalwork, enamels, ceramics, lacquered objects, and textile art, making it comparable only to the collection of the Japanese imperial family in terms of size and quality. The Meiji era was a time when Japan absorbed some Western cultural influences and used international events to promote its art, which became very influential in Europe. Rather than covering the whole range of Meiji-era decorative art, Khalili has focused on objects of the highest technical and artistic quality. Some of the works were made by artists of the imperial court for the Great Exhibitions of the late 19th century. The collection is one of eight assembled, published, and exhibited by Khalili.
The Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents is a private collection of letters and documents from the Bactria region in present-day Afghanistan, assembled by the British-Iranian collector and philanthropist Nasser D. Khalili. It is one of the Khalili Collections: eight collections of artifacts assembled, conserved, published and exhibited by Khalili.
The Khalili Collection of the Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage is a private collection of around 5,000 items relating to the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca which is a religious duty in Islam. It is one of eight collections assembled, conserved, published and exhibited by the British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist Nasser Khalili; each collection is considered among the most important in its field. The collection's 300 textiles include embroidered curtains from the Kaaba, the Station of Abraham, the Mosque of the Prophet Muhammad and other holy sites, as well as textiles that would have formed part of pilgrimage caravans from Egypt or Syria. It also has illuminated manuscripts depicting the practice and folklore of the Hajj as well as photographs, art pieces, and commemorative objects relating to the Hajj and the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.
The Anis Al-Hujjaj is a seventeenth-century literary work by Safi ibn Vali, an official of the Mughal court in what is now India. Written in Persian, it describes the Hajj undertaken by him in 1677 AD and it gives advice to pilgrims. Its illustrations depict pilgrims travelling to the holy sites and taking part in the rituals of the Hajj. They are also a visual guide to significant places and people.
A sitara or sitarah is an ornamental curtain used in the sacred sites of Islam. A sitara forms part of the kiswah, the cloth covering of the Kaaba in Mecca. Another sitara adorns the Prophet's Tomb in the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi mosque in Medina. These textiles bear embroidered inscriptions of verses from the Quran and other significant texts. Sitaras have been created annually since the 16th century as part of a set of textiles sent to Mecca. The tradition is that the textiles are provided by the ruler responsible for the holy sites. In different eras, this has meant the Mamluk Sultans, the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, and presently the rulers of Saudi Arabia. The construction of the sitaras is both an act of religious devotion and a demonstration of the wealth of the rulers who commission them.
The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art includes 28,000 objects documenting Islamic art over a period of almost 1400 years, from 700 AD to the end of the twentieth century. It is the largest of the Khalili Collections: eight collections assembled, conserved, published and exhibited by the British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist Nasser David Khalili, each of which is considered among the most important in its field. Khalili's collection is one of the most comprehensive Islamic art collections in the world and the largest in private hands.
