WATANI International
21 February 2010
Following five years of meticulous restoration work which cost some EGP85 million, the Ministry of Culture will be shortly celebrating the official opening of Cairo’s Museum of Islamic Art. The museum, the exterior of which is in itself a magnificent sample of Islamic architecture, has undergone a comprehensive restoration process which brings it back to its original splendour. Not only was the building and interior renovated, but also the exhibition design and displays. The restoration project was carried out jointly with the Islamic Department of the Louvre in Paris and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture,
The museum offers a collection of rare wooden, metal, ceramic, glass, rock crystal and textile objects from across the Islamic world. In addition, it encompasses an introductory gallery that will present Islamic arts and the Muslim countries and their locations in the world in a mixed display made up of panels, maps and objects from the collection. Visitors will also gain an idea of the geography of historic Cairo and the early Islamic town of Fustat, the oldest Islamic settlement in Egypt.
Rich display
The master plan for the renovation work was drawn up by French designer and museographer Adrien Gardère in cooperation with the Islamic Department of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Fakher Sobhy, the construction manager at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), told Watani that the Museum of Islamic Art was one of the oldest museums in the Middle East and that it boasts some 80,000 objects which date back from the early ages of Islam and until the Ottoman period. Two new displays halls have been added to house collections of textiles, rare gold and silver coins, and royal medals.
The old display cases were replaced with new ones which provide a far better environment for the artefacts. The renovated museum has state-of-the art security and lighting systems, as well as a fully-equipped restoration laboratory, a children’s museum and library.
The museum is divided into two large wings with the one on the right-hand side devoted to a chronological display of Islamic artifacts, while the left-hand one displays exhibits from countries other than Egypt. The exhibits include samples of calligraphy, manuscripts, ceramics, mosaics, textiles, tombstones, mashrabiyas (lattice woodwork), woodwork, metal and glass vessels, incense burners, pottery, metalwork and glass lamps dating from different periods in Islamic history. The display will be in some cases chronological and in others according to theme and material. Even though the museum encompasses more than 100,000 objects, only 2500 will be on display.
The museum has a rare collection of sand clocks, tools used for measuring distances and heights, and items related to astronomy, engineering, chemistry and surgery. A collection of pottery which was unearthed from within the remains of Fustat is displayed and includes pots and rich wood carvings from the Umayyad, Abbasid and Tolonic periods. One of the wonderful displays is a metal bronze pitcher which belonged to Marawan Ibn Mohamed, the last Umayyad Caliph; it stands at 41cms tall and 28cm wide.
From Egypt and others
First planned in 1869 even before the establishment of a committee of Arab antiquities dedicated to building a national collection of Islamic art, the Museum of Islamic Art first opened in 1881 in the courtyard of the Fatimid Al-Hakim Mosque in Islamic Cairo. The initial display comprised 111 objects gathered from mosques and mausoleums across Egypt.
Due to the rapid increase in the size of the collection, a new building was constructed in the courtyard of the mosque in 1883 to house what had now become a considerably enlarged museum. In 1899, the government began construction work on the present building, and in 1903 the Islamic Museum opened with a display of 3,154 objects originating from Egypt and other countries. In the same neighbourhood stand other outstanding models of Islamic architecture, including the exceptional 10th century Ahmed Ibn-Toloun mosque, the 12th century Salah Eddin’s citadel and 19th century Mohamed Ali mosque which was built in the citadel grounds.
While the museum’s name has changed over the years, in 1952 the museum##s trustees settled on the institution’s present name, the Museum of Islamic Art, in recognition of the contributions of non-Arab Muslims from Iran, Turkey, and Andalusia.