Museum of Islamic Art

Museum of Islamic Art

The Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo houses one of the most important collections of Islamic art and artifacts in the world, covering 1,400 years of Islamic cultural production from the 7th century CE to the 19th century across Egypt, the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, India, and Spain. Founded in 1881 and occupying a purpose-built neoclassical building at Bab al-Khalq in Islamic Cairo, the museum contains over 100,000 objects across its 25 galleries — including metalwork, ceramics, textiles, woodwork, glassware, manuscripts, coins, and architectural elements salvaged from demolished mosques and historic buildings across Cairo.

The collection is remarkable for its depth in every medium it covers. The woodwork galleries include carved minbars (mosque pulpits), mashrabiyya screens, and coffered ceilings from Cairo’s medieval mosques — some pieces representing the finest surviving examples of Fatimid and Mamluk carpentry. The metalwork collection includes Mamluk brass and bronze inlaid with silver in designs of extraordinary intricacy. The ceramics galleries trace the evolution of Islamic pottery from early Umayyad lustrous ware through Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk production, with significant holdings from Iran, Iraq, and Spain.

The museum suffered severe damage in January 2014 when a car bomb targeting the nearby Cairo Security Directorate caused an explosion that blew out the museum’s windows and damaged thousands of objects. After years of restoration work — much of it conducted with international support — the museum has reopened with its most significant galleries accessible, representing one of the most extensive post-conflict collection conservation efforts in recent museum history.

The Museum of Islamic Art was founded by the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe, established in 1881 to inventory and protect Cairo’s historic Islamic monuments. The museum was initially housed in the courtyard of Al-Hakim Mosque before moving to its current building at Bab al-Khalq, purpose-built in 1903 in a style that blended neoclassical architecture with Mamluk decorative motifs.

The collection was built over more than a century through excavation, salvage from demolished buildings, and purchase. A significant portion of the architectural elements — carved stone capitals, marble fountain basins, wooden ceilings, door panels — were rescued from historic Cairo buildings scheduled for demolition during the rapid urban growth of the 19th and 20th centuries, making the museum an inadvertent archive of disappearing architectural traditions.

The 2014 bombing caused damage to approximately 179 objects and structural damage to the building. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, in partnership with UNESCO, European cultural institutions, and private donors, undertook a comprehensive restoration program that has gradually returned galleries to public access, though some restoration work continues.