Museum of Islamic Arts

Museum of Islamic Arts

With close to 10,200 artefacts of beautiful Islamic art, the Museum of Islamic Arts is a vast treasure trove of items that takes more than one day to truly see and appreciate.  The museum is filled with art that spans the many different Islamic eras of Egypt, including the Fatimid, Turkish, and Persian ages.  The Fatimid displays include gorgeous wooden panels that are the only surviving pieces of the Western Palace of Al Kahira Palace as well as the craftsmanship of the time of the Mihrabs and the tombs of Sayega Raqayya and Sayeda Nafeesa.  There are carved wooden caskets of Al Hussein from the Ayyoubid Period, enamelled mosque lamps from the Mamluk period, and beautiful Iranian and Turkish carpets.  

The Museum of Islamic Arts is in Bab El Khalq Square and is open from 9am to 4pm Monday through Thursday and then from 9:30am to 11:30am and 1:30pm to 4pm on Friday.  It is located very close to the Egyptian Library.  Considering the amount of Islamic antiquities found in this Cairo museum, you will want to plan on taking more than one day to see it all.   As a matter of fact, visitors to Cairo will want to take a few days to thoroughly explore the entire city.

The museum also shows visitors examples of Islamic architecture which, if studied well, can be identified and examined outside of the museum while walking through Cairo, making the city a piece of Islamic artwork as well.  Many of the designs in Islamic art both in and outside of the museum change with the time period in which they are done, starting with the Fatimid period.  This consistent change is one of the things that make all of the art pieces unique and exotic in their own right, and students of the art can easily tell which period the piece is from.