Museum of Islamic Art

The Museum of Islamic Art near Bab al-Khalq houses one of the world's most important collections of Islamic art and architecture, spanning 1,300 years from the first Islamic centuries to the Ottoman period. The collection includes woodwork, metalwork, textiles, ceramics, illuminated manuscripts, and architectural elements from demolished buildings.

Standout pieces include Mamluk brass inlaid metalwork of extraordinary complexity, Ottoman-era tilework, carved ivory boxes, and an extensive collection of Islamic coins. The museum presents art from across the Islamic world — Persia, the Levant, Spain, Egypt, and India — in a building that was itself restored after the 2014 bomb damage. The collection rewards careful looking; allow two hours.

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In January 2014, a car bomb targeting the nearby police headquarters detonated outside the Museum of Islamic Art, shattering hundreds of the museum's glass display cases and damaging thousands of irreplaceable artefacts — including a rare 14th-century astronomical instrument and medieval glass mosque lamps. The museum spent four years in restoration and reopened in 2017. The restoration was painstaking: technicians reassembled objects from thousands of fragments. Some pieces are gone forever.

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