Yesterday, I spent three hours at the Islamic Arts Museum here in KL. I think it’s my favourite museum of all time. It’s tiny but beautiful. What I love about it and why I like it more than the crazy big beautiful museums in Europe (like the British Museum, for example) is that I learned SO much during my time in there. Instead of treating their artifacts like collector’s items and then letting the public take a look, this place made it a real point to educate the visitor about Islam.
I learned about the six different types of calligraphy used in ancient versions of the Qu’ran. I learned about hajj (the pilgrim’s journey to mecca), I learned about mosque architecture and I learned about prints and textiles and geometric design. I think I lapped up every word/diagram/exhibit in that place. Such a feast for the mind.
I’d post pictures of the place but I accidentally locked myself out of my Flickr account and Yahoo is being very unresponsive in helping me to solve the problem. =P Anyway, it’s a really great place and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting here.