The al-Sabah Collection is one of the world’s most important and comprehensive collections of Islamic art. The product of years of commitment on the part of Sheikh Nasser and Sheikha Hussah al-Sabah. Its holdings cover every geographic region and historical period represented in the art of the Islamic world. A series of publications which has been already printed, and other forthcoming catalogues will cover the full range of the Collection, such as jewellery, textiles, gaming pieces, architectural decoration, manuscripts and miniatures, and metalwork. Also, DAI publishes periodically a newsletter that summarizes the different activities of the Dar, lectures, as well as a series of books of relevant nature.

Forthcoming Publications

Manuel Keene, Curator of the al-Sabah Collection and a trained jewellery designer, is actively preparing a series of lavishly illustrated volumes on jewellery and jewelled weapons and objects from the Islamic World. The al-Sabah Collection possesses the most historically comprehensive collection of Islamic jewellery worldwide. Mr. Keene's studies will therefore introduce ground-breaking research in an area which has never before been studied in such depth. Not only will Mr. Keene focus on the luxurious aesthetic aspects of the jewelled objects, but importantly also on their ways of manufacture, which will be illustrated by jeweller's tools. Numerous microphotographs executed by the author will accompany the text.

The first volume in the series will be a major catalogue on Jewelled Arts in the Age of the Mughals, which will be followed by a volume on Islamic jades.

Dr. Jochen Sokoly's contribution to the ongoing publication series will be a study based on the Collection’s extensive holdings of tiraz textiles from the Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid periods comprising embroidered and tapestry-woven inscriptions containing a caliphal protocol. In addition to a catalogue, he will also present a general monograph which takes into account for the first time the interrelationship between their production, administration and use. His study will be an important reference work for the historian, epigrapher and textile specialist alike.

Based on an unrivalled collection of around 500 gaming pieces in a great variety of media, Ralph Pinder-Wilson, formerly Keeper of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum and Director of the British Institute of Afghan Studies, will provide an essential source book for the history and place of chess and other board games in the Islamic world. The publication will also include a study based on an Islamic treatise on chess and gaming pieces and will be accompanied by numerous illustrations.

Mr. Pinder-Wilson is also preparing a study on medieval leather moulds and purses from the Eastern Islamic world.

A volume on architectural objects and decoration will be prepared by Professor Ernst J. Grube, Professor Emeritus, University of Venice and formerly curator of the Islamic Department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His study will provide a general history of architectural decoration in the Islamic World, based on stone and stucco carvings, decorative ceramic tiles and woodwork in the al-Sabah Collection. An important contribution will be Professor Grube's consideration of their actual architectural contexts in monuments and on archaeological sites, which will be lavishly illustrated.

An authoritative study on the Art of the Illustrated Book from the Iranian world will be co-authored by Dr. Adel Adamova, Curator at the Oriental Department of The State Hermitage Museum, and the renowned scholar of Islamic Art Manijeh Bayani. Looking at individual outstanding examples from the al-Sabah Collection, the chronological spectrum of their study will trace the development of various areas of manuscript production from the pre-Mongol period up to the Safavid period. While Dr. Adamova will focus on the art-historical importance of individual manuscripts, Manijeh Bayani will provide the background of their literary content. Such a combined approach is rare in present scholarship and, therefore, is a significant contribution to the field of manuscript studies.

Dr. Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani, Director of Research at the CNRS, Paris, and an authority in the field of Metalwork from the Islamic world, will publish a history of Islamic metalwork arranged as a series of volumes. Working on the metalworker's craft from the eastern to the western Islamic world, chronologically covering the early medieval up to the early modern periods, Dr. Melikian-Chirvani's study will provide for the first time an authoritative overall history of Islamic metalwork. It will become the essential source of reference on the subject.

Based on the comprehensive collection of religious and scientific manuscripts in the al-Sabah Collection, Nabil Saidi, a well-known authority in this field, and Manijeh Bayani, also a respected epigrapher are preparing a chronological survey taking into account works from the Western Islamic World and the Medierranean to Iran and India. The holdings of the al-Sabah Collection comprise manuscripts of the Holy Qur'an, prayer books and religious treatises on one hand, as well as works on mathematics, medicine, pharmacy and chemistry on the other.While Mr. Saidi will focus on issues of attribution and content, Manijeh Bayani will add the important and rarely considered facet of provenance and historical transmission of particular manuscripts