Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts

The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art is an art museum situated in the Fatih district’s Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul, Turkey. Located in the former palace of Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha, it is Turkey’s first museum to feature both Turkish and Islamic art together. The museum is filled with collections of manuscripts and inscriptions in calligraphy, Islamic paintings, traditional handwoven and detailed fabrics, and ancient artefacts. It is also famous for the best rug collection in the world, with some being rare 13th-century Seljuk carpets.

Dating back to the 15th century, the museum building is one of the oldest surviving buildings to this date. The museum’s first floor is dedicated to traditional Turkish life and the second floor to Islamic art. It houses over 40,000 works of art from different parts of the Islamic world; they belong to different periods such as the Emevi, Abbasi, Timurid, Safavi, and Ottoman periods. There are about 17,000 manuscripts here, along with 3,000 Qurans, 2,50,000 early Quranic fragments from Damascus’ Umayyad Mosque as well as a large hall dedicated to ethnography which provides a glimpse into the daily life of 19th century Istanbul. It has other collections featuring Holy Relics, Islamic calligraphy, paintings, tiles, stone and terracotta artefacts, glassware, wooden carvings, metal and ceramic objects and more. Moreover, the museum’s terrace provides an excellent view of the Blue Mosque.