Tareq Rajab Museum

Tareq Rajab Museum is a museum in Kuwait. The Tareq Rajab Museum houses a collection of over thirty thousand items collected over the last fifty years, of which approximately ten thousand are on permanent display. The museum is divided into two parts: in Area A, calligraphy, manuscripts, miniatures, ceramics, metalwork, glass, jade-, wood- and stone-carvings are exhibited. Area B contains objects which were produced in the Islamic world during the last ca. 250 years, i.e. costumes, textiles, jewellery and musical instruments. The Tareq Rajab Museum's pottery collection is very large and comprehensive, including vessels from pre-Islamic times right up to the first part of the 20th century. The earliest vessels date from the late Parthian - early Sasanian periods, while the latest ones are from Palestine, made in the 1930s. The Tareq Rajab Museum is considered the leading museum specialising in Silver Folk jewellery; it houses around 12,000 pieces in which only 2,000 are on display. The museum also has a very fine and rare collection of gold jewellery. In the Gold Room the displays go as far back as the pre Islamic period and are mainly from the Middle East although there is a section on non Islamic, Roman and Byzantine that shows the links with the Islamic Ornaments. The Tareq Rajab Museum in Kuwait has a large and important collection of Al Qur'an and manuscripts from all periods and countries around the Islamic world. The museum possesses some fine examples of the writings of renowned calligraphers such as Yaqut Al Musta’simi . Although little of his work has survived, his influence was of outstanding importance to the development of calligraphy. In contrast to the top-down approach in other Gulf states, museum development in Kuwait reflects a greater sense of civic identity and demonstrates the strength of civil society in Kuwait, which has produced many independent cultural enterprises.
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