Islamic Civilizations Museum

Overview

Guide

The Museum of Islamic Civilisations sits inside the Büyük Çamlıca Mosque complex on the Asian side of İstanbul, which opened in 2019 and which the Directorate of National Palaces describes as the largest mosque in İstanbul and in Türkiye. The museum is modern in both architecture and method, and it was set up on a specific premise: that thousands of objects of Islamic civilisation sit in Turkish museum stores rather than in front of visitors.

It shows more than 600 works dating from the 7th century to the 19th, selected from six collections — Topkapı Palace Museum, the Palace Collections Museum, the İstanbul Archaeological Museums, the İstanbul Tombs Museum, the Foundations Museum, and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts.

Fifteen themed sections set the route. It opens with the earliest period of Islam and the Kaaba, then moves through Islamic science, and architectural and decorative elements in Islamic art. A section is given over to the Qur'an and its cases; another to documents and folios selected from the Damascus Papers, among the earliest surviving works of Islamic art. Coins used across the Islamic world, a collection of weapons, the containers made under the Ottomans for holy relics, kaftans and talismanic shirts, calligraphy with illumination and marbling, Turkish tilework, imperial patents and decrees, the destimal tradition and tomb covers, and Turkish weaving close the sequence.

There is a digital layer too, meant to be experienced rather than read. The 'Ab-i Hayat' installation, two minutes and seventeen seconds long and taking its cue from the divine name 'Hayy', sets Qur'anic verses against the power of water; dedicated sound stations give examples of how Turkish musical modes were used in treating illness.

Visit status for this record: open to visitors.