Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia

Overview

The Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia is Southeast Asia's largest museum of Islamic art, housing over 7,000 artefacts across 12 permanent galleries. The building itself, with its turquoise-domed architecture, sits within the Lake Gardens precinct.

Highlights

• Architecture Gallery: Scale models of the world's great mosques—Masjid al-Haram, the Blue Mosque, and the Taj Mahal—rendered in exquisite detail.
• Quran collection: Illuminated manuscripts from the 8th century onward, including rare Mamluk and Ottoman volumes.
• Ottoman Room: A reconstructed Syrian salon with painted wooden panels from the 19th century.

History

Opened in 1998, the museum was conceived to fill a gap in global museum coverage of Islamic civilisation. It deliberately avoids a historical-chronological approach in favour of thematic galleries.

Visitor Tips

• Restaurant: The in-house restaurant serves excellent Middle Eastern cuisine beneath a domed atrium.
• Gift shop: One of KL's best museum shops for ceramics and textiles.
• Duration: 1–1.5 hours.