The Merchant’s Trove: Unveiling the Soul of Islamic Art in a Jeddah Mall
The air in Jeddah is thick with the brine of the Red Sea and the hum of relentless progress. Here, on the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, cranes etch new skylines against a sun-bleached haze, and the ancient rhythm of the five daily prayers punctuates the thoroughly modern rush of life. Jeddah has always been a city of arrivals and departures, the historic gateway for pilgrims undertaking the Hajj to the holy city of Mecca. It is a place built on commerce, faith, and the convergence of cultures—a grand, sprawling souk where the world has long come to trade goods, stories, and ideas. It is perhaps fitting, then, that one of its greatest cultural treasures is hidden in the most modern of souks: a luxury shopping mall.
Tucked away within the gleaming, air-conditioned corridors of the Stars Avenue Mall, amidst the scent of designer perfume and fresh-brewed coffee, lies the House of Islamic Art, or Bayt Al-Fann Al-Islami. To step across its threshold is to leave the 21st century behind and embark on a silent, contemplative journey across fourteen centuries of civilization. This is no state-funded, monumental institution. It is something far more personal and, in many ways, more profound: the life’s work and private passion of one man, the Jeddah businessman Saleh bin Hamza Serafi. The collection is a testament to a deeply ingrained tradition in the Hejaz region, where merchant families were not merely traders but also patrons, scholars, and guardians of culture.
The Collector’s Vision
The story of the House of Islamic Art is inseparable from the story of Saleh bin Hamza Serafi. He embodies the spirit of the old Jeddah families whose fortunes were made on the sea routes and pilgrimage trails, and who filled their traditional Roshancoral-stone houses in Al-Balad, the old town, with treasures from afar. For decades, Serafi quietly and meticulously amassed a collection that is breathtaking in its scope and quality. His was not a quest for mere acquisition but an act of preservation, a mission to gather the scattered masterpieces of a civilization and present them as a coherent, interconnected narrative of faith, science, and sublime beauty.
What began as a private endeavor, appreciated by a select few, eventually grew into a responsibility. Serafi understood that these objects—these vessels of history and artistry—belonged not just to him, but to the world. The decision to establish a museum was an act of immense generosity, a way to share his passion and educate a new generation. By placing it within a popular mall, he ingeniously bypassed the perceived austerity of a traditional museum, making world-class heritage accessible to ordinary people in the course of their daily lives. One might browse for watches at a Swiss boutique, then wander in to stand before a thousand-year-old manuscript, a seamless blend of the contemporary and the eternal.
A Journey Through Time and Empire
The collection itself defies simple categorization, spanning a geographical arc from the shores of Andalusia to the fringes of China. It is a silent dialogue between empires, artisans, and eras. The journey begins, as it must, with the sanctity of the written word. The galleries house an extraordinary collection of Qur’anic manuscripts, each a testament to the art of calligraphy. Here, you can trace the evolution of the script from the bold, angular Kufic of the early Umayyad and Abbasid periods—a script designed for monumental clarity—to the flowing, elegant Naskh and Thuluth that flourished under the Mamluks in Cairo and the Ottomans in Istanbul. The pages are adorned with lapis lazuli, malachite, and gold leaf, the intricate illuminations, or tazhib, framing the sacred text in patterns of divine geometry.
From the word, the narrative expands to the world it shaped. Cases glitter with the iridescent sheen of lusterware ceramics from 10th-century Persia, their surfaces shimmering with a secret technique that potters guarded for generations. You find yourself before the bold, sublime pottery of Iznik, the Turkish town that produced the iconic cobalt-blue and tomato-red tiles that adorn the great mosques of Istanbul. These were not mere decorations; they were representations of a celestial garden, a paradise on earth rendered in fired clay and glaze.
One of the most poignant exhibits contains fragments of the Kiswa, the monumental black silk brocade, embroidered with gold thread, that drapes the Holy Kaaba in Mecca. For centuries, the honor of producing the Kiswa rotated between the great capitals of the Islamic world, most notably Cairo. Each year, as the new covering was presented, the old one was cut into pieces and distributed among dignitaries and pilgrims as a sacred blessing, a tangible connection to the heart of Islam. To see these pieces here, in Jeddah, the very port of entry for so many who would have dreamed of receiving such a relic, is to feel the deep, personal pulse of faith that runs through this art.
The Mind of the Scholar, The Hand of the Artisan
The collection does more than celebrate devotional art; it illuminates the Golden Age of Islamic science. On display are astrolabes of breathtaking complexity, crafted from brass and bronze. These were the analog computers of their day, intricate devices used by astronomers to map the stars, by navigators to cross the vast deserts and oceans, and by the faithful to determine the precise direction of Mecca for prayer. They represent a fusion of perfect mathematical understanding and exquisite metalworking, a reminder that in this civilization, science and art were never separate pursuits but two sides of the same coin of human inquiry.
The craftsmanship extends to the instruments of power. There are jewel-encrusted daggers from the Mughal courts of India, their watered-steel blades shimmering with the legendary Damascus pattern. Ottoman chain mail and helmets sit alongside ceremonial swords, their hilts carved from jade and ivory. These objects speak of worldly power, of sultans and shahs, but their decoration—often featuring delicate floral motifs or calligraphic inscriptions—grounds them in a culture that sought to beautify every aspect of life, from the prayer book to the sword.
A Sanctuary in the Souk
To experience the House of Islamic Art is to appreciate its unique context. The quiet, reverently lit galleries offer a profound stillness that stands in stark contrast to the bright, kinetic energy of the mall just outside its doors. The curation is thoughtful and intimate. Without the overwhelming scale of a national museum, each object is given space to breathe, allowing for personal contemplation. You can spend long minutes tracing the lines of a single calligraphic panel or marveling at the delicate glasswork of a Mamluk-era mosque lamp, its enamel colors still vibrant after seven hundred years.
This placement is not a contradiction but a continuation of Jeddah’s history. The city’s old souks were never just places of commerce; they were centers of community, information, and culture. In the quiet courtyards behind the bustling storefronts, deals were struck, poetry was recited, and news from Damascus, Cairo, and Samarkand was exchanged. In its own way, the House of Islamic Art recreates this dynamic. It is a quiet courtyard of contemplation set within the bustling marketplace of modern life, a reminder that beauty and history are not things to be locked away, but to be lived with.
Leaving the museum, you step back into the bright, commercial present. The experience lingers. The geometric patterns of an ancient Andalusian tile seem to echo in the latticework of a modern storefront; the deep blues of an Iznik plate are reflected in the evening sky over the Red Sea. The House of Islamic Art is more than a collection of beautiful objects. It is a bridge across time, a gift from a passionate collector to his city, and a powerful statement that even in the most contemporary of settings, the whispers of history and the enduring soul of artistry can still be heard, if one only knows where to listen.
