Museum of Islamic Art

The collection was gathered from the 1880s onward out of Cairo's own decaying monuments and from across the Islamic world, and it runs to something over a hundred thousand objects covering Spain to India and the seventh century to the nineteenth. Its particular strengths are Mamluk metalwork and enamelled glass, carved wooden mihrabs and doors lifted from Cairene buildings, Persian and Ottoman ceramics, carpets, and a rare surviving group of early scientific and medical instruments. In January 2014 a car bomb aimed at the police headquarters opposite blew out the facade and damaged around a fifth of the objects on display; the museum closed for restoration and reopened in 2017 with a redesigned layout and repaired glass, and the conservation work itself is now part of what it explains.

What you actually see

• Mamluk enamelled glass - mosque lamps in cobalt and gold.
• Carved wooden mihrabs - salvaged from Cairo buildings that no longer stand.
• Scientific instruments - astrolabes and surgical tools from the medieval centuries.
• The 2014 restoration story - objects reassembled after the bomb across the road.

When to go

October to April. The museum is quiet almost always, which is one of its pleasures. Mornings are best for the glass galleries, which depend on daylight. Two to three hours, longer if the metalwork holds you.

Honest expectations

It is off the usual circuit and gets far fewer visitors than it deserves, which also means less staffing and some galleries occasionally closed. Labelling is uneven in English. The neighbourhood outside is a busy traffic junction with no easy walking connection to Khan el-Khalili.

Nearby

Bab Zuweila is a short walk north; the National Library shares the building.