About Us
The Barakat Trust was founded as a UK charity in 1987 and operates for educational and heritage purposes focusing on the heritage of the Islamic world. We provides scholarships and grants for study and research projects at the world’s most respected academic and cultural institutions at post-graduate and post-doctoral level. We supports conservation and documentation work, travel for research and education, training programmes, including the training of conservation professionals and curators. We funds publications, and the digitisation of significant collections, and supports other projects that preserve the heritage of the Islamic world, raise awareness, and engage with diverse audiences.
We work in partnership with a wide range of institutions who share common interests. Our partners range in scale from huge national institutions, like the British Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum, the Islamic Arts Museum in Malaysia, to cultural, research and academic institutions, professional organisations, and historians, archaeologists, conservators, curators, and others.
Over the past 30 years, we have invested resources in building the skills of heritage professionals and supporting projects in 40 countries. Many of our grantees have long-standing relationships with The Trust, developed over decades. On the other hand, we are open and welcome new partnerships, new ideas, and new generations.
The Barakat Trust is an international non-political, non-religious, non-sectarian and independent charity based in the United Kingdom.
The aims of the charity are:
a) Intellectual Excellence; support, nurture and promote study and scholarship of Islamic art history, architecture and archaeology.
b) Preservation of Heritage; conserve the material culture of the Islamic world and elevate the level of curation and skills in conservation. To further make the material culture of the Islamic world more accessible through digital and other means.
c) Create Awareness; provide a platform for cross cultural understanding and tolerance across the world by promoting the findings, research and project outputs and study of Islamic culture.
d) Sustainable growth & development; develop effective long terms partnerships and sustain current and future aims of The Trust.
Projects
Shuqayra Conservation Project
Shuqayra Conservation Project: Phase I, West-Central Jordan, 2017. Grantee: ZAKARIYAN.BENBADHANN NA’IMAT, Islamic Archaeology Research Unit at the University of Bonn, Germany About the project: The project undertook three main tasks: 1) a detailed artistic and architectural documentation of the mosaic pavement, 2) a complete diagnosis of the current state of preservation [...]
Creswell’s Cairo photographs: a project to enhance the Creswell photographic archive at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Grantee: Omniya Abdel Barr Date: 2016 The Barakat Trust funded the “Creswell’s Cairo Photographs” project with a senior visiting scholarship in 2016-2017. The project focused on enhancing the Creswell photographic archive of Cairo at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). The work is allowing this important photographic collection to be [...]
Religious and Biogeographic Identity in Qarakhanid Communities
Religious and Biogeographic Identity in Qarakhanid Communities Samarkand, Uzbekistan, 2016. Grantee: Elissa Bullion About the project: Elissa Bullion received funds from the Trust to conduct human data collection in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on medieval human osteological materials. The overarching aim of the project was to collect demographic and morphological skeletal data [...]
Abbasid painting of the Caliphal Palace of Samarra, Iraq
Fatma Dahmani is a Barakat Trust postdoctoral fellow. Her original project was focused solely on the Abbasid painting of the Caliphal Palace of Samarra and the extent to which it is an original piece. After having conducted further research into the broader city more things caught her eye. This included [...]
Grantee Profile
Dr Olga Bush
Dr Olga Bush is a scholar of Islamic art and architecture, whose research interests engage interdisciplinary methods and theoretical issues in a wide variety of topics ranging from the relationship of poetry to architecture in medieval Muslim aesthetics to nineteenth-century European and American Orientalism, to patronage of the arts in twentieth-century [...]
Mariam Rosser-Owen
Country of origin UK University Oxford University Course Post Doctoral Research Grant issued 2006 Area of interest Arts & Archaeology of the Islamic World Profile Mariam Rosser-Owen is a curator in the V&A's Middle Eastern Section, and looks after the Museum's collections from the Arab World. She is a specialist [...]
Paul Hepworth
Country of origin Turkey University Religious Foundation, Ankara Course Conservation Grant issued 2009 Area of interest Conserve 17 Ottoman endowment deeds from the 16th-19th centuries : a collaborative art historical and conservation approach Profile Conserve 17 Ottoman endowment deeds from the 16th-19th centuries : a collaborative art historical and conservation [...]
Lamia Balfaraj
Country of origin France University University of Aix Marseille Course Study Illustrated Persian manuscripts Grant issued 2011 Area of interest Study Illustrated Persian manuscripts of Sa'di at the British Library and Chester Beatty Library Profile
Media
The Wells of Memory
One of the first travelers in a century to walk through the Hejaz desert of Saudi Arabia, Paul Salopek encounters a fabled past of caravans and pilgrims, of empires come and gone. He encounters cultural preservationists including trustees of The Barakat Trust. More »
Arab News
Arab News has consistently featured the growth and evolution of the Barakat Trust from its early years to the present day. More »
Arab London
Barakat Culture Vulture Kids Camp was featured in Arab London. More »
Art & Patronage – The Middle East by Thames & Hudson
The Barakat Trust was featured in 'Art & Patronage The Middle East' published by Thames & Hudson. More »
Harpers Bazaar Arabia featuring Barakat Trustee
Abir Dajani Tuqan takes Bazaar on a journey through a rich and textured life that includes an enviable collection of fashion moments More »
News
Hamida Alireza, Founding Barakat Trustee Receives the Saudi-British Society Rawabi Holdings Award
The Barakat Trust is proud to announce that Ms Hamida Alireza, one its founding trustees, received the Rawabi Holding Award from the Saudi-British Society, on Wednesday February 20th, at the [...]
Launch of Converging Paths on February 12th, 2019.
We are very happy to announce the successful launch of our year-long series of cultural events "Converging Paths" developed and delivered with Asia House on February 12th, 2019. The first [...]
The Wells of Memory
One of the first travelers in a century to walk through the Hejaz desert of Saudi Arabia, Paul Salopek encounters a fabled past of caravans and pilgrims, of empires come [...]