2023 - Goldthread: Golden Splendour

Semarang, a city established in the 15th century on Indonesia’s large Java island, sprang to importance from the 17th century when sedimentation dired up major coastal routes, and Samarang became the new port

The Shrine of Ikhwat Yusuf is a late-Fatimid (circa AD 1125-1150) complex located to the east of the Southern Cemetery of Cairo. The American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) fully conserved the building between

The Jamiʿ Masjid of Thatta (1647) and Lahore’s Badshahi Masjid (1671) showcase remarkable Mughal architecture, not only in aesthetics but also in acoustics. Thatta’s mosque, with 93 domes, enables pray

Mamluk metalwork has long held a particular role in studies of the visual and material culture of the Islamic world. Metal objects from Mamluk Syria and Egypt provide valuable insights into transcultural exchan

This project focuses on on the production and re-production of a type of objects referred to as “Dutch gin bottles” within the Islamic world, specifically of Mughal India and Safavid Iran, and their global

This project investigates a proposal for the conservation of the historic city of Cairo developed by Edmond Pauty, Architecte-Expert at the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe—the body resp

Between 2019 and 2021, over 300 Islamic tombs were discovered at Torre Monreal in Tudela (Navarre, Spain), the largest Maqbara found in the medieval Kingdom of Navarre. These burials belong to the Mudéjars, Mu

This project helps provide two early career scholars with the opportunity to travel to Samarra in Iraq, the planned city of the Abbasid caliphs that was inhabited for only half a century. One of the major sites

Dina’s research on textile conservation at the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo will be presented at two international conferences, one at the 50th anniversary of the Textile Conservation Centre at the Univer

Keramat are Muslim shrines in the Malay world. Due to netion-centred history writing, they have received far less attention than they deserve. This project studied these fascinating structures as the architectu

Dr. Íñigo Almela’s project focuses on two iconic mosques of the Almohad period in Morocco—Tinmal and Taza—both key to understanding the architectural legacy of the Islamic West. Following the success of

Wan Mohd Saghir’s collection is truly massive: collected by the eponumous Shaykh, it encompasses over a thousand 50–150-year-old items including manuscripts, letters, original receipts, writing tools, print

The Greek city of Chalkida has an interesting Ottoman past, and in this project Dr Konstantinos Politis studied Ottoman manuscripts to uncover information about the city’s forgotten Islamic monuments. Find ou

This project, carried out by Dr Sameer Hamdani, documented and studied the rich but rapidly disappearing array of epigraphy, carved onto the stone of Kashmir in Arabic and Persian throughout the 14th-18th centu

Sara Ann Knutson was awarded the Barakat Postgraduate and Early Career Award to study how Islamic coins were used as more than just money. After a doctorate showing how Islamic coins reveal the cross-cultural i

Dr. Günseli Gürel’s postdoctoral project, supported by The Barakat Trust, revises and expands her doctoral research into a forthcoming monograph exploring Ottoman depictions of ancient and distant lands. Fo

Dr. Maryam Heydarkhani has been awarded The Barakat Trust Postdoctoral Scholarship to transform her doctoral research on Qajar madrasas into a comprehensive monograph. These 19th-century religious-educational c

Mohammad Abdelkarim’s project examines the intersections between activism, collective memory, and contemporary Egyptian art, with a focus on how performance and ephemeral practices can be documented and prese

Dr. Sara Ann Knutson’s project investigates how Amazigh communities in Morocco have historically incorporated Islamic coins into silver jewelry and other objects, treating them not simply as currency, but as