A Malaysian's Tour de Force for Islamic Art
International Herald Tribune
January 26, 2002
Souren Melikian 

Somerset Maugham should have written this story, with its Malaysian setting, its Florentine prologue and its central character, an Italianate Malay businessman turned museum founder and director.

Syed Mohamad Albukhary was born into a family of tradesmen with roots in Bokhara in present-day Uzbekistan. After studying in London, where he majored in business studies, he set up a Florence-based import-export company with an Italian partner. Albukhary seemed due to spend his life as a jet-setting businessman when a chance encounter set him on a very different course.

In June 1991, he was cycling along the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, his favorite city in Europe, when he caught sight of the prime minister of Malaysia, apparently on a private tour. Overcoming his reserve, Albukhary approached to introduce himself and a few courtesies were exchanged.

Three years went by. In 1994, as Malaysia was organizing a World of Islamic Civilization Festival, the minister of religious affairs, Dato Abang Abu Bakar, asked Albukhary, whom he knew to be an occasional buyer of Western art, if he could find collectors willing to lend some Islamic works.

Albukhary called a few acquaintances — a dealer in Milan who had some pottery and rugs, one in Paris who specialized in Ottoman objets d'art, some collectors — and assembled 60 pieces that went on view in a building owned by the Department of Religious Affairs.

A wistful Albukhary began to think that it was time to have a museum devoted to the Islamic past in a Muslim country, Malaysia, where there was none.

Early in 1995, Albukhary was in London when a Lebanese dealer contacted him to say that he had a collection of gold coins from the Muslim world. Could Albukhary find out if Malaysia was interested? Remembering the 1991 encounter, Albukhary wrote to the prime minister's office seeking an appointment and, to his rapturous surprise, got one.

Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad listened attentively. It would be nice for Malaysia to have the collection if there was a museum dealing with the Islamic world, he observed. Rather than buy the coins, Malaysia should begin by building the museum, and that was a job for the private sector. The government would give every help it could.

Over dinner, Albukhary recounted the meeting to his elder brother, Syed Mukhtar Albukhary, who heads the Albukhary Foundation, set up to grant scholarships to needy students, build hospitals and erect mosques. The foundation would finance the entire construction, Albukhary was told. The government was providing the land, and the brothers opted for a spot near the National Mosque, facing Bird Park. Syed Mohamad Albukhary would be in charge.

Albukhary, loath to squander money on consultancy fees, realized that he was making a huge commitment. In 1996 he sold his share of the business to his partner and embarked on a world museum tour.

He first flew to New York, where he spent three months studying the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan and the Brooklyn Museum. Then came Chicago (the Art Institute) and Los Angeles, followed by a long spell in London.

The businessman examined how the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum operate. In Paris, he visited the Louvre and the Institut du Monde Arabe. He considered every aspect of museum life, photographed everything he could — the display galleries, the education departments, the museum shops, the ticket counters. After each trip, he would discuss what he had seen with the appointed architect Roberto Monsani and the Malaysian team assisting the Italian.

At last a master plan was submitted to the prime minister. There wasn't much, Mr. Mahathir noted, that conjured up the world of Islam. Why not go to Iran, to Uzbekistan, and derive inspiration from glories of the past?

Albukhary resumed his travels. He was overwhelmed by Isfahan. The plan was modified to integrate four domes in the Safavid style of 17th-century Iran, with tile mosaic revetments designed and cut by Isfahan craftsmen. From Uzbekistan came the idea of more domes with carved plaster motifs on the inside.

On Dec. 12, 1998, Malaysian officialdom was shown around the light modern structure with its Middle Eastern adjunctions, and four months later, it opened.

Most of the works had been bought by Albukhary with funds from his foundation. Today things remain unchanged, except for the continuing expansion of the collections.

A vast display space is devoted to book painting and calligraphy. Fascinated by cultural interaction and eager to make the museum relevant to all the Malaysian groups, Muslim and non-Muslim, Albukhary gave special attention to Islam in China — Malaysia has a huge Chinese community. A 17th-century Koran in 30 sections, possibly from Xian, was Albukhary's very first acquisition — in New York. More recently, a group of Chinese scrolls with Arabic calligraphy in highly original styles ranging from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries was bought in New York.

Another large group includes Korans and calligraphic pages from Islamic India and from Iran, which was the model for artists working in 16th- and 17th-century Moghul Hindustan.

A small but fascinating section is devoted to the Malay world. A beautiful Koran volume from 18th-century Sumatra in Indonesia is strikingly original. Its opening double page is illuminated in subdued tones with an abstract composition suggestive of superimposed textile bands enclosing palmette motifs borrowed from Indo-Iranian design. Another display space is devoted to architectural models of famous monuments across the world of Islam.

While many are naive, they represent a teaching instrument that grips young people. Albukhary's great pride is the entire paneling from a room in a Damascus house dated 1235 (A.D. 1819-1820), remounted by craftsmen from Syria.

Many objects are of very modest quality, and some are unfit for a major display. But there are four tiles, datable to 1334, painted in golden luster from what was once a frieze in an Iranian royal palace carrying Shah-Nameh (Book of Kings) verses. I identified these in 1996 in my book in French on the Persian "Shah-Nameh friezes in 13th and 14th century architecture."

The institution and its objects may look different in 10 years but already with a curatorial staff of only eight people headed by Mandana Barkeshli, the museum is roaring into activity. It has registered 144,000 visitors since the opening.

Some of the temporary exhibitions, such as the reciprocal influence of Eastern and Western costume staged in collaboration with the Stibbert Museum in Florence, generated immense interest. The next show, due to open March 15, focuses on the art of Moghul India through loans from the National Museum in New Delhi. Many works have never been seen outside India.

The three-year-old museum has a long way to go before it comes of age, but it has now become a significant cultural force in Southeast Asia, where no other Islamic art museum exists. In its search for roots, Malaysia has adroitly scored.

Copyright © 2006 the International Herald Tribune