Turkish & Islamic Arts Museum, Istanbul

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The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts is a very interesting museum located near the Hippodrome and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul's Sultanahmet neighborhood. Located in the 16th century palace of Ibrahim Pasa, Museum houses an excellent collection of decorative items, most of which are from the Selcuk and Ottomon Turkish empires. Highlights include illuminated manuscripts, calligraphy, decorative swords and daggers, ceramics, jewelry, and the museum's excellent collection of antique carpets. There are also a small number of Byzantine religious items on display, as well as some items from nearby Islamic regions.

Downstairs, underneath the main section of the museum, is a small ethnographic museum that is great for children. It contains a series of rooms that are decorated as they would have been during various eras of the region's history. Within each room, there are also mannequins dressed in period costume.

"Ab-i Hayat- Waters of Istanbul and Aquatic Culture" Exhibition


As a joint exhibition by TIEM(Turkish&Islamýic Art Museum) and Adell Fixture, the Exhibition "Ab-i Hayat- Waters of Istanbul and Aquatic Culture" will meet the audience at Turkish and Islamic Art Museum in Sultanahmet between15 May and 15 August. Along with the faucets and taps from the Adell collection, healing cups, water bottles, baths utensils, towels, embroidered clothes etc will be on display with engravings, postcards, and maps of waterways, fountains and plates of the fountains.

Water considered sacred in all religions and cultures Water is an indispensable source of life. Water is life, it represents power and viability. Throughout the history; fountains, baths, cisterns and aqueducts emerged works of such understanding. Istanbul is a significant center of such culture for centuries which is evident in many works relating to the water.

Collection of outstanding examples of the Water Culture, Adell Fixture will take steps by this exhibition towards the protection of the water culture and its conveying to future generations with a social responsibility.

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The museum of Turkish & Islamic Arts has a very good ethnography section that includes a fully-furnished nomads' tent, a 19th-century Ottoman parlour and other rooms.

Open: 9am-4.30pm Tue-Sun. Admission: TL10.

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This excellent museum looks over the Hippodrome and is well worth a visit. Constructed in 1524, the building was formerly the palace of Ibrahim Pasha, who was the first grand vizier to Suleiman the Magnificent.

The collection includes notable examples from the Ottoman (14th to 20th centuries),
Seljuk (11th to 13th centuries), and earlier periods beginning in the 8th century of Islamic calligraphy, tiles, manuscripts, and one of the world's best collections of carpets. There's also ethnographic displays on various cultures in Turkey, particularly nomad groups (see next tip).

Open: 9am-4.30pm Tue-Sun. Admission: TL10.

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The palace of Ibrahim Pasha houses the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Works. During the Ottoman centuries, the palace served as the loggia for the sultan during imperial ceremonials in the Horse Square, such as circumcision feasts and military parades. Now functioning as a museum, the structure seems still to hold many secrets from the past. The museum provides an ideal outdoor setting for a cup of Turkish coffee while overlooking the Hippodrome through a wooden lattice. The beautiful minarets of the mosque seem to replicate and echo the vertical shafts of the obelisks.

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This is an excellent museum in Sultanahmet, right on the Hippodrome/At Meydani across from Sultanahmet Camii (the Blue Mosque). The large building is 16th-century palace of Ibrahim Pasa, a powerful Ottoman official and Grand Vizier to Suleyman I (kanuni - the law-giver, or "the Magnificent" to western Europeans).

The museum has a nice colelction of just what it says, with heavy emphasis on the Turkic world, especially Anatolian Turkish art like Seljuk and Ottoman, as well as a very impressive collection of old Turkish and Persian carpets, some very large and some very old.

The museum is also interesting for the building. It is rare for Istanbul in that it is an old palace of an Ottoman official other than one of the many imperial palaces of the sultans and their families. Moreover, Ibrahim Pasa was a very important figure in Suleiman's reign and very famous to students of Ottoman history. Finally, the balcony overlooking At Meydani gives some nices views of the area.

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Over 40000 items are on display in the former palace of Ibrahiam Pasa, the most gifted of Sülyeman's many grand viziers.
The collection was begun in the 19th century and ranges from the earliest period of Islam through to modern times. Each room concentrates on a different chronological period or geographical area of the Islamic world.

the Turkish and Islamic Arts' Museum is located next to the Blue Mosque in Sulanahmet Square. it demonstrates the historical flow of arts from the very early Turkish-Islamic states to the last ages of Ottoman Empire.

the items include clothes, kitchen instruments, wood carving items, stone crafting, jewels, ceramics, even some doors of old mosques and many other things; and the museum is really successful in giving an idea to a traveller about the Turkish and Islamic arts.

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Housed in an old palace overlooking the Hippodrome the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts charts the history, influences and changes in Islamic Art through the use of pottery, tiles, artefacts, calligraphy, glass and metal work, manuscripts and friezes.

There are some wonderful exhibits, especially the beautiful calligraphy and decorated manuscripts, vibrantly coloured tiles and also the exquisite, elaborate pins and brooches used to decorate turbans.

The later galleries and the Main Ceremonial Hall contain one of the world’s foremost collection of antique carpets. The exhibition explains the different types of carpets and how some styles are named after certain artists i.e. Holbein, because they were featured in paintings by those artists. In the west Turkish carpets were so prized that they were used as table coverings rather than on the floor, thus showing the wealth of those who owned them.

The museum also has an Ethnographical Section which includes a reconstruction of a traditional Yurt dwelling and also details of how natural dyes are made from such things as plants, dried flowers and even crushes insects.

All the exhibits are well displayed with descriptions in Turkish and English There is a lot to take in however the museum also has a lovely tea room where you can refresh your senses and feet and, in summer, sit out on the terrace with beautiful views over the Blue Mosque.

Open: Tue-Sun. 9.00am-4.30pm

museum is situated in the palace of Ibrahim Pasa built approx.1520
most interesting islamic artefacts are exhibited on 2nd floor, which includes pottery, ceramic, unglazed ware , metalwork, Koran
manuscripts, but i was most impessed by the rugs, finest in the museum collection and by wooden doors, window shutters with very complicated ornaments on it