Zach Selch tours the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, calling it one of the world's best museums built since 2000. The museum organizes Islamic art by theme—Arabic alphabet, carpets, armor, navigation—with a few exemplary pieces in each room. Visas are easy to get, flights from Dubai are cheap, and you can do it as a day trip.
Chapters
I'm in Doha in Qatar at the Islamic Art Museum. This is one of the— my very favorite museums in the world. I would say it's one of the top 20 museums in the world. I would say it's probably the best museum that's been built since the year 2000. And I like to divide up museums between those that are sort of generalist or holistic like the Louvre, or the Met, or the London Museum, and those that really cover a very, very focused subject. And among those that cover a very focused subject, this is really one of the top 5 in the world, I'd say. Anyway, if you like Islamic art, or if you don't know anything about Islamic art, or if you like art, or if you're just in the Middle East for a couple of days and you have a little bit of time, come to this place. It's one of the coolest things to see in the Middle East. Assuming you don't know very much about Islamic art, it is designed to take a complete novice who has a little bit of appreciation of art in general and teach you about the motifs and the concepts of Islamic art in, in a couple of hours. And the way they've designed it, it's not gigantic like the, the Egypt Museum in Cairo with thousands and thousands and thousands of examples of everything. What they've done is they've chosen a couple of examples of everything, maybe 10 examples of every motif of Islamic art. For instance, in Islamic art, the alphabet is used very often as a symbol or as a, as a part of an artistic structure. So they have a room dedicated to the alphabet and letters as part of Islamic art. Carpets are a big motif. Islamic art, armor, tools used in navigation or medicine. So they have rooms for all of these, and then what they've done, they've taken 10 or 12 really, really good examples, and then they have one perfect example, the best example of alphabet, of alphabets being used to design a bowl, for instance, that kind of thing. Anyway, fantastic museum. Highly recommended. If you're even in— even if you're in Dubai and get a relatively cheap flight, the— there isn't a visa requirement now for most people. You know, it used to be you have to pay about $50 just to get into Qatar. You don't have to anymore. Come in, see the museum, have lunch, boom, great day, then go back where you're coming from. But anyway, great museum. Remember, when you're ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us. We can help.
When you decide it's time to grow your international sales, call us.
