2001 was a year of exciting new opportunities. Treasury of the World: Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals was published, as was Glass from Islamic Lands, Stefano Carboni’s book on glass in The al-Sabah Collection. Art in the Islamic World: The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum, a DVD offering scholarly reports, beautiful images and a history of the collection was also produced. Loans to three new exhibitions, El Esplendor De Los Omeyas Codobeses Cordoba at the Archaeological Site of Madinat At-Zahra in Spain, Glass of the Sultans at The Corning Museum of Glass in New York, and Pearls at the American Museum of Natural History, also in New York, brought even more Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah objects to the attention of art aficionados.

The big excitement of the year was the launch of Treasury of the World: Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals, an exhibition of opulent jeweled objects from the courts of the Mughal emperors, started its world tour in 2001. Opening in mid-May at The British Museum in London to great acclaim, the exhibition was equally successful when it moved to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in mid-October, a month after the tragic events of 9/11. The exhibition catalogue by Manuel Keene and Salam Kaoukji was so popular that it was eventually produced in Arabic, English, German, Spanish, and Russian.

Sheikha Hussah spent two weeks in the United States, representing the DAI at several conferences. She spoke at “The Liberation of Kuwait: Dawning of a New World Order?” Conference at the University of Virginia in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait, and the Historians of Islamic Art Association Conference in Chicago, Illinois. At the Denver Art Museum in Colorado she gave the “Curator’s Circle” speech on “DAI -An Islamic Museum without Walls” and a workshop lecture on “Why Collect Islamic Art”.

Amidst all this new, the DAI’s established programmes and projects continued. Cultural Season 6 ended on 29 May and Cultural Season 7 started on 8 October. Performances of The Travels of Ibn Battuta and Aziza ya Kuwait attracted appreciative audience and three editions of Bareed ad-Dar and Hadeeth ad-Dar were published. Islamic Art and Patronage: Treasures from Kuwait travelled to Bahrain’s National Museum in Manama. The exhibition Les Andalousies, de Damas a Cordoue, with objects on loan from the collection, moved to the Fundacion El Legado Andalusi, in Cordoba, Spain. On 1 October, Glass of the Sultans opened in New York City at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, giving the DAI a presence in three exhibitions, in two of New York’s leading museums.

In North America, Europe and Kuwait, the DAI took full advantage of the opportunities available and the organisation and the audience benefitted.