1989 was a year of action for the Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, possibly cementing the organisation’s position on the international art and culture scene. The DAI hosted an exhibition from Sweden and a companion lecture on Early Islamic Coins, participated in loans to five different exhibitions scattered throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, published five books and continued hosting lectures by visiting scholars and publishing the DAI newsletter. And, lest we forget, this was also the year the DAI was preparing its first travelling exhibition: Islamic Art and Patronage: Treasures from Kuwait and the accompanying catalogue.

Objects relevant to Timur and the Princely Vision travelled to the Smithsonian’s Freer-Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in California. The Turkish and Islamic Art Museum in Istanbul’s Ibrahim Pasha Palace included DAI ceramics in their Iznik exhibition. L’Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, France, included loans from the DAI in two exhibitions: Les Sciences dans la Civilisation Arabo-Islamique and Tapis Present de l’Orient a l’Occident. Finally, six weeks after closing Timur, LACMA opened Romance of the Taj Mahal with several objects from the DAI.

Curators Manuel Keene and Salam Kaoukji prepared a new “Bilingual Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah Guide”, providing more information on the objects on display in the Kuwait National Museum. The DAI also published three volumes of “Al-Murshid” by Professor Abdullah el-Tayib and the catalogue in Arabic and French, with an English supplement, titled “Les Premieres Publications Europeennes sur la Civilisation Islamique & Arabe”.

Other than the opening of the Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah galleries at the Kuwait National Museum in 1983, this was probably the DAI’s biggest year to date. It was full of promise: what was done was excellent; what was coming would be better.