By the end of 1985 all the elements currently associated with the Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah could be found on that year’s list of activities. Excavations, seminars, and academic studies were added to a calendar that included education programmes, lectures, exhibitions, loans, and publications. The Dar al-Athar was growing . . . fast.

Three publications were released in 1985, two in conjunction with exhibitions. “Masahif San’a”, the catalogue and exhibition, came first, in March. An Arabic translation of “Treasures of Islam (Kunooz al-Fan al-Islami)” followed in June; again in parallel with an exhibition of the same name. Also published in June was a critical look at “The Evolving Culture of Kuwait”, the DAI’s first book not related to objects in the collection.

The Masahif San’a exhibition was held here in Kuwait and was very well received. It included eighty folios of the earliest known parchment pages of the Holy Qur’an, found in the ceiling of the Grand Mosqu in San’a. The DAI was the first museum on the world to exhibit these folios, thanks to the efforts of the Yamani and German scholars who worked on them.

The DAI participated in three other exhibitions, Treasures of Islam in Geneva – this time at the Musee Rath, Islam Konst och Kultur at the Statens Historiska Museum in Stockholm, and India Art and Culture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

A seminar on Masahif San’a, presented by Al-Qadi Ismail al-Aqwa, Abdul-Muhsin al-Medij, Marilyn Jenkins, Gerd R. Puin, and Ursula Deibholz, led the education and lectures programme. It set the standard for the year quite high and subsequent speakers met the challenge. A roundtable discussion featuring Dr Adbul Hamid Sabra and Dr Edward Said proved lively. Lectures by scholars (including Dr Esin Atil who would be the editor of a DAI catalogue five years later) both teased and fed the appetites of the audience. A second course on Islamic art and history provided a base of knowledge that added significantly to the enjoyment of other DAI programmes.

The exciting new addition to the DAI portfolio was archaeological excavations, this year at Oxyrhynchus (now al-Bahnasa) in Upper Egypt. Geza Fehervari led a team that explored the Islamic strata of that city. This excavation project continued for three years, yielding a wealth of archaeological finds, new information and a published report.
From King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Ahmed al Zaila’l began an exploration of tombstones, specifically tombstones in The al-Sabah Collection.

The tracks established in 1985 became the foundation for DAI’s future. The organisation’s calendar will continue to grow, but largely in the areas institutionalised this year.