Museum of Islamic Art: Key to Kaaba and the Enchanted Shirt.

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Are you interested in Islamic archaeology and history? If you are really interested in them, we suggest you should gather your friends and visit the Museum of Islamic Art to explore its Islamic treasures.

One day, I went with my friends to the Museum of Islamic Art in Bab El-Khalq square in Cairo. We enjoyed discovering a lot of new secrets.

"The museum resembles a civilized painting which shows creativity" said by the journalist Baraa Maged.

We noticed that there are two gates to the museum and we were also impressed by how its façade is decorated with Islamic motifs and bright colors.

As we walked into the Museum, we discovered that it contains artifacts from the Umayyad till Ottoman era, displayed in 25 halls. Moreover, its exhibition halls contain 100,000 items from Egypt, India, China, Iran and Syria.

During our tour, we also realized that the Museum doesn’t contain Islamic art only, but it also has a department for Science and Medicine which exhibits instruments for nose and ear treatment, as well as surgical tools. Furthermore, the museum has a department for manuscripts; where we found the oldest Quran, which goes back to the Umayyad era, and it was written on deer bones.

Many tour guides were welcoming the visitors. We met Hassan Ibrahim who guided our tour through the museum halls. First, he told us about the Khedive Abbas Helmy II who established the museum 117 years ago.

Then, he started the tour by taking us to the department of metalwork to see the Key to the Kaaba which is inlaid with gold and silver, and decorated with the inscription of the name of Sultan Al-Ashraf Sha'ban as well as verses from the Quran. Looking at the key was really mesmerizing.

Afterwards, we heard a shocking story from Hassan about a mysterious item in the Museum. The Enchanted Shirt. It is 137 c.m long and made of linen. Hassan said that The Blue Elephant movie tackles the real story of this shirt. Also, princes and military commanders used to wear it in the battles to protect them.

We took a closer look at the shirt, we saw obscure symbols, incantations, geometric shapes, and Quranic verses. We also noticed some bloodstains, which aroused our curiosity to ask Hassan about them. Hassan said, "The last one who wore it was killed."

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Shorouk loves to try new things. She loves nature, the sea and she prefers night to day. She loves watching movies and she is passionate about subtitling ever since she subtitled episodes from La Totfea Al Shams and Hagar Gohanam series for her subtitling course. She also loves reading news and to cope with what is happening. She loves to follow fashion and to do shopping.

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