My rabidly left of the intersection self-hating Jewish political science professor in college had only one good thing to say about Israel: there’s a museum of Islamic Art in the Jewish half of Jerusalem and no equivalent counter example in the Muslim world. That is how I heard about the museum.

The museum is even in one of the nicest and most expensive areas of Jerusalem.

You know you’ve been in Israel a while when you’re checking out a museum of Islamic art. Having grown up in a Christian country, I have issues with Christian idolatrous art (despite loving Caravaggio’s use of gradients before it was training data for AI) rather than Muslim art which I know little about.

Expecting to see a bunch of geometric patterns and Arabs, I was quite surprised. While there is a smiling very pretty lady in a hijab behind the counter, the staff appears to be Jewish as are the visitors and much of the art is secular art and Jewish art from places that happened to be Muslim countries. There’s also the founder’s watch collection mostly from Switzerland … and it’s quite impressive.

Of the limited actual Muslim art, some include pictures of Mohammed. What the Fatima is that? I thought they kill people who draw Mohammed and they don’t draw people at all because it’s idolatrous. No wonder why Arabs kill each other.

Jewish Art in the Islamic Art Museum

Most of the art is secular in nature with a smattering Jewish art from Muslim countries . . . here’s a few examples:

I happen to like this quote from some Muslim poet:

Depictions of Human Form

See the guy with the flaming head in the painting? Seems he didn’t get the memo to keep back from the burning bush or he’s a peasant attacked by Trogdor.

Turns out that’s Mohammed – instead of a halo behind him, like a Christian would do, he’s on fire in this artwork from IRAN drawn in about 1590! Now Iran tortures and kill you in Iran if you drew one of these examples in the museum.

Also from Iran – they look Jewish though I don’t think Persian Jews wore peyot like this:

There’s even a little bit of Coptic art, which is Christian art from Egypt with its own pictures of idols showing that naming this museum “Islamic art” is rather misnomered. I guess “Museum of Art from about 1100 CE to 1900 CE from Egypt to India (Hodu to Kush), with a concentration on the area in between … and Swiss watches and clocks, oh, and some modern stuff that isn’t actually art” just isn’t as catchy.

Maybe some bird idolatry from Islamic art?

How about a pig-rabbit idol surrounded by human totems?

Museum arrangement

The museum is arranged such that on the upper floor is modern stuff – mostly by Jewish artists and seemingly having nothing to do with Islamic art, as far as I can tell, such as the painting by Tamar Karavan of Tel Aviv, 2019. (It says “photography” on the plaque next to the painting?) I think she’s giving her doppelganger a brocha on Friday night while the doppel without dapples uninterestingly reads comics.

On the second floor is art sorted by Muslim periods of conquest … there’s a room with Ottoman art, Mughal art, and so forth.

On the first floor, there is another section of Islamic-area art, and in the center of the first floor one room about Islam – the only part of the museum directly about Islam and it’s more of a documentary than anything else.

In the unmarked bottom floor, you find the impressive, glimmering watch collection.

On the second floor I heard some barefoot guy screaming at a woman with a rhinoceros-goat-peacock soul showing in her shadow. I walked over, and found it was a story about getting married and getting the father’s approval, as best I understood – it was in Hebrew and given to a camp visiting … hence, I couldn’t get to see it from the first floor:

Islam Section

Seems the only thing missing are the Torah scrolls. They’ve got the ner tamid (forever light) above … and there’s the geometric patterns I thought I’d see all over the museum.

This helpful explanation for Jews explains that despite Friday being their holy day, Muslims still do work. They also give sermons from a minibar, though you can pray from home to avoid that. Which … why do that? Muslims don’t drink alcohol and apparently, it’s fine if served by the Imam. (Be careful what you take seriously in this article.)

This movie about the pilgrimage to Mecca is plain confusing in Hebrew. All the words they use, e.g. “mitzvah” and “oleh regal” sound like Judaism. Jews go up to the Temple (or, we did) three times a year and Muslims be like … “nah, once is enough”. Once a year? “No, just once.” How is that enough? “Well, it counts most when Ramadan falls in July and August and it’s 110 degrees in Saudi Arabia and you’re supposed to walk back and forth in that seven times. Trust me, you don’t do that twice.”

Watches and Clocks

The founder of the museum was a big collector of watches and clocks … his collection is here in the unlabeled basement. Quite a collection of glimmering shiny stuff with hands dating from the 1400s to about the 1800s:

This one is fun – they put Sisyphus to good use telling time:

On the left is a clock that looks very French because it is. On the right is a grandfather clock from the 1400s – still working! (They called a “closet clock” at the time since it’s before the song about Grandfather’s clock in the 1800s):