The British Museum plans to open two new galleries for its Islamic artifacts.
Albukhary Foundation of Malaysia funded the undisclosed amount with the hopes to offset the image created by IS militants.
Acccording to Syed Mokhtar Albukhary, the foundation’s chairman, people should make more aware of the value of art and artefacts from the Islamic world, especially at the time the terrorist group known as ISIL destroying the Islamic heritage in Iraq.
“The British Museum … has been building this collection, without them we would not have any history,” Mokhtar told Reuters.
In April 2012, the museum hosted the world’s largest exhibition on the Muslim Hajj, “Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam” directed bt Neil MacGregor had attracted almost 150,000 visitors.
“There was clearly a huge hunger in the public in Britain to know more about the cultures of the Islamic world,” MacGregor told a news conference.
“That started us thinking very hard about the importance about thinking about the Islamic world in this way.”
According to Venetia Porter, the lead curator on the project, for the first time the museum would be put on view the links between its Islamic collection and its core collection from Europe.
“The really important thing is to actually put this Islamic collection right in the heart of the museum,” she said.