Islamic Arts Biennale 2025

Artistic Director

Amin Jaffer

Dr. Amin Jaffer is Director of The Al Thani Collection, an encyclopedic holding of more than 5,000 works of art spanning millennia, representing the vision of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani. Previously Senior Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London, and International Director of Asian Art at Christie’s, Jaffer has authored and edited a number of works including Furniture from British India and Ceylon (V&A, 2001), Luxury Goods: The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker (2002) and Made for Maharajas: A Design Diary of Princely India (2006). Jaffer was co-curator of the V&A’s blockbuster exhibition Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500–1800 (2004) and Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts (2009) and was co-editor of the associated books. He edited Beyond Extravagance: A Royal Collection of Gems and Jewels (2013, second edition 2019) and co-curated the exhibition From the Great Mughals to the Maharajas: Jewels from The Al Thani Collection at the Grand Palais, Paris, and the Palazzo Ducale, Venice (2017). In 2018, he curated a double exhibition in the Forbidden City, Beijing, Treasures from The Al Thani Collection, and edited the associated publications. Working with Martin Chapman, he co-curated East Meets West: Jewels of the Maharajas from The Al Thani Collection at the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco (2018–2019). In 2019, he curated Man, God and Nature in the Ancient World: Masterpieces from The Al Thani Collection at Tokyo National Museum. Jaffer oversaw the creation of The Al Thani Collection museum spaces at the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, which opened to critical acclaim in November 2021. Since its inception, the space has presented exhibitions in partnership with prestigious institutions such as the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon; the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca D’Oro, Venice; and the V&A, London. The next exhibition, A Taste for the Renaissance: A Dialogue between Collections, the second in a series of three exhibitions held in collaboration with the V&A, opened on 6 March 2024.

Artistic Director

Abdul Rahman Azzam

With a BA and DPhil in Middle East and Islamic history from the University of Oxford, Abdul Rahman Azzam is the author of Saladin: The Triumph of the Sunni Revival (2008), The Other Exile (2017), and O Regresso de D. Sebastião (The Return of Sebastian) (2021). Between 2007 and 2017, he worked as Director of Communications and Cultural Advisor to Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser Al-Missned, Chairperson of the Qatar Foundation (QF). In 2010, he led the partnership between QF and the British Library, which has to date seen nearly three million documents digitized. He was a member of the Joint Advisory Board of Northwestern University, as well as the Qatar National Library, designed by OMA/Rem Koolhaas. Previously, Azzam was the Managing Director of The Islamic Texts Society, as well as the founder of Hood Hood Books. He is a member of the KITAB project, a group of historians and computer scientists who employ cutting-edge computer sciences and digital humanities to explore historical Arabic texts in completely new ways and to expand the frontiers of knowledge about one of the world’s largest and most complex textual traditions. In 2019–2020, he worked on a cutting-edge digital humanities collaborative project to develop digital methods for research into the biography of the Prophet. He is currently working on a digital humanities network analysis project on power and patronage during the time of Saladin. Azzam worked as a Senior Expert Advisor on AlMadar for the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in 2023.