Jakarta to work with France’s Musée du Louvre on new Islamic museum

Photo: An Acehnese woman prays at the grand mosque in the tsunami-hit city of Banda Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra January 18, 2005. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

JAKARTA - Jakarta will build an Islamic museum in collaboration with France’s Musée du Louvre, as a symbol of Islamic civilisation in the capital, Ahmad Juhandi, Head of Jakarta Islamic Centre (JIC) Secretariat told Salaam Gateway.

“In 2015, we visited Musée du Louvre’s Department of Islamic Art and expressed our intention of establishing an Islamic museum in Jakarta. The Embassy of France made it possible for the head of the Louvre’s Department of Islamic Art, Yannick Lintz, to work with the JIC,” said Juhandi.

According to him, Musée du Louvre’s Department of Islamic Art will provide supervision, technical and branding assistance. The museum will be constructed in the JIC compound and is expected to be completed by 2018.

Covering two floors across 2,000 square metres, the upgrading of facilities and transformation of the allocated space will cost no more than 1 billion Indonesian rupiah ($75,000).

“The funding will come from the local government budget. We are preparing for a memorandum of understanding with the Louvre and we will start to plan the budget this year. We’re aiming for the museum to be completed next year,” said Juhandi. 

He added that the French museum has asked for artefacts from Indonesia to expand its own collection that is largely comprised of items from the Middle East. Juhandi gave the examples of a minbar from a mosque in the Pekojan district and calligraphic works from the Cirebon Textile Museum. 

According to Juhandi, JIC will also collaborate with other institutions to expand its collection. This includes bringing back to Indonesia manuscripts written by 19th century Islamic scholar Habib Usman bin Yahya, who served as the Grand Mufti of Batavia. They were taken to the Netherlands by the Dutch East India Company, or the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC), during its rule of Indonesia. They are currently in the hands of Leiden University.

"There are two important things for the museum to attract visitors: our collection of Islamic historical heritage and connecting all narratives to present to the public," said Juhandi.

JIC was built in 2003 in the northern Jakarta district of Kramat Tunggak, a now-gentrified area that was once home to more than 1,600 sex workers. The JIC’s operating costs, at around 6 billion Indonesian rupiah ($450,000), are fully covered by the Jakarta local government.

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