Bridge of Knowledge

I spent two years studying Arabic at SOAS (but please don't ask me to talk in the language), so it was quite nice to go back there as a visitor to The Brunei Gallery instead of a student. The topic was, of course, Islam; more specifically on the literature that crossed over from Muslim lands to the West.

The Brunei Gallery itself is quite small, so this wasn't a massive exhibition - we spent much less than an hour covering the whole thing in quite some depth. I was also a bit underwhelmed by the material on display; not because of the quality of the collection itself (which was excellent and varied) but mainly because a lot of it I had seen before; after a few years of attending "Islamic" art and history exhibition I don't think it's too arrogant to say that much of it had been seen before elsewhere. I did quite like the Egyptian stuff though.

But again, that's not a knock on the exhibition itself and shouldn't dissuade anyone from visiting on a lazy Saturday morning like we did. It's free too, so there's really no excuse to pop in if you're in the area.

The exhibition finishes on the 26th March.