Malacca Islamic Museum

The Melaka Islamic Museum is located in Jalan Kota, only a stone's throw away from the Dutch Square. Directly facing it is the Police State Contingent Headquarters. The Melaka Islamic Museum, housed in a stately three storey building, was built in the 1850s to record the advent and development of Islam in the Peninsular and the South East Asian region. The building has been gazette as an antiquity under the Antiquities Act 1976.

The Islamic Museum features eight main exhibition areas, each with its own theme. The many interesting and rare exhibits arranged in chronological order gives visitors a brief perspective of the coming of Islam to Melaka and its spread to the rest of the country. It also shows Melaka's ancient links with other centers of Islam in China, India, Arabia and South East Asia.

Amongst the exhibits are outsized editions of the Quran, some with enlarged Arabic characters as much as four of fives inches broad, a striking copy in Mandarin and a hand written copy. Also displayed are periodic books publish on Islam. Another section exhibits Islamic artifacts such as a twenty-inch Keris display box minutely inscribed with Quran verses, coins and weaponry intricately worked with khat calligraphy and Islamic inscriptions from the Quran.

There is also a round porcelain plate of Dutch origin decorated with Islamic inscription that pertains to the Dutch occupation. Exhibits also include several paintings of the older mosques in Melaka including the Peringgit Mosque, built in 1720. Standing unobtrusively in the Museum compound is an inscribed stone in Arabic that provides the first record of Islam being the official religion of a Malay rulers in the Peninsula during the 13th century. A flood unearthed the two feet high stone found in a place 32 miles from Kuala Terengganu in 1902. Another stone in the compound is said to be the tombstone of an Islamic ruler, Sultan Malik Al' Salih who died in 1297. It was found in Pasai, Aceh in the neighboring island of Sumatra.

Operating Hours

9.00am to 5.30pm

Closed on Monday

Tel: 6062822973

Fax: 6062826745