A 1930s college
Seven galleries round grassy courtyards.
Yeo Jiun Tzen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Yeo Jiun Tzen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Yeo Jiun Tzen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Yeo Jiun Tzen — CC BY-SA 4.0
A quiet museum in a handsome historic building, put up in the early 1930s under Rajah Charles Vyner Brooke as the Malay teachers' college, and turned into a museum of Islamic heritage in 1992. Its seven galleries are set around grassy courtyards, so you move between them in the open air as if through an old school. The first gallery tells how Islam arrived in these lands and spread between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and holds a replica of the Kaaba's covering. Then come galleries of traditional weapons such as the kris and swords; decorative arts and household wares, including Chinese porcelain with Arabic inscriptions; Malay costume and music; Islamic architecture with models of famous mosques; and science, trade, education and literature in Islamic civilisation, besides a Quran corner. Entry is free. It opens Monday to Friday from nine to quarter to five, and at weekends and on holidays from ten to four. It is a few steps from the Borneo Cultures Museum and the old City Mosque, so combine the three in one morning. It is one of the best museums here for Arab visitors, showing how Islam became part of Sarawak's identity.
Seven galleries round grassy courtyards.
How it spread in Sarawak and the Malay world.
Among the decorative arts and old wares.
Jalan P. Ramlee, near the Borneo Cultures Museum
Borneo Cultures MuseumThe largest museum in Malaysia and the second largest in Southeast Asia, opened 1 minute walk4.6
Kuching City Mosque (Old Mosque)One of Kuching's loveliest and most distinctive landmarks: a mosque with pink wa5 minutes walk
Textile Museum SarawakA small, elegant museum in the Pavilion Building, a three-storey colonial buildi7 minutes walk
Carpenter StreetOne of Kuching's oldest streets and the heart of its Chinatown, running behind t8 minutes walk4.4
Old Court HouseAn elegant white complex from the era of Sarawak's White Rajahs, built by Charle8 minutes walkYes: it is one of the city's loveliest old buildings and gives a picture of Muslim history in Borneo you will not find elsewhere. An hour is enough.