# Sabiha Al Khemir

Sabiha Al Khemir or Sabiha Khemir (Arabic:صبيحة الخمير) (born 1959) is a Tunisian writer, illustrator, and expert in Islamic art, whose work is concerned with cultural bridging and cultural dialogues. She was the founding director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. She was born in Tunisia and grew up in Korba, Tunisia, where she attended Koranic school as a child. She is fluent in and lectures internationally in English, Arabic and French in addition to speaking Italian and Spanish. Her multifaceted approach has been widely recognized. She is known for using themes relating to the metropolitan location and identity in her literature and art.

## Education

Al Khemir graduated in 1982 from the University of Tunis, École Normale Supérieure, with a degree in English Literature. In 1986 she received an MA (with distinction) in Islamic Art and Archaeology from London University, School of Oriental and African Studies, and in 1990, a Ph.D. from London University, School of Oriental and African Studies. In 1990 she was a Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States.
Some of her first scholarly activities were evident in her Ph.D. dissertation, "The Palace of Sitt al-Mulk and Fatimid Imagery," London University, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK, 1990.

## Islamic culture and art career

Between 1991 and 1992, Al Khemir was a consultant for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York for the exhibition "Al-Andalus: Islamic Arts of Spain." She traveled in Europe and North Africa in search of objects and history that would provide the basis for the show. "…She wrote a close study of ten examples of Quranic manuscripts to show how different styles of calligraphy developed in the Islamic world…The year of the Al-Andalus show was significant: 1992 was the five-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's famous voyage in 1492, which was also the year when Islamic rule came to an end on the Iberian peninsula." This experience inspired one of her later essays, "The Absent Mirror," first published in "Meetings with Remarkable Muslims," Eland Books, UK, 2005.
In 1992–1993, Al Khemir produced two documentaries broadcast on Channel 4, UK. From 1993 to 1996, she was a consultant for the Nour Collection Inc., Khalili Collection of Islamic Art.
She authored a major work on figurative Islamic art ("Figures and Figurines, Sculpture from the Islamic Lands (7th–19th century)," Khalili collection Series, Oxford University Press and contributed to "Seals and Talismans," Khalili Collection Series (both forthcoming). She was the subject of a short documentary for Central Television, UK, titled "Take 15" in 1993.
Between 2001 and 2004, she worked internationally as a consultant and also as an Islamic Art Tutor and Lecturer, The British Museum Diploma in Asian Art, London, UK.
Al Khemir served as the founding director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar from 2006 to 2008, having joined as a consultant from 2003 to 2004 when she provided research and documentation for the developing collection. In 2005-2006 she was named the chief curator / acting director. She has been recognized for her vision in establishing a program for the museum that emphasizes the contextual place of the art and the educational program that began well before the museum was officially opened in November 2008. She was effective in making the collection grow with the acquisition of a number of unique works of art.
She curated and wrote the catalog (in French, Arabic and English) for the Louvre Exhibition "From Córdoba to Samarkand, Masterpieces from the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha" (2006), the first museum presentation of some of the pieces that would become the core of the museum's permanent collection. Al Khemir's choices for the exhibition show "all the essential elements of Islamic art: the arabesque, geometry and calligraphy. … It is sublime, but Sabiha Al Khemir wants the objects in the collection, while giving joy, to change our perceptions of Islamic art and correct some common misapprehensions …Sabiha Al Khemir hopes that the manifest beauty of the objects will lead people to a new appreciation of Islamic art, and that this museum will interpret its history and traditions for a modern audience, just as Pei's building finds a contemporary, modernist language for historic Islamic architecture. Thus the collection and building are metaphors for one another."
In November 2012, Al Khemir was appointed as the first Senior Advisor of Islamic Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. Al Khemir was hired by the museum to enhance the presence of Islamic art in its exhibitions and collections.
In March 2014, Al Khemir's exhibition "Nur: Light in Art and Science from the Islamic World," a wide-ranging presentation of Islamic art, moved to the Dallas Museum of Art after its run in Seville at the Focus-Abengoa Foundation. The exhibition's central theme was the Arabic concept of "nur," which has a metaphysical dimension beyond a visual, physical meaning, as in the Quranic phrase "light upon light," signifying God as the light of the world. "With her deep knowledge of Islamic objects around the world, Ms. Al Khemir was able to secure several works that have never before been shown in the United States, including four pages from the 'Blue Koran' of ninth- to 10th-century Tunisia; a 19th-century, six-and-a-half-foot-long gouache of the zodiac, originally from Iran, that has never been on public view; and several 11th-century crystal chess pieces that have never before left Spain."