The UAE’s crucial roles in the new Islamic Museum of Australia

Australia’s first Islamic museum officially opens this week. Saeed Saeed speaks to one of its founders and the UAE professionals who helped get this ambitious project off the ground.

The Islamic Museum of Australia. Courtesy Islamic Museum of Australia
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Distance is no barrier when it comes to achieving a dream.

When the Islamic Museum of Australia founders Moustafa and Maysaa Fahour relocated their family to Dubai in 2012 – the former accepted a job offer from the construction company Leighton Holdings – they knew the quest to build the facility wouldn’t be abandoned; it merely required working across multiple time zones.

What they didn’t expect, however, was the UAE being an ideal place to design and execute a 10 million Australian dollar (Dh33million) project more than 11,000 kilometres away from Melbourne.

“If someone told me that we would meet people here who would help us in this project I would have thought they were kidding,” Moustafa says.

“It has been an amazing journey and really just proves that the UAE is a central hub and that anything can be created here.”

The museum is set to officially open in a ceremony on Friday, with the doors open to the public on March 3.

What’s not immediately apparent through the museum’s five pristine galleries (showcasing the large role played by Muslims in Australian society) is the hand played by the UAE’s creative companies in the project’s development.

From the construction to the design, nearly every element of the museum has the touch of a local business; a development, Moustafa says, that occurred naturally.

“The UAE has been attracting some major and innovative companies here,” he says. “Especially when it comes to culture, you can see that museums play a big part in the social fabric. The companies and people I met understand this and were happy to help.”

Using his skills as banker, Moustafa signed up Etihad Airways and Leighton Holdings as the museum’s principle partners.

In a stroke of good fortune, the Australian architectural firm designing the museum, Desypher, branched out from its Melbourne headquarters to the Middle East by opening a new Sharjah office around the time of Moustafa’s arrival in the country.

This resulted in critical meetings being held face to face rather than through 4am Skype sessions – a regular occurrence with construction crews on site.

Upon recommendation, Moustafa hired the Dubai designers North55 to create the museum branding.

Even a rock legend gave his voice to the project; it’s the dulcet tones of the Dubai-based Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) that visitors hear via an audio guide discussing the tenets of the faith.

His voice was recorded in Dubai Studio City’s JR Studio; an audio test of the narration was facilitated by the Sharjah Museum of Islamic ­Civilisation.

Inspiration struck Moustafa even upon his regular afternoon strolls in JBR’s The Walk. Impressed by the popular gift shop Gallery One, he struck a deal with the company to provide stock for the museum’s in-house merchandise store.

Ironically, it was a lack of action that inspired the couple with the museum’s concept four years ago.

Moustafa and Maysaa were despairing in their Melbourne home at the constant barrage of negative stereotypes thrown at Australian Muslims by politicians and local media.

Realising that something needed to be done, the Fahours reached out to a few friends sharing similar sentiments and soon formed a board.

After toying with ideas – from opening a gallery and launching a small community exhibit – they settled on an Australian Muslim museum as the ideal vehicle to educate the public about the faith and what their fellow Muslims Down Under have to offer.

An awareness campaign was then launched to solicit community funding and volunteers for the ­project.

Nearly 80 per cent of the total costs came from private donations and the corporate sector; the rest came from the Australian federal government and state ­government.

While acknowledging that it wasn’t the most conventional way to run a project, Moustafa views the family’s move to the UAE as a ­blessing.

“Looking back, that was the best decision we made,” he says.

“We were busy working all sorts of hours, but it also gave us the mental distance to look at it from a different perspective. Not to mention meeting all these interesting creative businesses here that are really drivers when it comes to culture in the region.”

The museum’s UAE connection will not end at the ribbon cutting.

Plans are being made to host future exhibitions by UAE artists.

“That is something that we are definitely working on,” Moustafa says. “There are so many great artists here that I met who have the same vision and that is to use art to spread social cohesion and multiculturalism. We look forward to working with them.”

• For more information about the Islamic Museum of Australia, go to ­www.islamicmuseum.org.au