15 paper permits, each 210 x 148 mm Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation Here in the reception hall of the Biennale, Ahmed Mater (b. 1979, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia) welcomes visitors to the Hajj Terminal with an array of contemporary and older artifacts associated with the “infrastructures of service” surrounding the pilgrimage, and the experience of being a pilgrim itself.

Central to the display are a number of paper licenses once issued to those who had applied to be water carriers around the Haram Mosque. The distribution of water was a traditional urban occupation and is still a vital service to pilgrims today. The water carriers’ documents are richly textured with the personal details of each applicant—passport photograph, fingerprints, and descriptions of eye color and other physical characteristic —as well as the markers of bureaucracy such as stamps, staples, and checklists. Also shown are other objects from the relatively recent past, including the earthenware pots that held water from the Zamzam well and carriers in which elderly people or those with disabilities could be transported. In assembling these items here, Mater acknowledges the support services offered to pilgrims during the Hajj and celebrates the generosity of the individuals who perform them.

Sound installation, 18 speakers Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation Joe Namy (b. 1978, Lansing, Michigan, USA) is an artist whose work with sound often explores questions of memory and identity. For this immersive installation he has collected recordings of the adhan from many different countries and times, to create a celebration of the universal power of the Muslim call to prayer.

Within this constant there are a multitude of variations. These include what is considered to be the first recording of the adhan, from the Haram Mosque in Makkah al-Mukarramah in the late 1800s, and the earliest recording from the Maguindanao in the Philippines. Among contemporary contributions we hear the call from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the Sultan Mosque in Singapore, thought to be the first mosque to use loudspeakers, alongside voices from as far afield as Kaga in Japan, Tbilisi in Georgia, Durban in South Africa, the Sahara region in Morocco, Cologne in Germany, and Hamtramck, Michigan, USA. These different locations add unique sound textures that evoke their environment and community.

The work is designed for each voice to be heard both individually and simultaneously with the others, a reminder of the global congregation of the faithful united through a practice that echoes from the first days of Islam.

Projection, 5 x 21 m Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

The call to prayer directs the minds of all worshippers to the Haram Mosque of Makkah al-Mukarramah. This unification of the Muslim community (ummah) through ritual focus on Makkah takes physical form in pilgrimage, when millions of believers come to the city to perform together the unchanging rites of Hajj.

For over a decade, Nora Alissa (b. 1985, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) has been recording her experience of the sacred space of the Haram through photographs, in a project called Epiphamania. Shot through her clothing, on a camera hanging from her body, the photographs have an immediate, undirected quality. In the images, the people at prayer and the buildings around them seem ethereal, and material forms dissolve. These photographs, projected here at large scale, often blurred or superimposed, transport us to an otherworldly place, outside time and geography, where we are immersed in the personal experience of ritual and prayer. The panoramic views of Makkah punctuating these images anchor them again in that one particular location, at the focal point of Islam.

Made by Muhammad Muqim Al-Yazdi for Shah ‘Abbas II Probably Isfahan, dated 1057/1647–8 Brass, 37.8 cm diameter (max.) History of Science Museum, Oxford, 45747

The astrolabe serves the faithful by day and night, being used to indicate the times of prayer and the direction of Makkah al-Mukarramah (qiblah). Linking heaven and earth, it is one of the most sophisticated scientific instruments ever made, but its use is so simple that anybody, whatever their age and background, can master it. Invented in ancient Greece, the astrolabe was perfected in the Islamic world, combining knowledge and beauty in the service of Islam. This magnificent example, an instrument fit for a king, was made for Savafid ruler Shah ‘Abbas II, whose name is spelled out in the web-like openwork of the front plate.

No two astrolabes are exactly the same, but typically they have a circular base plate which holds one or more engraved metal disks, each designed to be used at a specific earthly latitude.

Over these the front plate, a kind of star map, rotates freely to indicate the positions of the Sun and stars at any time of day or night. The astrolabe is held vertically and, using a sight attached to the back of the base plate, the altitude of the Sun or any star can be read off a degree scale engraved on its rim.

Wood, contact speakers, 7 x 5 m overall, audio Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

The adhan is recited according to a melodic system (maqam) that defines the pitch, phrasing, and timbre of each passage, while its rhythm is structured around the Arabic poetic meters called buhur (lit. “the seas”). The maqam system has geographical variants and changes in mood, from a steady beat summoning the faithful at dawn to a quicker tempo at sunset.

The Arabic word maqam means “position,” and in Wave Catcher Basmah Felemban (b. 1993, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) places forms in space to give material expression to the call to prayer. She has adapted a method of visualization in which spheres represent sounds, and their size, shape, and placement indicate pitch and duration. They resemble traditional drums, or the fishing traps used on the east coast of Saudi Arabia, and their materiality refers to the teak wood used in fishing and trading vessels of the Hijaz, echoing the maritime associations of buhur. A soundscape of ocean waves reinterprets elements of the adhan, and reminds us of the invisible sound waves that carry it to our ears.

Jute, thread, brass, each unit 16 x 8 m Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation Additional support generously provided by the Samdani Art Foundation

Kamruzzaman Shadhin (b. 1974, Thakurgaon, Bangladesh) grew up listening to stories of displacement. His mother told him of the homes of her childhood, especially her grandparents’ house beside the Teesta river, lost when the partition of Bengal in 1947 forced her family to resettle in Bangladesh. Another inhabitant of his village, Johura Begum, also recalled her journey across the new border, from her birthplace in Assam, down the Brahmaputra river to her eventual home. Such stories shaped the artist’s imagination and with them he inherited a strange longing for places where he had never lived.

The River Remembers responds to these stories. Its multiple monumental veils have been woven using the traditional shika knotting technique—Johura Begum’s own craft. Different colored threads correspond to the color of the water at various points on the Teesta and Brahmaputra rivers, while brass disks hang in front of the regions remembered by the two women. Using the powerful imagery of rivers to suggest the unseen forces that can direct the course of our lives, this very personal work speaks eloquently of migration, ecology, and, most of all, of dislocation and homecoming.

Thread, steel, light projection Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation Muhannad Shono (b. 1977, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) is an artist whose multidisciplinary work is driven by the power of narrative. In this installation for the Biennale he takes the viewer on a journey that evokes an evolving personal relationship with the spiritual. The work responds to the architecture of the galleries, combining their large scale with the delicacy of thousands of fine threads that emerge from and disappear into the walls of the buildings. We follow these threads through different spaces where our perception of them is affected by light—at times they shine bright, at others they appear obscure, even black. The journey suggests no fixed destination, only the essential changeability of the individual’s understanding of faith. Each viewer brings their own experience to the work, connecting in different ways with its expression of discovery and loss, certainty and uncertainty, questioning and acceptance, the tangible and intangible nature of the spiritual in our lives.

Multi-screen video, audio Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation We are bodies of water: it is in every cell, in our flesh, blood and bones, and passes through our skin, the porous border between our inner selves and the elements. It is a source of life but has the potential for destruction, a duality we feel within us. Water takes many forms, and as tears becomes an expression of our most intense emotions.

In I Pray for the Rain, the artist Sarah Brahim (b. 1992, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) explores our relationship with water—physical and spiritual—through projected images of people performing their ritual ablutions (wudu’). Presenting the video on multiple screens, she emphasizes the universal significance of water to the body. Our affinity with water is extended to other natural materials in her contemplation of the practice of tayammum, using stones, dust and sand for purification when water is absent. This work takes its place within Brahim’s wider investigation of the human body and its extension into the world beyond it, at the internal and the external, and at the relationship between the two.

These leaves of parchment come from an important early copy of the Holy Qur’an, one of only a small number in which the text is written entirely in gold Kufic script. In this technique, the script was first written with a size (an adhesive liquid) before powdered gold was applied, leaving golden letters. The letters were then outlined in brown ink to give them definition.

More than 120 leaves from this copy of the Qur’an survive. Some pages in other sections bear early donation (waqf) inscriptions indicating that parts of the manuscript were once in the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia, but the abjad system used here—a way of indicating numbers using letters of the alphabet—suggests that it was produced further east, perhaps in Egypt, Greater Syria, or Iraq. It has been estimated that, when complete in its original form, this copy of the Qur’an would have contained around 2,000 leaves, divided into 28 volumes. Two of the leaves shown here bear Qur’anic verses with instructions on how to wash before prayer (5:6–7).

Parts of a Qur’an manuscript

with portions of the text of the Holy Qur’an from chapter 5 Al-Ma'idah to chapter 29 Al-‘Ankabut

Abbasid, 4th century/10th century

30 leaves of parchment, each 14.7 x 21 cm, with gold, ink, and opaque pigments

5 lines of Kufic script per page; vowels marked by red dots, hamzah by green dots, and shaddah by blue dots; verse divisions marked with gold rosettes and marginal medallions

National Museum of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, 31/1

Kolona min Torab (2023) Fired clay, 1288 units, each 35.5 x 21.5 x 3.5 cm Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Un Cinquième #1 (2018) Oxidized metal and copper, 28 pieces, each 14.8 x 21 cm

In much of his work, artist M’barek Bouhchichi (b. 1975, Akka, Morocco) considers experiences of race and ethnicity, and how the multiplicity of identities that exist within the Muslim ummah shape how Muslims interact with the world around them. In the two works shown here, Bouhchichi attends to the existence of Muslim minority populations and marginalized communities. The floor installation Kolona min Torab explores the bond that unites all people—“We Are All Made of Earth.” Using clay from the Ourika valley and natural pigments from across Morocco, he has created tiles in various shades that address the complexity of difference in geography, geology, and people. The shape of each tile resembles a doorway or mihrab. On the adjacent wall, Un Cinquième #1 (“One Fifth”) is a grid of metal panels representing plots of arable land. Landlords grant sharecroppers a fifth of the land that they cultivate for their personal use, often the least fertile. The sharecroppers manage to sustain themselves by developing sophisticated techniques of agriculture and water management, creating abundance from lack. The artist demarcates their “fifths” using copper, making visible and honoring their labor.

Gravel, steel, 6 x 6 m, 1.5 m high (max.) Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Water is scarce on the Tunisian island of Djerba. The danger of conflict over this essential natural resource pushed the ethnically and religiously diverse islanders (Sunni, Ibadi, Jews, Arabs, Berbers) into a unique political and social adaptation. They rejected the idea of an urban center in favor of a system that divided land equitably into small agricultural holdings, which allowed each family to be self-sufficient. Across the island the shortage of resources also led to the development of distinctive architectural forms that creatively reimagine the use of space. Of all its buildings, family mosques—intimate and minimal constructions—are paramount examples of religious humility and environmental sustainability.

Architects and scholars Beya Othmani (b. 1992, Tunis, Tunisia), Ziad Jamaleddine (b. 1971, Beirut, Lebanon), and Iheb Guermazi (b. 1985, Tunis) have taken the islanders’ strategy of reduction to its logical conclusion. Their deconstructed mosque embeds the essential elements—mihrab, ablution bowl, stool—in a mound of gravel that echoes the topography of Djerba. The use of a readily available material responds to pressing ecological concerns and pays respect to the natural world as a precious gift from God. 

On the walls, an illustrated lexicon of other spatial and architectural features of Djerba amplifies the lessons of the family mosque.

Plant oil and graphite on paper, each 58 x 44 cm Elévation, Sur la Ligne 1, Sur la Ligne 2, Méditation 2, Résonance 1, Résonance 2 (2006) Ink on paper, each 42 x 30 cm Courtesy of Selma Feriani Gallery, Tunis The work of Yazid Oulab (b. 1958, Sedrata, Algeria) explores the links between the physical and the spiritual, and his process often involves repetitive gestures that have a direct relationship to ritual and meditation. In his olive oil paintings and ink drawings he finds visual means to express the inner states of those who pray. In the series Les Orants Habités Par Leur Espace, Oulab shows single human figures in the various postures performed during Muslim prayer. Each of the figures emanates an aura of olive oil, suggesting simultaneously the radiation of energy from each devotee and their inward focus. Oulab often works with familiar, everyday materials, and here the oil, a staple of the Mediterranean region, has soaked the paper to make it translucent. More meditating figures are seen in Oulab’s ink drawings. The use of ink refers to Arabic calligraphy, and straight or curving lines resemble strokes of the pen. In the expanse of the white paper, each small figure is alone but united with others through sharing the act of prayer.

Earth, wood, triptych 130 x 130 cm, 130 x 100cm, 130 x 130 cm, cards, each 80 x 20 cm, wooden pegs Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation Natural materials—wood, coal, earth—are essential to the work of Fatiha Zemmouri (b. 1966, Casablanca, Morocco), who uses processes of construction and deconstruction, regeneration and transformation, to explore themes of human mortality and destiny. This new work builds on her past series Habiter la Terre (“To Inhabit the Earth”), and explores the intersection of thought and physical mark- making—the spiritual made tangible.

Zemmouri and researcher and curator Soukaina Aboulaoula (b. 1993, El Jadida, Morocco) have visualized the sound of a prayer recitation as a wave form, and converted this into a physical drawing tool.

Using the tool, and a repetitive, meditative motion, Zemmouri has shaped into broad geometrical arrangements a layer of earth covering a wooden frame. The earth is from Tahannaout, where she lives and works. Part-sculpture, part-engraving, Grammar of the Earth is accompanied by a set of six instructions each appealing to a different sense and preparing us for mindful contemplation.

Mixed-media installation, 4 x 4 x 8 m, audio 7′ Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Digital artist Bassam Al Refi (b. 1984, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), curator and researcher Lama bint Mansour (b. 1988, Alkhobar, Saudi Arabia), multidisciplinary artist Eyad Maghazil (b. 1985, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), experience designer Mohammad Jastaniah (b. 1985, Los Angeles, USA), and musician and sound producer Mothanna Anber (b. 1984, Jeddah) form the collective DAL (Digital Arts Lab). This multidisciplinary team have combined their skills to deliver a contemporary immersive experience that weaves together spirituality and science.

Inspired by the use of astronomy to determine Islamic religious ritual, they have created an environment that links personal prayer and meditation with the passage of day and night. Light suffuses the space and changes in color, the frequency of these shifts modulating the intensity of sound generated by solar panels. The artwork refers to the spiritual significance of the rays of colored light in the sky at different hours, attuning us to when prayers must be performed.

Isfahan, possibly mid-14th century/mid-20th century Ceramic tile, 305 x 190 cm, depth of niche 70 cm General Authority of Civil Aviation, Riyadh

In a mosque the mihrab signifies the direction of Makkah al-Mukarramah, the qiblah, and the imam stands before it to lead the congregation in prayer. It is traditionally claimed that the first concave mihrab—al-mihrab al-mujawwaf—was erected in the Prophet’s Mosque in Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah during the reign of the Umayyad Al-Walid I, who ordered a radical expansion of that building and the Prophet’s Tomb in 88/707. Its location and its connection with Al-Walid’s campaign to rebuild the congregational mosques in the major cities of his empire ensured that a concave niche became a universal symbol for the mihrab throughout the Muslim world.

This mihrab is formed from pieces cut to shape from larger monochrome tiles and assembled like a jigsaw puzzle, a complex technique developed in Persia and Central Asia. It comes from the mosque of the South Terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah,inaugurated in 1401/1981. Although this mihrab is in a Safavid style, new research suggests that it was made much more recently.

Probably Tabriz, early 10th century/early 16th century

The use of a prayer carpet such as this in a mosque is not obligatory, but its design of multiple niches (saff) allows each believer to find their own place within the congregation. It also reinforces the focus towards the qiblah marked by the mihrab, and makes the performance of prostrations more comfortable. In the design seen here, a palmette floating in the plain ground of the niche marks where the forehead of the kneeling devotee would touch the carpet.

Prayer carpets with multiple niches are associated almost exclusively with mosques, although paintings show that they were also used in other contexts, such as educational institutions (madrasahs). A painting of a school, in a copy of the Khamsah of Nizami made for Baisunghur Mirza bin Shah Rukh in 835/1431–2, shows a pair of them. There is a limit on the size of carpet that can be woven on any loom, so for large spaces pairs or multiple carpets would have been needed. Five sections of carpet with the present design are known, and may have come from more than one complete carpet: three of these sections are shown together in the Biennale for the first time in a century.

Cotton thread, dye, wire, beads (glass, wood, stone, plastic), semiprecious stones, 3.3 x 9.84 m Courtesy of the artist and blank projects, Cape Town

Through performance, sculpture, and installation, Igshaan Adams (b. 1982, Cape Town, South Africa) explores aspects of politics, race, and religion as they have affected both his personal history and that of his community. His intricate woven artworks employ a range of natural and synthetic materials, but many draw inspiration for their form and pattern from traditional Islamic textiles. For the present work he acquired a number of used prayer rugs from close friends and family living in the Bonteheuwel district of Cape Town, where many Black and Colored families were forcibly moved by the apartheid authorities in the 1960s. Well-loved and worn, each rug records the imprint of its owner’s body in the act of prayer over many years. Adams has interpreted these patterns of wear using beads and semiprecious stones to create a series of new textile pieces. In combination they form an impressive composite work that speaks of the value of collective worship.

Single-volume Qur’an manuscript

Perhaps made for Baisunghur Mirza bin Shah Rukh or Ibrahim Sultan bin Shah Rukh

Probably Herat or Shiraz, c.820–45/1420–40

372 leaves of paper, each 81 x 63 cm, with ink, opaque pigments, and gold

11 lines of muhaqqaq and rayhan script per page, with some thuluth

Notice of endowment (waqf) to the Rawdhah of the Prophet and endowment seals of the library of the Hujrah of the Prophet dated 1256/1840

Maktabat al-Mushaf al-Sharif, King Abdulaziz Waqf Libraries Assembly, Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, 1138

This monumental Qur’an manuscript combines exceptional size, exquisite illumination, and calligraphy that is elegant and dramatic. It was once even larger than it appears now: judging by the amount of trimming around the edges, the leaves would originally have measured approximately 100 by 75 centimeters, very close to the dimensions of the largest sheet of paper available at the time.

Unfortunately, little remains of the opening illumination, but the style of these fragments and the hundreds of verse markers in the margins, as well as the distinctive and unconventional calligraphy, is very similar to work produced in Timurid studios in the 820s and 830s/1420s and early 1430s. The calligraphy resembles pieces executed by and for two princes, Baisunghur in Herat and Ibrahim Sultan in Shiraz. They were great patrons of the arts of the book and it is probable that this manuscript was associated with one of them, or perhaps with their father, Shah Rukh (r. 808–51/1405–47). Stylistically a Herat origin is more likely, but Ibrahim Sultan copied several Qur’an manuscripts himself, including two very large examples that he endowed to Mashhad and Shiraz.

Probably Mosul, Iraq, dated 717/1317–18

This is the earliest candlestick surviving with an inscription recording its dedication to the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah. The Prophet’s Tomb was famous for the number of its lamps. According to one account there were as many as 400 of them, their radiance a physical reminder of the name of the city—Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (“Madinah the Illuminated”). Since many of the lamps were gold or silver, over the centuries they were requisitioned to pay for repairs to the mosque, or fell victim to the frequent fires that ravaged the building.

This candlestick probably survived because it was made of brass. It can be attributed to Mosul, which by the time the candlestick was made had been producing inlaid brasses for over a century. Most of these were for secular use, and the poetic inscription, parades of human figures, and zodiacal signs on the candlestick show that it was originally intended for a palace setting. About fifty years later it was dedicated to Madinah by the notable governor of Baghdad, Amin al-Din Mirjan (d. 775/1374). To render it acceptable for use in the Prophet’s Mosque many—but not all—of the figures were scratched through.

Possibly Tabriz, after mid-Rajab 745/November 23, 1344

This wooden Qur’an box (rab‘ah) is a rare survival from the first half of the 8th century/14th century. Both it and the multi- volume Qur’an manuscript it once contained were endowed to the burial place of Fakhr al-Din Choban, a member of the family who ruled Azerbaijan, Anatolia, and Iraq in that period. The box was the work of Hasan, who was Fahkr al-Din’s own grandson.

The wood has been masterfully carved with inscriptions on a ground of tightly spiraling leafy scrolls. The sides of the box carry verses from the Holy Qur’an, while the details of the donation are on the lid, including the date of Fakhr al-Din’s death in the middle of Rajab 745/late November 1344. Hasan signed his work in the square compartments at the corners of the lid. The quality of the thuluth script reflects the significant development of the Arabic cursive scripts by the illustrious calligrapher Yaqut al-Musta‘simi (d. 697/1298), secretary to the last Abbasid ruler. Yaqut had six celebrated followers, several of whom were active in the region at the time this box was made.

Made for ‘Izz al-Din Malik bin Nasir-Allah Muhammad by Hasan bin Qutlubak Possibly Tabriz, after mid-Rajab 745/November 23, 1344 Wood, bronze, 26 x 43.5 x 43.5 cm The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait, LNS 35 W

Probably Hamadan, dated middle of Safar 710/middle of July 1310

Some of the most splendid Qur’an manuscripts ever produced were associated with the Ilkhanid Öljaitü, ruler of the Mongol Empire between 703/1304 and 715/1316, and his powerful viziers (chief ministers) Rashid al-Din Fadlallah Hamadani and Sa‘d al- Din Savaji. These manuscripts were all made in sets of 30 volumes, one for each thirtieth part of the text (juz’), with exquisite calligraphy, illumination, and bookmaking. The pages shown here are the only known survivors of one such set, and represent an important discovery in the field of Islamic cultural and political history.

The colophon—the text that records the name of the calligrapher and illuminator and the date of completion of a manuscript—is clearly legible, but the commissioning inscription has been obscured by two leaves being pasted together. This might have been done intentionally, for political reasons, but enough is visible to read the name of the patron as Rashid al-Din. He sponsored the production of many manuscripts, but only further analysis will determine whether he commissioned this one for himself or for Öljaitü. Rashid al-Din ordered its scribe, Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Mahmud Al-Hamadani, to copy another Qur’an manuscript for Öljaitü a few years later, in 713/1313.

Two sections from a Qur’an manuscript with text of parts of juz’ 4 and most of juz’ 7 Copied and illuminated by Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Mahmud known as Badr Al-Hamdani for Rashid al-Din Fadlallah Probably Hamadan, dated middle of Safar 710/middle of July 1310 44 leaves of paper, each 39.3 x 35 cm, with ink, opaque pigments, and gold, in a later plain brown leather binding 5 lines of gold monumental rayhan script per page Endowment seals of the library of the Hujrah of the Prophet and the Rawdhah of the Prophet dated 1256/1840 Maktabat al-Mushaf al-Sharif, King Abdulaziz Waqf Libraries Assembly, Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, 6

Probably Ushak, second half of the 9th century/15th century

Carpets with a design of multiple niches (saff carpets) were made in reference to the mihrab in a mosque. The form of the niche arches in this section of carpet copies that used in Ottoman architecture for both mosque doorways and mihrabs—which, by marking the direction of prayer, were doorways to a greater truth. The pointed tops are consistent with mihrabs of the 9th century/15th century, while the stepped sides echo the tiered elements (muqarnas) that structured many mihrab niches.

Its design may appear simple, but the carpet is a work of art of considerable refinement. The loom width meant that it had to be woven from left to right rather than vertically, so we can tell that even the half-niche at the far left was completely purposeful, since it was the first to be woven. For this very restrained but precise design the weavers used costly colors of the greatest intensity. Blocks of pure color—brilliant blue, gold, and red—are also seen on the interiors of innovative bookbindings produced by the imperial workshops of Mehmed II from the 1460s, in combination with understated, all-black exteriors. This carpet may have been commissioned for the court around this time.

Section from a congregational prayer carpet Probably Ushak, second half of the 9th century/15th century Wool, 128 x 329 cm State Museums in Berlin – Museum for Islamic Art, Berlin, I 25/61

144 steel cubes, 35 x 846 x 798 cm Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro, Gallery London In this monumental floor installation by Idris Khan (b. 1978, Birmingham, UK), 144 blue steel cubes each echo the proportions of the sacred Ka‘bah in Makkah al-Mukarramah, which all Muslims must try to visit in their lifetime. Words of prayer are sandblasted on their surfaces, the overlapping lines of Arabic script recalling the five prayers performed daily by Muslims. In their arrangement the cubes suggest the mass of pilgrims from many lands gathering around the Ka‘bah, or the ranks of worshippers in a mosque, all unified physically and spiritually in the act of congregation. At the same time this is a work of minimalist art, pared back to its essential elements. Idris Khan’s works explore ideas around time, memory, and spirituality. They emerge from processes of creation and erasure, adding new layers while retaining traces of what has gone before. Here, he makes us reflect on the rituals of faith—congregational prayer (salat al-jama‘ah), circumambulating the Ka‘bah during pilgrimage (tawaf), the recitation of Qur’anic verses (tilawah)— and their importance as repeated experiences shared by individuals and the community.

I,000 Material One sculptures, dimensions variable, audio, 12′ Haroon Gunn-Salie (b. 1989, Cape Town, South Africa) is an artist and activist. He often collaborates with communities to create works that confront past injustices and their lingering effects in the present. He is named after Abdullah Haron, a South African imam whose studies as a teenager in Makkah al-Mukarramah—where he later met King Faisal—underpinned his emergence as a community leader. An outspoken critic of apartheid, Haron was murdered while in police custody in Cape Town in September 1969. His funeral was attended by over 40,000 mourners, acting in defiance of the apartheid authorities. Developed by Gunn-Salie in collaboration with Haron’s widow, Galiema, and daughter, Fatiema Haron-Masoet, Amongst Men conceptually re-creates this event. A thousand individually cast kufi caps (worn by Muslim men across Africa and South Asia, and often associated with mourning) evoke the scene at the Gamedia Maqbara, the cemetery on the slopes of Table Mountain where Haron was buried. The accompanying audio includes extracts from one of his sermons and from a poem by his friend James Matthews, and the voices of his daughters. Amongst Men simultaneously commemorates Abdullah Haron and invites the onlooker to consider the intersecting histories of Islam and resistance to colonialism and apartheid.

Makkah al-Mukarramah has a number of historical cemeteries, of which the oldest is Al-Ma‘la, located about one kilometer to the northeast of the Haram Mosque, at the foot of Jabal al-Hujun. The Prophet (pbuH) reportedly called it “the finest of cemeteries,” and it was the burial place of his Companions, including his wife Khadijah and his children. Al-Ma‘la holds the graves of people from all strata of Makkan society, and of leaders from other parts of the Islamic world. People who died in Makkah while performing Hajj and ‘Umrah have been buried there. The cemetery has expanded significantly over the centuries, and continues in use today.

Al-Ma‘la is the source of a large number of early tombstones that carry inscriptions rich in historical information. Over the years these tombstones were moved from their original location. A number were broken and their inscriptions eroded in the process, but around six hundred, dating from the 1st century/7th century to the 9th century/end of the 16th century, have been preserved in various museums and specialized centers in Saudi Arabia. Some are early and inscribed in Hijazi and Kufic script, but there are others in naskh or thuluth. Many have beautiful embellished borders. The inscriptions refer to people from the Quraish families who ruled Makkah, to men and women, parents and children, aristocrats, scholars, and merchants, and to others from various Islamic lands. At each expansion of the cemetery, and in nearby excavations, more tombstones are being discovered and recognized as authentic documents of Makkah’s past. 

Sound installation Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

For centuries, al-Ma‘la cemetery in Makkah al-Mukarramah has been the final resting place for city residents and pilgrims alike, Muslims from many nations and from all walks of life.

After Hijrah is a sound installation inspired by a selection of historic tombstones from the cemetery. Artist Sarah Al Abdali (b. 1989, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) has conducted rigorous research to uncover the family trees of those commemorated by the chosen tombstones, and used these to script “clouds” of sound narrating episodes of shared human experience. As the visitor pauses to listen, moments of intimacy are created in which stories from the past find new life in the present. This is a particularly personal artwork for Al Abdali, who was able to trace her own ancestors in the course of this project. On a wider level, the “voices” of the exhibited shawahid (“witnesses” in Arabic) testify to the social and religious histories which have formed the unique culture of Makkah.

Silk thread, fabric panel, each unit 70 x 450 cm, audio 1′ Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation This artwork evokes the Ka‘bah, the focal point of Muslim spiritual practice, and the act of circumambulating it (tawaf). Creating a new covering for the Ka‘bah is an act of veneration dating back to the early days of the Muslim community. Replaced every year, this black curtain (kiswah) is steeped in a history of craftsmanship and produced with great care and expense. For this installation, Huda Lutfi (b. Cairo, Egypt) has collaborated with the embroiderer Ahmad Al Qasabgi, whose grandfather served as head of the workshop that produced the kiswah in the 1920s. Immersed in darkness, all the viewer can see is a shimmering white panel encircling the room. Embroidered on it in black is a Qur’anic verse: “And to Allah belong the east and the west…” (Holy Qur’an, chapter 2 Al-Baqarah [The Cow], verse 115). The kiswah, meant to protect and adorn the Ka‘bah’s exterior, is here concealed and made an object of contemplation, turning the mind toward Makkah al-Mukarramah.

Cotton, wood, 480 x 240 cm Private collection Pilgrimage to Makkah al-Mukarramah is a singularly unifying event for Muslims, when the faithful from every corner of the globe come together to worship as one. During pilgrimage, one of the most visible displays of this unity is the ihramat—two pieces of unsewn white cloth, either plain or with a woven pattern—worn by all males. The ihramat show that a person is in the state of physical and spiritual preparedness necessary to perform pilgrimage. Being in ihram erases social and economichierarchies and emphasizes the equality of all people under Allah. In his work, Saudi artist Ayman Yossri Daydban (b. 1966, Palestine) focuses on questions of belonging and the preservation of tradition in the face of globalizing forces. In this wall installation, he uses authentic ihram cloths to examine the expression of shared spiritual identity. Daydban is drawn to the different patterns in ihram cloths from different countries, which are ultimately unified through the color white, which he interprets as forgiveness. The cloth panels, stretched over simple wooden frames, form a shape that expands upwards from a narrow base to a broad top, suggesting the lifting of spirits as pilgrims approach the Haram Mosque.

Floor installation Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Within the precincts of the Haram Mosque, the Ka‘bah stands at the heart of Islam. The most distinctive building in Islamic architecture, it has played a major role in shaping the character of the arts of Islam. Many historians have devoted their lives to studying, recording, and transmitting their knowledge of the Ka‘bah. Yet, we have no definitive account of its evolution as a building.

We do know that the Ka‘bah—built by prophet Ibrahim—has been reconstructed several times. The original structure seems to have included the semi-circular area called the Hijr Isma‘il, and though this is an open area, it forms part of the holy space of the Ka‘bah. Descriptions of these restorations have been conveyed to us by Muslim scholars such as Abu Al Walid Al Azraqi. Architect and calligrapher Nasser Al Salem (b. 1984, Makkah, Saudi Arabia) has drawn on these sources to create a work that contemplates important phases of the Ka‘bah’s history. He has converted textual histories of the Ka‘bah into drawn forms, descriptions into calligraphic letters, where building and text are related through their proportions. His installation, outlining the Ka‘bah’s evolving footprint at full size, enables the visitor to experience and appreciate the scale of human and sacred space.

The curtain (sitarah) of the Ka‘bah door is the most important piece in the suite of textiles that covers the building. In 1443/2021, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ordered that the Ka‘bah be covered on the first day of Muharram every year. The curtain is heavily embroidered with gold and silver threads on a black silk ground, and its composition combines scrolling decoration with inscription panels and roundels enclosing verses from the Holy Qur’an.

The design of this curtain has developed from that of the earliest recorded examples, which were more colorful. The royal patron’s name has also moved to a panel at the bottom of the curtain, which here contains the name of King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, his title as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and the year the curtain was made in Makkah al-Mukarramah, 1411/1990. The inscriptions and decoration were designed by the Saudi master calligrapher Abdulrahim Amin Bukhari (d. 1418/1998), who joined the Kiswah Factory, which had been established in Makkah by King Abdulaziz, in 1382/1962. His design for the curtain is used every year, and to this day, the name “Abdulrahman Amin"; is embroidered on some pieces of the kiswah. Bukhari also wrote the calligraphy on the current Ka‘bah door.

This door for the Ka‘bah, the fifth in the building’s history, was made at the command of King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud (r. 1351–73/1932–53), who founded a unified Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The door it replaced had been installed over three hundred years earlier and its deteriorating condition led the king to order the making of a new one at his own expense. Construction began in 1363/1944 under Mahmoud Yousuf Badr, known as the “Sheikh of the Goldsmiths,” and the door was finally installed on Dhu al-Hijjah 15, 1366/October 31, 1947 in a ceremony attended by Crown Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and the notables of Makkah al-Mukarramah.

The door is of the highest craftsmanship, with a steel base supported by iron bars, and aluminum (originally teak) shutters covered with gilded silver and copper plates. The decoration consists of a frame of flower and leaf motifs enclosing cartouches and roundels containing Qur’anic verses, the profession of faith (shahadah), and thirteen of the Names of God, all in a thuluth script by the calligrapher Abdulrahim Amin Bukhari. This door remained in place until 1399/1979, when it was replaced with the current one at the order of King Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

Made at the order of King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud Made by Mahmoud Yousuf Badr

Makkah, dated 1363/1944 Steel, iron, aluminum, silver, gilded copper, 342 x 182 cm The General Presidency for the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophets Mosque, Makkah al-Mukarramah

Adam, Eve, Others, and a Meteorite (2023)

Granite, basalt, resin, photovoltaic panels, bespoke electronic device, LEDs, speakers, 2.5 m high, audio

Commissioned by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation

With a pair of monumental standing stones, Haroon Mirza (b. 1977, London, UK) has created a celestial clock that responds to the different rhythms of the sun and moon. The first structure, a cube clad in local basalt, lies at an angle out in the open, as if it has just fallen from the heavens. It carries an array of solar panels powering LEDs and speakers embedded in a second stone that is split in two. These emit a display of sound and light. The duration of this performance changes according to the moon phase, longest at the new moon and shortest at the full moon.

In its relationship to the cycles of the moon, Mirza’s work reflects on the first marking of time on the hijri calendar. Meanwhile its dependence on solar power parallels the connection between the sun and the timing of ritual prayer. The split stone resembles the famous Al-Naslaa rock formation near Taima in Saudi Arabia, in which pictures were carved 4,000 years ago. Juxtaposing this reference to prehistoric monuments with cutting-edge technology, Mirza comments on humanity’s ever-evolving endeavor to understand the movement of the celestial realms and its effects on our lives.

The demarcation of a boundary is the most minimal form of architectural intervention. At its simplest, it can be the inscription of a line in the sand or the placement of stones. In the rural religious spaces in the Saudi desert documented by the artist Moath Alofi, he has come across many examples of a simple line of stones arranged in a square that define a plot, with a small indent along one of the edges determining the direction of Makkah al-Mukarramah. This architectural gesture, humble and slight, resonates with a rich and complex history of places of worship in Islam. It builds on religious practice which calls for modesty and simplicity, demanding a consideration of ecological impact and restraint on material waste that is strikingly fulfilled by this form of space-making.

This installation in the landscape, developed by Alofi and curator Sumayya Vally, asks what can be learned from the act of defining a boundary, and examines the ritual performances that such spaces can host.

Palm, sand, 3 x 12 x 8 m

Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

One of the first mosques to be built was the Mosque of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuH) in Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah. With simple marks on the ground and a low fence, it was essentially an open space that connected directly with the sky above it. For their site-specific installation, Sara Alissa (b. 1990, Paris, France) and Nojoud Alsudairi (b. 1994, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) of Syn Architects have designed an enclosure that recalls the humility of this first musalla (“a place to pray”).

The walls are formed from local palm reeds, woven together by Saudi artisans, recalling how temporary prayer spaces were once created along travel and pilgrimage routes. Gaps in the walls allow glimpses out to the immediate landscape where indigenous plants bloom, evoking the historic gardens of Madinah. Light from above falls on a slit that stands for the mihrab, emphasizing the role of the sun as a compass, determining the direction as well as the times of prayer. Simple maintenance—raking the ground and compacting the earth that supports the walls—is performed each day. Without these acts of care the structure would disappear entirely over time. Through their repetition, its identity as a musalla and a civic space is sustained.

Multi-media installation, 90 x 30 x 2 m Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Traditionally, mosque courtyards featured a sundial that indicated the time of the five daily prayers, and mosques served as spaces where the general public could align their sense of time with the movement of the heavenly bodies. Inspired by the architecture of the Hajj Terminal, Hamed Bukhamseen (b. 1991, Kuwait City, Kuwait) and Ali Ismail Karimi (b. 1989, Manama, Bahrain), the founders of Civil Architecture, have reimagined the sundial. The round opening (oculus) in each unit of the terminal’s canopy, which limits the amount of direct sunlight passing into the space below, acts as an inverted sundial. The installation in turn tracks the movement of a beam of sunlight rather than a cast shadow. This sunbeam passes over lines on the ground corresponding to the hours, months, and seasons, as well as sculptural objects that indicate significant moments in Islamic history and refer to the Biennale’s public program. Our sense of the sun’s movement and the color of the sky provide a general indication of the hour, in contrast to the abstract notion of time created by digital clocks.

Stone, stained glass, plaster, 2.8 x 1.6m Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

On April 15, 2022, in the course of an incursion into the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, Israeli forces destroyed 30 colored-glass windows (qamariyyahs) in the Dome of the Rock and Aqsa Mosque. Each window, of hand-carved plaster with individually inset pieces of glass, takes six months to remake. The technique is a dying craft with a few practitioners in Yemen, one in Cairo, and another in Jerusalem. The reconstruction of the windows is currently blocked by the Israeli authorities, but it would take 15 years to repair all of them.

In response, Dima Srouji (b. 1991, Palestine) has resituated the fragmented qamariyyahs within this sculptural installation to narrate the permanent presence of the Palestinian community despite the violence at hand. The abstracted glass shapes in the window’s stone frame make reference to society, geography, history, theology, and time. They include allusions to the landscape surrounding the Aqsa Mosque, the destruction of the windows, and bullet holes in its wall. They also draw on a catalog of Islamic geometrical and plant motifs. This sculpture honors the Aqsa Mosque precinct as the largest Palestinian public space in Jerusalem, and the courage and perseverance of the people who use it.

Sound installation and speakers, 10 m, 9 m and 8 m diameter, 13′ 20″ audio loop Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

The Friday Sermon (khutbah) has always played an important role in shaping collective life, public opinion, and common space in Muslim communities. Every Friday, and in every mosque of assembly (jami‘ masjid) in the world, the imam delivers a speech before the noon prayer. The number of listeners may vary, from a few dozen worshippers in a small neighborhood mosque to millions at the height of Hajj in Makkah al-Mukarramah, but the power of the sermon transcends its religious setting and derives from the eloquence of the preacher.

In this sound installation, Noura Al Sayeh-Holtrop (b. 1983, Kuwait) creates a set of acoustic spaces in which we hear archival recordings of Friday sermons from as early as 1959. These discuss the importance of Islam’s holiest sites—Makkah al-Mukarramah, Al- Madinah al-Munawwarah, and Jerusalem—and the key message of unity. Overlapping at times, these circles of sound offer the audience a scaled version of the physical experience of gathering for the Friday sermon, evoking the original urban context.

A Series of Personal Questions Addressed to a Boat That Sailed Its Last Journey on the Red Sea (2023)

Salvaged wooden boat, 10 x 3 m, audio 90′

Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

James Webb (b. 1975, Kimberley, South Africa) is an artist known for site-specific installations that place objects and sounds into unfamiliar contexts, opening up new ways to interpret them. This work is the latest in an ongoing series in which a recorded voice poses questions to an inanimate object. The questions imply that the object is aware of itself, its surroundings, and wider historical and philosophical issues. The voice pauses to leave time for a reply, but no answers are ever heard or suggested, although the presence of the object can be thought of as a response in itself.

Here the object is a salvaged wooden boat of a traditional type used in the waters around Arabia. The artist’s questions (in Arabic and English), written specifically with this boat in mind, encourage the audience to consider the many spiritual, social, ecological, and geographic concepts that it embodies. In its materiality the different scales of ecosystem, tree, and wood are entangled. The boat is a vehicle for connection and a bringer of change—through migration, trade, and pilgrimage—and a symbol of local identity, freighted with the history of Arabia and its coast.

Mixed media sculpture, 5.8 m high Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

On Dhu al-Hijjah 10, pilgrims arrive at Muzdalifah, an open plain near Makkah al-Mukarramah, between Arafat and Mina. It is a religious duty to perform the sunset (maghrib) and evening (‘isha’) prayers at Muzdalifah before spending the night there under the stars. In this place, thousands of the faithful from all around the world come together to pray, reflect, and rest.

Wael Shawky (b. 1971, Alexandria, Egypt) vividly remembers a childhood experience of being in Muzdalifah at night—the vast space, the giant lamp posts, and the sound of locust wings, which were widely heard during that particular Hajj season. Despite the great number of pilgrims, the atmosphere was extremely calm, and people were moving regularly in large groups from one direction to another as they completed their prayers. With this kinetic sculpture, a work he has been pondering for 20 years, Shawky hopes to awaken in the viewer the same sense of childlike wonder he felt in this environment.

Mixed media installation, 12 x 10 m Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Abdelrahman Elshahed (b. 1993, Makkah, Saudi Arabia) learned the art of Arabic calligraphy in the Haram Mosque in Makkah al-Mukarramah. In 2012 he received his ijazah—a certificate acknowledging a scribe’s competence and giving them permission to teach others and to sign their own works. He is the latest in a long line of calligraphers who have transmitted their skills from master to pupil through the centuries, in a chain of knowledge that connects contemporary practitioners to the first scribes who wrote down the words of the Holy Qur’an.

Elshahed’s installation is based on extensive research into the history of Arabic calligraphy and his own scribal lineage. In a dynamic spiral arrangement around a central inkwell are 60 wooden boards, shaped like those traditionally used by students learning to read and write. Each bears the name and biographical details of a calligrapher, beginning with the artist himself and his teacher Al-Arafi, and including calligraphic pioneers such as Ibn Muqlah and Ibn Sa’igh. These boards trace a timeline back to the Rashidun Caliphs, who played a major role in preserving and developing Arabic calligraphy, and show how the Companions of the Prophet (pbuH) developed the Hijazi script first used to write the Divine Revelation more than 1,400 years ago.

Steel, reclaimed building fragments, precast concrete, 6.7 x 21.6 x 4.8 m, video projection  Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

This installation by Abdulrahman Gazzaz (b. 1985, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), Turki Gazzaz (b. 1988, Jeddah), and Ghaidaa Gutub (b. 1994, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia) of Bricklab reflects on the history of modern architecture in Saudi Arabia, and the multifaceted ways in which a building may be used. It takes its inspiration from the housing built for pilgrims in Jeddah in the late 1950s, specifically here the accommodation for people arriving by plane, a precursor to the Hajj Terminal. This building was once the gathering place for thousands of Muslims on their way to Makkah al-Mukarramah. Outside it, people would trade goods they had brought with them from all parts of the Muslim world, weaving this everyday economic activity into the pattern of their pilgrimage journey. These regular markets became important sites for cultural connection and exchange.

Bricklab’s minimalist scaffolding structure refers to the original brutalist architecture of the accommodation block. Within it they have housed architectural elements and found objects retrieved from the building, posters, 3D-printed models, a projected video, and recorded aural histories, to create a historical archive of the experience of community—in all its mundane and spiritual aspects—during the pilgrimage.

Wood, each unit 1.3 m, 1.5 m, or 1.7 m wide, overall 40 m long Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

This installation by Lubna Chowdhary (b. Dodoma, Tanzania) celebrates generosity and hospitality in Islam, and communal rituals of eating and praying in all parts of the Muslim world. Its title refers to the meal with which the faithful break their daily fast during Ramadan, often gathering together to do so. Its form—a long, low table—draws on the traditions of the majlis (sitting room), a place where guests are entertained, perhaps sitting on cushions or carpets on the ground. As more guests arrive, more carpets are added, an unspoken symbol for a welcome that can be extended infinitely.

The theme of boundless sharing is reflected in the structure of the table, which is inspired by open-source furniture design. It is made as adaptable modules that can be slotted together in different configurations to suit the occasion. The different widths of the table tops recall overlapping carpets, while their decoration subtly refers to craftsmanship and the Islamic arts of the book. In the hand-inlaid details, the simplest elements of manuscript illumination—ruled lines and small circles—are built into more complex graphic devices in the red, blue, and black of the illuminators’ inks.

Fiberglass and polyester resin, dimensions variable Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

In the mid-1960s, the Gulf States were becoming oil-centered economies, and oil’s by-product, plastic, was gaining popularity as a material for mass-production. The German designer and engineer Wolfgang Feierbach began producing plastic furniture and developing prefabricated plastic houses. In the 1980s, he was approached to design the seating for the Hajj Terminal at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah.

Alia Farid (b. 1985, Kuwait City, Kuwait) has reproduced this futuristic furniture from the original molds. Combining its modular forms in a number of different ways, she has constructed a sculptural installation that explores both the transformation wrought on the landscape by oil, and the experience of the pilgrim. Supported by her research on the medieval Darb Zubaidah pilgrim road and other historic routes, she has created an environment that merges interior with exterior and memory with reality, inviting the audience to investigate the acts of gathering, waiting, and arrival. The rest stops and waiting places of the Darb became sites of transformation and cultural exchange. By reimagining them in a contemporary form, the artist allows us to share the space with Hajj pilgrims of the past as well as the present.

Bamboo panels, 5 x 28 x 19 m overall Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

For distinguished architect Yasmeen Lari (b. 1941, Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan), good architecture must grow out of its local setting and be aligned with the daily lives of the people who will use it. She has developed a zero-carbon construction system using bamboo, lime, and mud, suitable for conditions where more conventional resources are scarce, especially in times of war and disaster.

For the Biennale, Lari has designed a mosque prototype that can be assembled from prefabricated bamboo panels. It is a “pop-up” building, using the same methods that were developed to build thousands of homes for displaced families after the Pakistan floods in 2022. Fabricated by Pakistani artisans trained by Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, under the supervision of Syed Naheem Hussain Shah and Ashfaq Ahmed, the panels are filled with tracery inspired by traditional patterns found on doors in Saudi Arabian houses. Local workers and a team from Pakistan have put together the building to provide a living, active space for prayer on the Biennale site. The project also aims to encourage communities to adopt sustainable construction practices.

Fiberglass, steel and paint, dimensions variable Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation This work is the latest development of a series in which Shahpour Pouyan (b. Isfahan, Iran) pursues an ongoing interest in documenting his origins and challenging rigid perceptions of ethnic labels and identities. In 2014 he took a DNA test, which revealed that his genetic ties extend far beyond his native Iran to include Scandinavia, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East. Architecture is an important element in the artist’s visual vocabulary, and in the first phase of the project he made 33 small ceramic domes, representing historic buildings from all the different countries in the test result. For this new work he has selected three of the domes, based on the three majority traces in his DNA, and scaled them up. Through this project Pouyan personally engages with the reality of human interconnectedness. With a title borrowed from the opening line of a poem by the renowned poet Jalaluddin Rumi, My Place Is the Placeless elegantly investigates notions of nationality, personal history, and belonging.

Mixed-media installation, found objects, dimensions variable Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Sultan bin Fahad (b. 1971, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) is an artist who often works with found objects and memorabilia, reimagining and reinterpreting them and the stories they tell. In Holy Land, he celebrates the souvenirs and other wares that were once sold by merchants to pilgrims in the two holy cities of Makkah al-Mukarramah and Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah. These thermos flasks, prayer mats, bottles, and tins, all decorated in the style of their countries of origin, represent vestiges of an economy now extinct. Bin Fahad has selected images found on them—minarets, palm trees, blooming roses, pomegranates, and figs—and transformed them into a garden of love and joy.

Visitors must find their own path through this grove of gleaming treasures, in an otherworldly environment of mirror tiles and lights. Emerging from this fantastical space, we see the original objects in yet another new way, this time in the pristine environment of a museum showcase. These humble items have been transformed into precious keepsakes of the Hajj, manifesting the place of Makkah in the imagination of Muslims all over the world, and the love they hold for the city whether or not they have ever seen it.

15 paper permits, each 210 x 148 mm

Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Here in the reception hall of the Biennale, Ahmed Mater (b. 1979, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia) welcomes visitors to the Hajj Terminal with an array of contemporary and older artifacts associated with the “infrastructures of service” surrounding the pilgrimage, and the experience of being a pilgrim itself.

Central to the display are a number of paper licenses once issued to those who had applied to be water carriers around the Haram Mosque. The distribution of water was a traditional urban occupation and is still a vital service to pilgrims today. The water carriers’ documents are richly textured with the personal details of each applicant—passport photograph, fingerprints, and descriptions of eye color and other physical characteristics—as well as the markers of bureaucracy such as stamps, staples, and checklists. Also shown are other objects from the relatively recent past, including the earthenware pots that held water from the Zamzam well and carriers in which elderly people or those with disabilities could be transported. In assembling these items here, Mater acknowledges the support services offered to pilgrims during the Hajj and celebrates the generosity of the individuals who perform them.

Pilgrim basketwork carrier Wood and jute rope, 190 x 64 x 47 cm Courtesy Ahmed Mater Pilgrim chair

Wood and textile, 180 x 54 x 90 cm Rawhaa Museum, Alhamra and Oum Aljood Courtesy Mohamed bin Omar Bamushaab Water jugs

Leather, metal and carved wood, dimensions variable Rawhaa Museum, Alhamra and Oum Aljood Courtesy Mohamed bin Omar Bamushaab Water pot Clay, 140 x 65 cm Rawhaa Museum, Alhamra and Oum AljoodCourtesy Mohamed bin Omar Bamushaab

Excavation, 25 m diameter, 2 m deep Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Studio Bound is a design and research practice founded by architects Basmah Kaki, Hessa Al Bader, and Hussam Dakkak. They operate in complex urban contexts across the Gulf, and aim to establish a dialogue between contemporary architecture and the region’s built heritage.

In City as a Mosque, a product of many years of careful investigation, they have created a large-scale installation that honors the small mosques and other places of prayer—formal and informal—of Makkah al-Mukarramah. Beneath the Hajj Terminal’s 1980s canopy there is a circular excavation, its uneven surface suggesting different layers of uncovered history. The area of each place of prayer is marked out by stone tiles in which the floorplan is carved out and overlaid with geometric patterns taken from prayer carpets. The buildings defined so clearly here relate to now invisible forms within the holy city. In this space without walls, these mosques exist only as traces yet retain their spiritual gravity, holding the possibility of future excavation and reanimation.

Zubaidah bint Ja‘far (149–216/766–831), wife of the Abbasid ruler Harun Al Rashid, dedicated much of her wealth and property to charitable acts for the poor, who were compelled to make the long Hajj pilgrimage on foot. She executed numerous projects to install amenities for travelers along Darb Zubaidah, the pilgrimage route from Baghdad, via Kufa, to Makkah al-Mukarramah and Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah. The most important of these, like the road itself, was named after her: ‘Ain Zubaidah (Zubaidah’s Aqueduct). This system of underground canals ran from the heights of Wadi Hunain and Wadi al-Na‘man to the sacred sites and on to Makkah, providing water for residents and pilgrims alike. Along the entire length of the system were wells with shafts extending above the ground. Traces of the architecture still visible today provide evidence of Muslim engineers’ expertise in detecting hidden waters and directing their course.

Zubaidah herself performed the Hajj many times, and one of her journeys is documented in Abu Ishaq Al Harbi’s book Al-Manasik. He recorded several poems praising Zubaidah and her charitable works, and describing the rest stations and lodging houses on the road, wells and springs, and lush pastures for camels. Such poems provide valuable information about the pilgrimage caravans that may not be available in other historical sources. Al Harbi identifies the sites attributed to Zubaidah, from palaces and forts to reservoirs and basins, and sometimes refers to the design of the basins—round, rectangular, or with stepped sides.

Photographic transparencies, 7 lightboxes, each 2 x 3 m Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation Moath Alofi (b. 1984, Madinah, Saudi Arabia) is a contemporary artist, researcher, and explorer who focuses on the cultural heritage and hidden treasures of his homeland. In this photographic series he documents the abandoned musallas scattered along the winding roads leading to the holy city of Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah. The title of the series comes from an Arabic incantation, al-tashahud al-akheer, that translates as “the last witnessing.” The presentation of the photographs on lightboxes the size of billboards emphasizes the buildings’ anachronism: once built by philanthropists to offer a haven for travelers, they are no longer understood as houses of worship, and are seen only by the occasional passerby. Nevertheless the project asks how we can best preserve, repurpose, and respect these structures after their original life, and pays homage to the Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuH) statement that the entire land is a potential place for prayer.

Clay structure, oud chips and stand, 5.6 m diameter, audio Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Many religious and social events in the lives of Arabs and Muslims are accompanied by the scent of oud. This is distilled from a fragrant resin produced in the heartwood of aquilaria (or agar) trees that have been infected by a particular fungus. Transported from forests in Southeast Asia along trade routes to the Middle East, agarwood has a long history as a luxury substance as valuable as gold.

Indiscriminate felling means the aquilaria is now an endangered species in the wild, and cultivated trees are artificially infected. This installation by Leen Ajlan (b. 1997, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) examines the use and appreciation of agarwood. The main structure takes its form from the stump of a felled aquilaria tree, pierced in reference to the inoculation of the tree with disease. Inside, we can sit to hear the sound of rituals associated with oud being performed, and stories of the use of incense. In this work we are encouraged to consider the often conflicting issues of sustainability and cultural significance.

Photographic collages, 200 x 100 cm Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

The Hijaz is one of the most diverse and vibrant regions in Saudi Arabia due to its proximity to both the Red Sea and the holy cities of Makkah al-Mukarramah and Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah. Many visitors pass through the Hijaz to trade or perform the pilgrimage, and many stay, overlaying aspects of their own cultures on to that of the Kingdom.

Rund Alarabi (b. 1993, Qatar) grew up in a Sudanese family with roots in Jeddah. In Circa Now, the artist uses her personal archive of photographs to compose collages using a layering technique that deliberately blurs the existing borders of the individual images, and to find intersections and dialogues between the different scenes captured in them. No cutting is involved, and the original photographs are not altered in any way. They include street scenes, landscapes, domestic spaces, and factories—some places no longer extant—building a world that is instantly recognizable and personally resonant. Yet her manipulation of spatial logic allows the artist to extend it into imagined territories, and what is familiar in one scene becomes a fantastical extension in the next. These collages piece together a history that is both the artist’s own and a broader narrative that reinterprets collective identity and community.

Wood, 2 x 18 x 12 m Commissioned by Diriyah Biennale Foundation

On Dhul al-Hijjah 9, known as the Day of Arafah, pilgrims leave Mina and go to Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Muhammad (pbuH) delivered one of his last sermons (khutbah). They spend the entire day on Arafat in prayer, as it is known as the place where all supplications will be heard and sins forgiven.

Moataz Nasr (b. 1961, Alexandria, Egypt) has composed an impressive sculptural installation evoking the form of Mount Arafat. It is made from thousands of individual wooden pieces, their shapes derived from traditional geometric designs still seen in Makkan architecture today. The combination of small elements to create a larger whole—each piece filling its particular and essential place—mirrors the experience of pilgrims on Arafat, where individuals unite physically and spiritually to stand and ask for Allah’s mercy and protection in the face of life’s challenges. Nasr’s attitude to the unstable nature of existence, at a personal and universal level, is also expressed in the work’s wave-like shape. The ebb and flow of fortune that affects individuals and civilizations alike should not be a cause of despair, for in this cyclical pattern, enduring low points is a necessary condition for experiencing future heights.

Photographic prints on Diabond, 100 x 150 cm, 100 x 133 cm, 150 x 112.5 cm

Pioneering photographer Reem Al Faisal (b. 1968, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) seeks to reveal the sacred in landscape and in people’s lives. Since the 1990s she has been documenting the experiences of pilgrims in different Hajj seasons, simultaneously recording their physical travels and their spiritual journey.

The series of photographs seen here focuses on pilgrims arriving in Saudi Arabia by sea, air, and land. Those showing Jeddah record scenes that are now history, as the port is no longer used in the same way as before. Other pilgrims are seen entering the country via the Hajj Terminal at King Abdulaziz International Airport. Whatever the backdrop, the photographs focus on the faces of the people, expressing joy at nearing their destination. The use of monochrome film chimes with the mainly black and white clothing of the pilgrims and with the colors of Makkah al-Mukarramah itself, the Ka‘bah draped in black and surrounded by devotees in white. At Makkah, the individual pilgrims shown in the photographs will come together as one community to perform this central rite of Islam.

Aya Al-Bakree brings over a decade’s experience in the arts sector in Europe and Saudi Arabia to her role as CEO of the newly established Diriyah Biennale Foundation. The Foundation, chaired by His Highness Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan Al Saud, was created in 2019 with a mission to act as a catalyst for global dialogue between the growing art communities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world. Al-Bakree oversees two art biennales—alternating between contemporary and Islamic art — which will showcase many of the world's leading artists in an inclusive, international platform for dialogue, discovery and engagement. Al-Bakree studied Art History and Global Communications at the American University of Paris. She worked with European commercial galleries supporting leading artists internationally before returning to Saudia Arabia in 2013. She then worked to help develop the Saudi art scene, including presenting artists in Europe and the US. Al-Bakree continues to develop local audiences, support the professional development of artists, and connect Saudi Arabia with the world through art and culture CEO, DBF.

Farida Alhusseini has over 14 years of experience working in the field of museums and exhibitions in Saudi Arabia. She joined the Diriyah Biennale Foundation in March 2021 as Director of the Islamic Arts Biennale with the goal of delivering its inaugural edition, due to take place in January 2023. No stranger to construction projects, Farida started her career at The King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture (Ithra). During her six-year tenure, she led the development of several galleries and partnerships, working with leading institutions such as The Natural History Museum UK, The British Museum, and the American Association of Museums and oversaw the development of the museum’s masterplan and planning manual for Ithra’s annual cultural program. Farida moved to Riyadh in 2016 where she worked as Museum Director at the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies for three years. During this time, she initiated and oversaw several major projects including the acquisition of new collections conservation and cataloguing systems, conservation lab and storage area renovations, development of the exhibition “Faisal: A Life at the Heart of the 20th Century” that travelled internationally, as well as several temporary exhibitions such as Wahj, Masahif Al Amsar, and Takwin. She also previously held the position of Program Director at the Misk Foundation and was responsible for the development and oversight of all exhibitions and public programs for a new science centre under development. Farida graduated with a in B.A. in Social Anthropology and Middle Eastern Civilizations from the University of Toronto and a Master’s degree in Narrative Environments from the University of The Arts London.