Raqqada / - Islamic Museum

(Local Name: Musée National d'Art Islamique) The interesting Museum of Islamic Art (Musée National d'Art Islamique) in Reqqada is housed in a presidential palace built in 1970, set in a beautiful park.

The exhibits include finds from Kairouan, the Aghlabid residences at Reqqada and Al Abbasiya and other towns in the region. A special exhibition is devoted to the excavations at Sabra Mansourya, 6km/4mi away (a circular palace built by Caliph El Mansour in the middle of the 10th century). In the entrance hall are a model of the Sidi Oqba Mosque and a reproduction of its mihrab. In other rooms are old prints with views of local towns, coins of the various dynasties (Aghlabids, Fatimids, Zirids), old Koranic inscriptions (including one on a gazelle skin dyed blue), a variety of pottery and funerary stelae with inscriptions. The museum is still being built up, so that a complete description is not yet possible. Moreover the exhibits are labeled only in Arabic. However, even in its present state the museum is well worth a visit.