The Islamic Heritage Museum occupies the old Madrasah Melayu, a Malay college building restored and reopened as a museum. Seven galleries run around a central courtyard garden, covering the arrival and spread of Islam in the Malay Archipelago, architecture, the decorative arts, weaponry, costume, and the sciences — astronomy and navigation among them.
It is consistently the least crowded of Kuching's museums and, for a lot of visitors, the most rewarding. The building itself does much of the work: single-storey, timbered, arranged so that every gallery opens onto the courtyard, so you move between rooms through open air rather than corridors.
