Crossroads of Civilizations Museum

The museum reads Dubai as a historic crossroads. It gathers things that travelled with merchants and travellers, and treats tolerance as a habit learned through trade.

The Crossroads of Civilizations Museum occupies the nineteenth-century house of Sheikh Hasher bin Maktoum Al Maktoum, younger brother of Sheikh Saeed, in Al Shindagha. The house once looked out over the Creek and the Gulf from a watchtower that still stands, at a point where shipping and trade met. Its rooms hold a private collection of objects, rare books, manuscripts, old photographs and maps that follow routes of exchange between Europe, Africa and Asia. The courtyard (el fena) remains the heart of the house, as it was when the family gathered there, and now receives visitors, students and researchers.