Among the most beautiful and precious textiles in the world, carpets from Islamic lands have been treasured for centuries. Prized by European monarchs and traded as far afield as Tibet and the Americas, these woven and knotted masterpieces are both distinguished works of art and revealing utilitarian objects that offer a glimpse of life in the Islamic world. The third volume in Thames & Hudson’s series cataloguing the al-Sabah Collection, this book features some of the finest classical carpets from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, along with several intriguing pre- Islamic carpet fragments. Carpet and textile expert Friedrich Spuhler describes the spectacular al-Sabah Collection in the context of the history of Islamic art and recounts the stories behind individual carpets. The book includes pictures of many carpets never before reproduced in print, as well as a few that may have been lost forever following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.