This article was written by Abdullah Al-Faris and submitted to Saudi Cultures as an opinion piece.
When God created people and made them into nations and tribes, each planting roots in a corner of the earth and leaving behind traces known or forgotten travel was an ordeal, and reaching the other was a feat. People did not travel for leisure; they traveled out of necessity: in pursuit of livelihood, healing, or escape. But what if the airplane had been available to Ibn Zaydun? Would we have seen him leave Córdoba on wings of steel, crossing sea and mountain, to land within hours on Persian soil? I don't quite know why his memory surfaced in me at this moment perhaps because I recalled his verse:
"If only I could fly to you on wings of longing but how does one fly with clipped wings?"
Or perhaps because time binds people across a single thread: the desire to know the other, and the capacity to reach them. Had Ibn Zaydun, the celebrated Andalusian poet, walked among us today, he might have marveled less at the airplane than at the way the world now reads history in museums.
The museum is no longer a warehouse for old things. It has become a narrative space that recomposes the past in a language everyone can understand, a place where the local and the global intersect: the local visitor enters searching for their roots; the foreign visitor enters searching for the meaning of a place.
Museums as Cultural Destinations and Economic Drivers
Reports from the World Tourism Organization suggest that nearly 40% of international trips involve cultural spending, making museums a central pillar of what draws people to modern cities. A 2023 UNESCO report notes that 40% of tourism revenues flow from cultural tourism. UNESCO's position is clear: preserving heritage and presenting it in a contemporary manner is not merely a cultural mission it is a tool for improving quality of life, energizing local economies, and generating employment. This explains how cities like Paris, Tokyo, New York, Beijing, and London have built their soft power around museums designed with depth and intention.
The Louvre, for instance, is not simply a museum it is a destination that receives millions of visitors annually, creates thousands of jobs, and contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the city's economy. Bilbao, once an obscure industrial city, was transformed into a global destination by a single museum that entirely redefined its identity. In Doha, the Museum of Islamic Art has become the city's international emblem a place that draws visitors in search of the story of Islamic art, housed within a breathtaking contemporary architectural form. These global examples make one thing clear: a successful museum does not depend only on what it displays, but on how it displays it on the story it tells, and on the way it connects a human being to a place.
The Power of Narrative in Museums
This is where the importance of storytelling in museums comes into sharp focus. A story gives an object its meaning. It makes the visitor local or foreign feel that what they are witnessing is not merely a displayed past, but a life being told. Museum scholars point to the necessity of Narrative Design: the deliberate arrangement of exhibits to guide visitors from a moment of wonder, to a moment of understanding, to a moment of connection. The Visitor Experience is not shaped by artifacts alone, but by the way those artifacts are interpreted within a simple yet intelligent Interpretive Framework one that helps visitors grasp time and place without effort or strain.
Storytelling in the Saudi Context
In Saudi Arabia, the importance of storytelling takes on a particular urgency because the stories of this place are rich and branching. The stories of cities whose faces changed beyond recognition within a single generation. The stories of the desert, the trade caravans, and the Hajj pilgrims. The stories of coastal communities. The stories of the cultural transformation people are living through right now. When stories like these are crafted with care and intention, they have the power to turn a museum into a platform for understanding the national self from within and a bridge through which the Kingdom introduces itself to the world, through human experience before it offers knowledge.
Saudi Arabia today possesses an immense cultural wealth. What it needs is to transform that wealth into innovative museum experiences. The landscape is already showing promising signs new museum announcements and launches, alongside existing institutions, both governmental and private: the Museum of World Cultures, King Salman Museum, the Saudi Community Museum, the Asan Museum, the Diriyah Museum of Future Arts, and others.
Ideas for Distinctive Museums in the Kingdom
Before thinking about where museums should be located, it is worth thinking deeply about what stories deserve to be told. I take the opportunity here to propose some ideas for museums that may not yet exist in the Kingdom experiences that could add meaningfully to the national museum landscape:
- Museums That Tell Human and Heroic Stories
A museum documenting the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the Saudi community's response to that defining moment. A museum telling the story of the confrontation with terrorism and the social transformations that accompanied that era. - Museums Dedicated to Islamic Civilization With Deep Narrative Ambition
Museums that tell the stories of Hajj its routes, its rituals, its human journeys alongside the history of the holy cities, mosque architecture, and the pathways that connected the Islamic world across a thousand years. - Museums that tell the story of the desert and the Bedouin
The life of the nomads, the camel, the culture of hospitality, the navigation by stars, the search for water, the explorers who crossed the Arabian Peninsula and documented it in photographs and journals all of this can be transformed into an immersive experience that speaks to visitors from every culture on earth. - Museums of the Old Cities
Every city, large or small, carries a unique story worth telling: the architecture of old homes, the crafts, the ancient economy, the markets, the civic life, the urban transformations. These smaller, intimate museums preserve the soul of a place and offer both local and foreign visitors the city's story as its own people lived it.
Economic and Tourism Impact
When museums of this kind are built on compelling narratives and modern display technologies, they have the potential to become distinctly Saudi destinations unlike anything else in the region and to add vital diversity to the cultural sector's assets. Their economic ripple effect is substantial: studies in museum economics show that every major museum can generate an economic circle extending from hotels, restaurants, and transportation to shops, gift merchants, and artisans. Museums also raise the magnetic pull of a city a great museum makes a place more worth visiting, which reflects directly on the tourism sector as a whole.
In Closing
The museum future of Saudi Arabia is not built on stone and glass alone. It is built on narrative. The narrative that says to the world: this is our story, this is our identity, this is our journey. The moment a museum possesses an authentic local story, a thoughtful design vision, and a well-crafted visitor experience, it becomes more than a platform for the past it becomes a launchpad for the future, and a living artistic testament to the history and culture of a place.
An opinion piece by Abdullah Al-Faris.
