KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA.- The Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia presents Spice Journeys: Taste and Trade in the Islamic World, on view through April 18, 2007. Islam and hospitality go together like coffee and cardamom. Islam and trade have also been inextricably bound since the time of the Prophet Muhammad. As spices and aromatics provide unlimited opportunities for both activities, it is inevitable that the Islamic world has had a vital role to play. Important though this contribution is, it has rarely been publicized.

The rampaging of conquistadors in Latin America or colonial conquest in Southeast Asia are what tend to fire the historical imagination. The activities of Muslim cultivators and merchants make for a quieter story. Tales from the Thousand and One Nights provide vivid splashes of color, but otherwise there is little drama. In the same way that Islam spread gently through many lands, so did the trade in spices. The collection of the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia is rich in artefacts that relate to this trade which shaped the modern world as well as innumerable lives over the centuries. Spice Journeys is the first exhibition to explore this phenomenon in all its sensory aspects.