Around 1600, a dramatic shift took place in Mughal art. The Mughal emperors of India were the most powerful monarchs of their day — at the beginning of the seventeenth century, they ruled over a hundred million subjects, five times the number administered by their only rivals, the Ottomans. Much of the painting that took place in the ateliers of the first Mughal emperors was effectively dynastic propaganda, and gloried in the Mughals’ pomp and prestige. Illustrated copies were produced of the diaries of Babur, the conqueror who first brought the Muslim dynasty of the Mughal emperors to India in 1526, as well as exquisite paintings illustrating every significant episode in the biography of his grandson, Akbar.

Read More: Under the Spell of Yoga

In the west, “modern” almost always means “good”. Who would reject the healthy, youthful optimism that the word implies? In other parts of the world, it’s a more volatile term, pitting liberalism against custom, commerce against religion, globalisation against local pride. Iran Modern at the Asia Society in New York presses a finger to this tender spot of ambivalence. In the 1960s and 70s, during the reign of a west-besotted Shah, Iran tasted modernity and then violently spat it out. A sense of discovery and doom gives the exhibition its poignant energy: Persian Pop, late-blooming cubism and various exalted and kitschy hybrids had their glorious moments. The period’s artistic richness stokes an appetite for an epilogue, but the show breaks off in 1979, when the country changed and artists scattered.

Read More: Iran Modern, Asia Society, New York

See also: A Dawn Interrupted

Excavation of archaeological sites only began in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s, yet these digs have already brought an astonishing wealth of treasures to light. They are astonishing because these digs are uncovering a virtually unknown ancient past. “Some of it has just come out of the ground only two years ago,” says Massumeh Farhad, curator of a revelatory exhibition displaying recently discovered archaeological material. Farhad is also Curator of Islamic Art at the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery, where Roads of Arabia: Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is exploding myths about the Arabian Peninsula. Roads of Arabia is open until February 24th, 2013 at the Sackler Gallery, after which it will travel to Houston, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Read More: Roads of Arabia

In Harmony, the Sackler Museum’s exhibition of Norma Jean Calderwood’s personal collection of Islamic art (January 31st, 2013 to June 1st, 2013) hands its viewer a bouquet of art exuding the aroma of love. It features ceramics, Islamic lacquered objects, single-page paintings, and many manuscript folios from Islamic epic poetry. Thematically, the content of the works varies greatly, from regicide to blessings; stylistically, the objects are stunningly beautiful. The exhibition is so rich it begs the viewer to explore it for hours.

Read More: Love in the Sackler

On November 1st, 2011, the the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened. Eight years in the making and arranged across fifteen rooms, these galleries showcase some 1,200 artworks, including exceptional examples of manuscripts, textiles, glass, ceramics, jewellery, armour, painting, scientific instruments, wood stone and ivory, from one of the most important collections of Islamic art outside the Middle East. In this insightful essay, published in December 2011, Peter Brown reviews the galleries and the accompanying catalogue.

Read More: On the Magic Carpet of the Met