Annabel Teh Gallop

Annabel Teh Gallop is Lead Curator for Southeast Asia at the British Library in London. Her main research interests are in Malay manuscripts, letters, documents, and seals, and the art of the Qur’an in the Indian Ocean world. Recent publications include Malay seals from the Islamic world of Southeast Asia (2019), a catalogue of over 2,000 seals from Southeast Asia inscribed in Arabic script, and ‘In praise of the Prophet: illuminated Kitab Mawlid manuscripts from Southeast Asia’, in Oceans that speak: Islam and the emergence of the Malay world (Kuala Lumpur: IAMM, 2024). She was the co-director of the British Academy-funded research project (2009-2012), Islam, trade and politics across the Indian Ocean, investigating Ottoman links with Southeast Asia, and in 2019 was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Articles by Annabel Teh Gallop (1)

Articles

The art of the Qur’an in the Indian Ocean world: a view from Southeast Asia

When I first began exploring the art of the Qur’an in Southeast Asia, more than twenty years ago, the canvas was essentially blank. The art of the Islamic book had rarely attracted attention in the Malay world of ‘Nusantara’, and almost no photographs of illuminated Southeast Asian Qur’an manuscripts had ever been published. This was because philological studies – and thus also university teaching programmes

Annabel Teh Gallop 1 Aug 2026