Saad Mahmud Al-Jadir was born in Baghdad in 1941. After leaving school he continued his studies at the Moscow Architectural Institute and was awarded a Ph.D in Urban Studies in 1969. Since then he has worked on a number of regional and town planning projects in Greece, Libya, Algeria and Abu Dhabi.

Over the last thirty years, Dr. Al-Jadir has combined his activities as a town planner with a passion for Islamic Silver that has seen him build up a collection of over 11,000 artefacts. These include items of jewellery, utensils, ornaments, coins, arms and seals from all over the Islamic world. Parts of this unique collection have been seen at exhibitions Lisbon, Khartoum, Riyadh, Stockholm, Kuala Lumpur and London. Regrettably, however, most of the pieces have never left the European Bank vaults in which they are currently stored.

Not content with being a mere collector, Dr. Al-Jadir has done a great deal of research in the field of Islamic Silver. He has also published a number of articles and books, notably Arab and Islamic Silver (Stacey International, London 1881), Decorations on Silver and Manuscripts among Muslims (King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh 1988), Islamiskt Silver (Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm 1989) and Silver and Islamic Smithing Techniques (Casablanca 1993), Islamic Silver Treasures (Casablanca and London 1995).

There are some 7,000 pieces of jewellery, 2,000 utensils (incense burners, inkwells, rosewater sprinklers, candlesticks, boxes, vases, pots, bowls, plates, vessels, etc.), 1,700 coins (from pre-Islamic Arabs through the earliest Islamic periods and various ruling dynasties), 150 swords, daggers and knives, and 300 seals and decorations.

Islamic art is, and has always been, the medium par excellence by which Muslim peoples have expressed the richness of their vast and unique civilization

The Al-Jadir Collection represents various historical periods, although the last four centuries are predominant. While some pieces are hallmarked for earlier dates, Islamic silver is very rarely hallmarked, so there may well be a higher proportion of pieces from earlier dates and without doubt some items in the collection deserve a more profound study to establish this fact.