The most comprehensive private collection of enamels, with over 1,500 pieces, includes examples from China, Japan, Europe, and Islamic lands.

[4] The collection has been described as presenting art works of interest to Westerners without abstracting them away from the aesthetic standards of Islamic culture.

[4] In addition to rare and illustrated manuscripts, the collection includes album and miniature paintings,[13] lacquer,[14] ceramics,[15] glass and rock crystal,[16] metalwork,[17] arms and armour,[18] jewellery,[19] carpets and textiles,[20] over 15,000 coins[21] and architectural elements.

[25] This collection was the basis in 2008 for the first comprehensive exhibition of Islamic art to be staged in the Middle East, at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.

Alongside the Topkapı Palace museum, the collection is considered the largest and most significant group of objects relating to the cultural history of the Hajj.

[32] Among them are a mahmal (AH 1067 (AD 1656–7)) commissioned by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV,[33] sitaras (textile coverings) for the door of the Kaaba,[34] for the mosque of the Prophet in Medina, and for the Station of Abraham,[34] the earliest known accurate eyewitness account of Mecca[35] and some of the earliest photographs taken of Mecca and the Hajj, by Mohammed Sadiq Bey.

Since the beginning of Emperor Meiji’s reign in Japan, European and international collectors have sought pieces of Japanese art from this era.

[41] These imperial court artists include Shibata Zeshin,[42] Namikawa Yasuyuki,[43] Makuzu Kozan,[44] Yabu Meizan,[44] Kano Natsuo,[45] Suzuki Chokichi,[46] and Shirayama Shosai.

[48][49] The collection consists mostly of textile panels, cushion and bed covers from the Scania region of southern Sweden, dating in the main from a hundred-year-old period of the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries.

[50] Exhibitions drawing exclusively from the collection have been held at the Swedish Cultural Institute in Paris and Boston University Art Gallery.

[52] At the opening of the Khalili Zuloaga exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, its then director Alan Borg said it was "a landmark in the study of 19th century Spanish decorative art".

[53] Other exhibitions also drawing exclusively from the collection have been held at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum and Alhambra Palace in Granada.

[55] The uniqueness of the collection lies in its geographic, artistic and historical range, including pieces from China, Japan, Islamic countries and Europe.

The total costs associated with the conservation, research, scholarship, and publication of the collections are estimated to be in the tens of millions of pounds.

[26] This collection was the basis in 2008 for the first comprehensive exhibition of Islamic art to be staged in the Middle East, at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.

[63][64][26] Since 2019, the Khalili Collections have partnered with Wikimedia UK to share images of art works and improve Wikipedia articles.