 In 1967, the building was given in leasehold for 99 years by King Baudouin I to King Faisal ibn Abd al-Aziz of Saudi Arabia, on an official visit to Belgium, together with the East Pavilion of the 1880 National Exhibition that would later become the Great Mosque of Brussels, to house a museum of Islamic art.The building and the relief were protected by a royal decree on 18 November 1976.Two years later, the donation to King Khaled of Saudi Arabia was made official by the royal decree of 12 September 1979.