The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto
by Laura Tanna
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It was in Africa that I was introduced to the Ismaili religion when I became the first American to attend H.H. Aga Khan Shia Imami Ismailia Secondary School in Kampala, Uganda in January 1962, the year of independence in Uganda. Probably because my father was with the Rockefeller Foundation to assist in university development in East Africa, an exception was made to let me enter mid-term. Approximately 200 students were Ismailis, 50 African, five European, and me. Our headmaster was a defrocked Irish Priest who had married a Ugandan woman. I gained a great admiration for the Ismaili community and their interaction with others.
His Highness The Aga Khan, Photographs Courtesy of the Aga Khan Museum
Ten years later dictator Idi Amin expelled Uganda’s citizens and non-citizens of Indo-Pakistani heritage, including Ismailis. The U.S. Embassy told me I was the only American in the country married to a Ugandan Asian citizen. (He’s not an Ismaili.) As the U.S. cancelled visas, and the British dithered over whether their D Passport citizens standing in long queues in the sun should be allowed access to the UK, and as Amin’s daily proclamations became more threatening concerning what would happen if the expulsion deadline wasn’t met, it was the Canadian Embassy which granted entire extended families entry visas. When airfares were to be taxed, it was the Canadians who sent an airplane to carry visa holders without charge, and when Amin’s troops looted passengers’ luggage it was the Canadian High Commissioner who drove at the head of a convoy of cars to provide diplomatic protection. Canada gave hope while others faltered, something which the Aga Khan surely remembered when he chose to locate the Museum in Canada because of his appreciation for the country’s commitment to pluralism and cultural diversity.
“We’re gently walking through the centuries and cultures, culminating in a piece that is of great significance to believing Muslims because it forms part of a hanging for the Kaaba building at the heart of the Holy Mosque in Mecca. Every year for the pilgrimage season, the Kaaba building receives the new ceremonial hanging and after the feast that finalises the season, the hanging is taken off, cut into pieces and distributed to dignitaries or officials or sold to charity.”
The first museum in North America dedicated to Islamic arts is an absolute jewel. In this era of hardcore divisive jihadist fundamentalism, how refreshing to find a museum created by an Islamic religious group which seeks to connect cultures through the arts, inspiring people to see what they have in common. From the eighth century onwards, over 1,000 rare art objects are to be found in this ultra-modern building designed by Japanese Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki, acting on the Aga Khan’s desire that the building should celebrate light, the symbolic essence of spirituality. Light infuses the structure. One steps over light patterns on the floor, created by overhead design openings in the walls. Oriented 45 degrees to solar north, all sides of the white Brazilian granite capture sunlight at some point in the day, when it’s available. This is Toronto where winters can be inhibiting, but a large courtyard infuses the interior with natural light. From the pools inside the Aga Khan Park, designed by Lebanese landscape architect Vladimir Djorovic, light also reflects the sky and beautiful Ismaili Centre designed by Indian architect Charles Correa, which stands opposite the Museum. Inside the Museum building is an exquisite gift shop and the Diwan Restaurant which features Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine with Western influences.
Prince Amyn Aga Khan, Photographs Courtesy of the Aga Khan Museum
L-R: Ismaili-Centre-seen-in-reflecting-pool-across-from-the-Aga-Khan-Museum; We All Share One Moon hanging over permanent collection on ground floor; AKM Resto casual straight ©Janet Kimber; Stairway by Fumihiko Maki renowned Japanese architect.
The Aga Khan is a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and is the 49th hereditary Imam or Spiritual leader of the Shia Ismaili Muslims. With some 15 million followers in over 25 nations as diverse as Afghanistan, Australia, Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Pakistan, Portugal, the U.S. and more, His Highness has a fascinating heritage too complex to describe here. Suffice to say that he was born Prince Karim in Geneva, Switzerland December 13, 1936, graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Islamic history, has British citizenship and a residence in France when not meeting with Ismaili communities throughout the world.
He has used his wealth and influence to establish the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), with over 200 organisations working in over 30 countries, employing some 80,000 people, with an annual budget for non-profit activities of approximately US$950 million to assist in developing some of the poorest countries while promoting pluralism. The AKDN has agencies in three divisions: economic, social, and cultural development. The Aga Khan Museum falls under cultural development and his brother, Prince Amyn Aga Khan, is Chairman of the Museum’s Board. With a Harvard MA and experience in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, Prince Amyn focuses his attention on at least four of the AKDN boards, plus the Council of the Friends of the Louvre and is a Trustee of the World Monuments Fund.
Dr. Ulrika Al-Khamis, Director of Collections and Public Programs at the Museum, told me this June: “We have two main directives in our mission statement. The first is to highlight and celebrate the contributions of diverse Muslim civilisations through time and space, which of course very much also includes the contributions of non-Muslim communities, and the second directive is to bridge cultures through the arts.”
She shows me Tiraz fragments from Fatimid Egypt, 10th through 12th centuries, saying: “These textile fragments were woven and embroidered initially by Copts [Christians] who had a long tradition of weaving fine textiles in Egypt. When the Muslims came in the mid-seventh century, these traditions continued but the patronage shifted. The Khalifah court in particular, commissioned a lot of exquisite textiles. You also have Copts as metal and woodcarvers. We have Jewish communities, very active in the metal trade. These are all things that we know from the sources and we can illustrate that through some of the objects we have. Objects can talk about the interactions between the Islamic world, Europe and other parts of the world, and about the legacies of knowledge and wisdom that came from the Islamic world at large.”
“We’re gently walking through the centuries and cultures, culminating in a piece that is of great significance to believing Muslims because it forms part of a hanging for the Kaaba building at the heart of the Holy Mosque in Mecca. — Dr. Al-Khamis.”
14th century Spanish astrolabe on right with engravings in Latin Hebrew and Arabic goblet on left.
L-R: Dr. Ulrike Al Khamis and Kiswas beside 19th century engraving of Kaaba encircled by Kiswas; Albarelli Jars for medicinal storage, note indented sides for ease of removing from shelves; Robe for Senior Rabbi in Bukhara, now Uzbekistan, in Ottoman tradition but with Shield of David designs; Bellerive Room with Prince Sadruddin Aga Khans ceramic collection in cabinets. Photos by Laura Tanna
To illustrate this, I’m shown albarelli, blue and white storage jars for herbs and spices. She loves how the jars are indented, making them easier for hands to pull them off the shelves. Even late 19th century pharmacies in Germany, Austria, and France still keep these cylindrical jars whose original shape and the knowledge of how to use herbs and spices for medicinal purposes came across the Mediterranean. “The pharmacological and medical knowledge in the Islamic world was much advanced in comparison to Europe in the Middle Ages,” she notes. “By the 11th, 12th century, Arabic manuscripts on the subject are translated into Latin, even on astronomy and other sciences — mathematics, geometry, medicine — which helped to lay the foundations of what we now call modern Western civilisation.”
In the museum I see how Islam intersected with cultures as diverse as those from Spain to Uzbekistan and make a note to find out how a 14th century Spanish astrolabe, engraved in Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic, actually worked. It’s supposed to be a calculator for solving astronomy problems. I try to imagine the impact on a congregation when a senior Rabbi in Bukhara (now Uzbekistan) wears a beautiful robe in the Islamic Ottoman tradition but embroidered with Star of David designs. We view “The Court of Kayumars,” a famous miniature painted circa early 16th century for the Great Shah of Iran, Shah Abbas the First, part of the epic Book of Kings or Shahnameh, the smallest details painted with the hair of a kitten or squirrel.
Dr. Al-Khamis points out: “We’re gently walking through the centuries and cultures, culminating in a piece that is of great significance to believing Muslims because it forms part of a hanging for the Kaaba building at the heart of the Holy Mosque in Mecca. Every year for the pilgrimage season, the Kaaba building receives the new ceremonial hanging and after the feast that finalises the season, the hanging is taken off, cut into pieces and distributed to dignitaries or officials or sold to charity. This belongs to a Kiswa, as it is called, from the late 19th century with a verse from the Koran relating to the Hadj. And we are lucky to have a 19th century engraving beside it to actually show you how this would have looked originally. Here is one section of the Kiswa and all the pilgrims going around it.”
A third of the 1,000 paintings and objects from this permanent collection are always on display, many of them donated by the Aga Khan or his family. In fact, beside the courtyard and open to the public is the late Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan and his wife’s 60-piece ceramic collection available for viewing in the Bellerive Room, an elegant recreation of the “Persian Salon” from their chateau in Geneva. Upstairs are temporary exhibitions. “The Moon: A Voyage Through Time” is advertised as: “We All Share One Moon. It exerts the same pull across cultures. It inspires art, wisdom, and science” and honours the 50th anniversary of man’s walking on the moon. The exhibition attracts scores of students rushing in to view photographs of the moon’s surface, or Neil Armstrong’s first steps, juxtaposed with centuries’ old paintings of the sighting of the crescent moon to mark “The Beginning of Ramadan”, or Indian palace moonlight gardens (mahtab bagh). The next temporary exhibition entitled “Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa”, suggests “Travel back in time across the Sahara Desert and discover the thriving African empires that connected the medieval world.”
Opened to the public on September 18, 2014, in the North York District at 77 Wynford Drive, Toronto, the Aga Khan Museum is well worth your visit. — JP