Aga Khan Museum: Enlightened Islam Fights Back Against Jihadist Brutality

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/03/enlightened-islam-fights-back-against-jihadist-brutality-272650.html

?itok=EcHvBvUA

At a time when the worldwide media image of Islam is dominated by nihilistic merchants of extreme violence, and just as the world wearily mobilises to meet this savage threat, something calmly encouraging happens in Toronto, Canada, to help redress the balance. Eighteen years in the planning, the $300m Aga Khan Museum and Ismaili Centre complex opened its doors to the public on September 18th: two highly significant buildings by master architects in a new 17-acre city park. It is a cultural complex that celebrates the other Islam: the artistic, intellectual and scientific achievements of Muslim societies from ancient times to the present.

The Aga Khan is the super-rich worldwide imam and prince of the Ismaili branch of Shia Muslims, who number some 15 million across 25 nations and regions. Swiss-born, French-based but a British (and now also Canadian) citizen, 77-year-old Prince Shah Karim Al Hussaini Aga Khan IV looks like the businessman he is, but runs a series of charitable foundations mostly devoted to helping the developing world. In contrast the Toronto project exists to promote Islamic art and culture to the western world. He enjoys a racehorses-and-superyacht lifestyle, but the Aga Khan is a very active Islamic moderate and progressive, promoting secular pluralism, the advancement of women and the elimination of global poverty.

This enlightened Islamic cultural fightback is in an unlikely setting at first glance: a medium-to-high-rise business-park eastern suburb of Toronto, right by a busy multi-lane highway. The lush new landscape around the buildings, including 550 large mature trees transplanted for the purpose around a series of large, gently flowing rectangular pools, attempts to make a contemplative world of its own. Usually such public buildings are surrounded by acres of parking lots: here (this being Toronto where winters are harsh and snow-heavy) most cars are banished into a huge underground garage, so freeing up space for the park. And the Aga Khan has funded not only the museum but also donated its permanent collection of more than a thousand treasures including ceramics, illuminated manuscripts, 16th century Persian paintings, textiles and architectural fragments. There is exquisite work here: a plani­spheric astrolabe from Southern Spain in the 14th century, or the marvellously painted pages of the 16th century Persian Book of Kings. All that is on the ground level. Upstairs there will be an on­going programme of temporary exhibitions – the place opens with two shows, one identifying the skilled artists of the royal courts of Iran and India from the 15th century, the other a look at today’s contemporary art from Pakistan. It’s also a performing arts centre with a packed programme, especially of music and dance.

[hifiguy]

1. Some loony-tune jihadist will

put this place at the top of their "must bomb" list, sad to say.