A LIVING BRIDGE BETWEEN MUSLIM CIVILIZATIONS AND THE WORLD, IN THE HEART OF TORONTO
BEACONS
A LIVING BRIDGE BETWEEN MUSLIM CIVILIZATIONS AND THE WORLD, IN THE HEART OF TORONTO
On a 6.8-hectare campus in Toronto’ s Don Mills neighborhood, a museum, a park, and a spiritual center share the same ground— and the same ambition. The Aga Khan Museum, North America’ s leading museum dedicated to the arts of Muslim civilizations, has spent just over a decade building something rarer than a collection: a living, working case for pluralism. In 2025 and again in 2026, Ontario voters named it the province’ s Top Attraction, a distinction decided entirely by public vote rather than by institutional prestige— a signal, its former director says, of the very kind of civic embrace the Museum was built to earn.
A Museum with a Mission Beyond Collecting
The Aga Khan Museum was founded in 2014 by the late Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan and established by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network. From the outset, its founding was framed as an act of reciprocity.“ It was founded in recognition of, and in gratitude to, Canada’ s commitment to bridging cultures and building healthy, pluralistic societies,” explains Dr. Ulrike Al- Khamis, who served as Director and CEO of the Museum from 2017 until her retirement in early 2026.“ That is quite a unique starting point already.”
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Cultural connections will be at the heart of the Museum’ s mission, and will please and illuminate the dialogue between different Muslim civilizations themselves, and between those civilizations and non-Muslim civilizations.
Prince Amyn Aga Khan, Chairman of the Aga Khan Museum, at the Museum’ s opening, September 2014
Ulrike Al-Khami
90 MATAHEF ISSUE 05