The Musee d’Art et de Culture Soufis MTO (MACS MTO), the first museum dedicated to the art and culture of Sufism, opens in Chatou, a suburb of Paris, on Sept. 28. A permanent collection of Sufi art and cultural objects and a program of contemporary art exhibitions, talks, events and workshops, will reveal the rich contribution Sufism has made to global art and culture throughout history, from the musical traditions inspired by Sufi mystic poets such as Jalaluddin Rumi and Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafiz to the performances and paintings adapted from Farid ud-Din Attar’s writing.
The collection largely dates from the 19th century to the present day with the oldest items from the Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 B.C.).
The Museum includes 600 square meters of exhibition space across three floors as well as a Sufi garden and an archival research library. Many of the objects and practices represented in the collection - sculpture and site-specific installation, music, textiles, calligraphy, manuscripts, and ceramic and mirror mosaics - hold significant symbolic meaning in Sufism. These include a monumental granite kashkul sculpture (1974–76), modeled on the distinctive travel accessory of dervishes - Sufi seekers who embrace an ascetic life in pursuit of divine illumination.
The sculpture is designed with precise calculations from Sufi numerology (jafr) by Hazrat Shah Maghsoud Sadegh Angha, the 41st Master of the School of Islamic Sufism. Historically, kashkuls, a Persian t.