Mansion of mysticism: Paris opens glittering home to Sufi art and beliefs

Among the most emblematic paraphernalia of the Sufis is their “begging bowl”, known as the kashkul . That’s why nearly a dozen are at the centre of a new museum dedicated to Sufi culture and art, the Musée d’Art et de Culture Soufis MTO , which has just opened in Chatou, a quiet Parisian suburb on the banks of the Seine.

The kashkul is traditionally made from the nutshell of the coco de mer palm, the tree that produces the world’s biggest seed, and what makes it all the more remarkable is that it’s a fruit from Seychelles that historically washed up 4,000km away on Iran’s southern shores. The journey through the ocean made the shells extremely polished, which Sufis took as a symbol of the inner journey and cleansing the soul of all earthly desires. Forget the irony that coco de mer shells are expensive commodities these days, mainly due to their suggestive shape.

“For the darvīsh ,” says the museum catalogue , using the word for “poor” and referring to Sufi seekers, “carrying an empty, clean kashkul on their journey symbolises their unwavering trust in, and submission to, divine providence.” The idea of the empty vessel is central to fostering spiritual reflection and is prominently featured in Sufi teachings.

Sufis, who are Muslim mystics, traditionally decorated the kashkul with inscriptions and supplications. One striking 19th-century bowl in the museum depicts, in its exquisite engraved work, the confrontation between the lion and the bull, which allegorically represents the internal strife faced by Sufi seekers to overcome the dictates of their lower selves, characterised by ego and desire. A highlight of the museum is a giant kashkul made of granite created in Iran in the mid-1970s – installing it at the museum is believed to have been a logistical headache.

We all know a little bit about Sufism without knowing that we know about Sufism

“We all know a little bit about Sufism without knowing that we know about Sufism,” says Alexandra Baudelot, the director of the museum. “For example, we all have more or less heard about Rumi , we know about the whirling dervish, we know about the Conference of the Birds , Attar’s epic poem about the birds searching for the mythical giant creature Simurgh. Sufism has had a very strong influence through its artistic and cultural practices beyond the Middle East, such as in places like north Africa, Asia, India and China.”

The museum is housed in a 19th-century bourgeois mansion that was purchased for its new purpose in 2010. The original features of the building such as cornices, mosaic tilings and the ultramarine blue of its facade have been kept intact, but the inside has been transformed to accommodate what has been billed as the world’s first museum dedicated to exploring Sufism through contemporary art and culture, boasting 600 sq metres of exhibition space across three levels.

Visitors to the museum are greeted with a 19th-century Qur’an with gold-leafed illumination. Nearly 300 objects are in the collection, including sculptures, paintings, ceramics, textiles, calligraphy, manuscripts and ceramic and mirror mosaics. There is a cane with Persian inlaying ( khatam-kari ) decoration, and a number of exquisitely crafted 17th and 18th-century padlocks shaped like lions, peacocks and doors. Also on display are a set of tabarzin s , or decorative objects in the shape of a double-bladed axe, a representation of the Sufis’ endeavour to overcome selfish tendencies.

Another key Sufi object on display is the cloak, or khirqa , which usually bears the marks of its many repairs, and is successively passed on by the masters to their successors.

The museum itself has been initiated by the Maktab Tarighat Oveyssi (MTO) Shahmaghsoudi school of Islamic Sufism . Many of its members are from the Iranian diaspora. The collection is heavy on its MTO features, partly because it is largely composed of a permanent loan from the school.

This is remedied by the inaugural exhibition featuring seven contemporary artists who are not Sufi. The artists are instead inspired by Sufi concepts, and their artworks are displayed “in dialogue” with the permanent collection, insomuch as it is at times difficult to distinguish which ones belong to the temporary exhibition, and which to the collection. The title of the exhibition is “Un Ciel Intérieur” (An Inner Sky), a term used by French philosopher and Sufi scholar Henry Corbin.

A remarkable work in the exhibition is a cut glass mosaic work by Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian , the doyenne of contemporary Iranian art who was influenced by the architecture of the Shah Cheragh mosque in Shiraz.

Younes Rahmoun, the Moroccan artist whose works are deeply anchored to the principles of Sufism, is represented with a new outdoor sculpture in the museum garden, and his Manzil (house) series, which can be viewed when visitors take the museum’s elevators. It follows “an upward trajectory, from the earth to the sky, from one floor of the museum to the next, evoking the inner Sufi journey”.

Troy Makaza, from Zimbabwe, is behind a glossy and tactile woven-silicone installation inspired by ideas of visibility and invisibility. Makaza says he has found similarities between Sufism and some Shona traditional ways of living. A Shona proverb, which has inspired his work, says “a prince can be a slave elsewhere”.

The title of his artwork is Mutiwaora, a Shona name loosely translated as “decayed tree” (or “rotten tree”). “This name comes from a mountain located in Nyamuzuwe rural area in Zimbabwe which I visited in May this year and is used as a shrine for prayers,” he says.

Sufi teaching centres around the concept that self-knowledge leads to knowing God (Allah), and followers are usually guided by a master or pir – God is often referred to as the beloved. Islam is the second largest religion in Europe after Christianity, which is why the location of the museum in France is important.

“Sufism has long attracted a certain western public. Some of these people sometimes criticise Islam and want to become Sufis without Islam,” says Éric Geoffroy, a French Islamologist. “I explain to them that the greatest masters of Sufism have always said that they draw their spirituality from the Qur’an and the Prophet personally.”

The museum has incorporated the latest technologies in its design, including featuring the hologram of a Sufi master giving a lesson while sitting in what is a recreation of a typical 1970s Iranian office furnished with artefacts.

During the press visit for the museum’s opening, a performance of Sama (or Sufi dance) was presented by three women, a practice often performed by men.

Omid Safi , a professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University, in the US, is critical of how Rumi’s poetry is often stripped of its Islamic and Sufi properties in the west.

So many people have experienced religion as a force of dogmatism, patriarchy and corruption. As a result, they seek out the spiritual realm in something more private

“The way many people consume Rumi, they would be excused for never realising that they are reading a Persian-speaking Muslim mystic who calls himself a devotee of the Qur’an, and was called the ‘offspring of the soul of Muhammad’,” Safi says. “I would argue that the ‘spiritual but not religious’ framework has a lot to do with how Rumi is read in the west. Simply put, so many people have experienced religion – understandably – as a force of dogmatism, patriarchy and corruption. As a result, they seek out the spiritual realm in something more private and individual, largely if not exclusively outside a religious tradition. That understandable inclination also opens it up to being commodified, marketised, monetised, and yet another tool in the ‘pursuit of happiness’ capitalist regiment.

“Ultimately, what Rumi and the Sufis offer us is never the promise of an abiding happiness – something that no real spiritual tradition can guarantee. What Sufism offers is the promise that the God of the mountaintop is also the God of the valley bottom, and that accompanied by God as the present all-Beloved, we will never be alone.”