Museum reflects Islamic heritage
Saturday, June 23, 2007 By FRED CONTRADA fcontrada@repub.com
NORTHAMPTON – If you are interested in Islam, you might get some insights into the religion at the Islamic Arts and Crafts Museum of America. With proprietor Bashir Ahamed showing you around, you are likely to get a lot more.
Ahamed’s new museum, located in the basement of his 213 Main St. store, Basha’s Oriental Rugs, boasts copper samovars, Kani shawls and crewel works from Kashmir. The real education, however, is delivered courtesy of Ahamed and his eclectic, passionate world view.
“Some of us are driven on this Earth,” Ahamed said. “I am not a passenger. I am here to produce beauty.”
A native of Kashmir, Ahamed opened his first shop in Northampton in 1980. Over the ensuing decades, his fortunes rising and falling, Ahamed has packed up and moved to Waltham, opened a shop in Amherst and, last year, returned to Main Street.
Earlier this month, Ahamed fulfilled a long-time dream when he opened his museum. The idea, he said, dates back to 1976, his first year in the U.S., when he visited a museum in San Francisco and realized he could bring the artwork of his native land to the public.
“I’ve been a dreamer all my life,” he said. “I grew up in the vale of Kashmir. When you look up you don’t see anything but the sky.”
The pieces on exhibit in Ahamed’s museum reflect his artistic heritage. The crewel works, such as “The Tree of Life,” were the hallmarks of his father’s family. His mother’s people made Kani prayer shawls like the ones hanging on the walls.
Although he calls it a museum of Islamic arts, Ahamed is reluctant to categorize the cultures behind the works.
“I grew up around Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims,” he said.
In fact, much of the current exhibition underscores the Sufi influence of Kashmiri art. Although Sufism is commonly understood to be a mystical tradition within Islam, Ahamed insists it has no boundaries….
