First and foremost an educational institution, the Aga Khan Museum illuminates connections between eras and cultures by offering a wide range of programmes for all ages. Illustrated talks, studio programmes, tours, and lectures offer unique opportunities to interact with the Museum’s Collection, exhibitions, and experts.

The Museum also publishes curriculum guides, catalogues, and exhibition guides, sharing its resources widely.

Showcasing a variety of dynamic special exhibitions per year, the Museum both originates exhibitions and partners with cultural institutions around the globe. It presents the arts of Muslim civilisations in all their diversity and through all media, from photography to sculpture, installation art to textiles. In 2019, The Museum’s The Moon: A Voyage Through Time exhibition delighted audiences by exploring the enduring fascination with this enchanting orb in the sky, and looked at the role it has played in faith, science, and the arts across the Muslim world and beyond.

The Museum’s state-of-the-art auditorium hosts live performances of music, theatre, and dance, illuminating deep connections forged over many centuries between the visual and performing arts.

In a personal letter to architect Fumihiko Maki, His Highness the Aga Khan suggested the Museum be designed around the concept of light. Light, His Highness noted, has been an enduring inspiration for the world’s religions and civilisations since earliest times.

Maki responded with a design that invites direct and diffuse light into the building in ingenious ways. The building is positioned 45 degrees to solar north to ensure that all exterior surfaces receive natural light over the course of the day. Angular walls of white Brazilian granite, a material chosen for its resilience and luminosity, enhance the play of light across building surfaces.