Tears of Faith
For my first project, I concentrated on an important issue that was discussed from Week 3. “Read the Qur’an and weep. If you do not weep naturally, force yourself to weep.” Many say that weeping is a language that is universally understood by all cultures around the world. When a person weeps, we know that he has been internally touched in some way either positively or negatively. This same idea is essential in the religion of Islam. In order for an individual to truly connect with the Islam faith, he must shed tears and weep. These tears represent the genuine commitment of the individual. For my project, I decided to do a sketch of an individual weeping; however, the difficult part was figuring out a way of showing the many sides of weeping in the Islam religion. I decided to first do the drawing in black and white because I did not want color to take away from the story of individual. I drew a woman, who is kneeling down as she cries on her hands. I decided to have the woman kneeling because a lot of the artwork that we have seen in class about submission has the individual either kneeling or lying down. Since the overall theme of weeping deals with submission, I believed it was important to incorporate it. I also made the individual a female because the theme of weeping transcends through all genders, races, cultures, etc. Even the Prophet Muhammad goes through this process. “the eyes of the Messenger of God were shedding tears. The Prophet listened to the Qur’an reading of Abu Musa and remarked, “This man is bestowed with the sweet voice of the prophet David.” It is also important to note that I did not draw any facial features. The purpose of the drawing is not to identify the individual; however, it is to appreciate the fact that this individual is submitting herself to God and committing to the word through her tears.