{"id":18,"date":"2018-03-20T04:28:52","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T04:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/?p=18"},"modified":"2018-03-20T12:20:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T12:20:09","slug":"the-infinite-light-of-allah-a-calligram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/2018\/03\/20\/the-infinite-light-of-allah-a-calligram\/","title":{"rendered":"The Infinite Light of Allah: A Calligram"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are two Quranic verses that I have encountered that have really captured my imagination: Sura 24:35 and 2:115. Using the Sahih International translation, they are as follows,<\/span><\/p>\n

24:35<\/i><\/b> Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp, the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire. Light upon light. Allah guides to His light whom He wills. And Allah presents examples for the people, and Allah is Knowing of all things.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

2:115<\/i><\/b> And to Allah belongs the east and the west. So wherever you [might] turn, there is the Face of Allah. Indeed, Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Considering these phrases, I knew that I wanted to make a calligraphic project that encompassed the ideas of God as Light and God as all-Encompassing and therefore, infinite. I am very interested in contemporary art and so am familiar with the works of the Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, who is known for working with the concept of \u201cinfinity mirrors.\u201d Infinity mirrors use two reflective surfaces to create the effect of images continuing on eternally. This effect is multiplied when a light source — typically LED for its brightness capabilities — is used between the reflective surfaces, because it makes the effect more apparent to the human eye. Knowing this, but having never tackled creating an infinity mirror myself, I set out to try to make my own infinity mirror to reflect the light of Allah.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Yayoi Kusama at Cleveland Museum of Art, taken from Cleveland.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Instead of using the word \u201cAllah\u201d to designate God, I wanted to use the word used in Sura 24:35, \u201cAn-Nur\u201d which we learned of in lecture as being one of the 99 names of Allah\/God. My original intention was to have the lights incorporated into the calligraphic spelling of the name of Allah\/An-Nur. However, I learned that LED lights are difficult to maneuver into any kind of rounded form and found that when I did so, I could not get the circuit to light up. This being the case, I settled on writing \u201cAn-Nur\u201d in white, attaching it to the mirror on the back, and aligning the lights across the border so that they provided a frame to emphasize the name of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are two Quranic verses that I have encountered that have really captured my imagination: Sura 24:35 and 2:115. Using the Sahih International translation, they are as follows, 24:35 Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp, the lamp […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9500,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9500"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/illuminate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}