![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/files\/2018\/04\/IMG_2214-e1524615322902-225x300.jpg\")
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In Week 4, we learned about one of the fundamental aspects of Islam–devotion to the Prophet Muhammad. We discussed the various roles the Prophet occupies in the Muslim religious imaginary: divine messenger, religious authority, moral guide, unparalleled intercessor, and mystical paradigm. This piece, a paper collage I entitled, “The Best of All Creation,” references the Prophet’s role as an intercessor without equal between believers and God.<\/p>\n
One of the stories I found the most interesting this semester was that of the 13th-century Egyptian poet and mystic, al-Busiri, who, as he was recovering from a stroke that left him paralyzed, wrote an ode popularly known as\u00a0al-Burda<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>or, “The Mantle.” The title is a reference to a story that one of the Prophet’s poetic rivals, Ka’b ibn Zuhair who repented of his hostility to Muhammad and wrote a poem asking for mercy. In response, the Prophet is said to have thrown his mantle or\u00a0burda<\/em> around Zuhair, thus creating a new symbol for the prophet’s forgiveness. Al-Busiri, in the 13th century, then had a dream where the Prophet was so pleased with the poem that he placed his\u00a0burda<\/em> around al-Busiri and the latter woke up healed. Since then, the later poem, whose actual title is\u00a0“The Celestial Lights in Praise of the Best of Creation,” has become a staple of popular Muslim devotion.<\/p>\n In my collage, the mantle or\u00a0Burda<\/em> takes prominence with its striking use of different shades of green to denote the Prophet’s cloak. I took inspiration for the color from the Turkic manuscript illustrations of the Prophet’s\u00a0isra\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0mi’raj<\/em>. As in some portrayals, I covered the face of Muhammad in white and his whole head is framed in the fire of prophethood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Week 4, we learned about one of the fundamental aspects of Islam–devotion to the Prophet Muhammad. We discussed the various roles the Prophet occupies in the Muslim religious imaginary: divine messenger, religious authority, moral guide, unparalleled intercessor, and mystical paradigm. This piece, a paper collage I entitled, “The Best of All Creation,” references the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-the-love-of-god-and-his-prophet","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/isaacmartinez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}