{"id":9,"date":"2014-03-24T03:11:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T03:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/?p=9"},"modified":"2014-05-09T23:04:01","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T23:04:01","slug":"the-lamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/2014\/03\/24\/the-lamp\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lamp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGod is the Light of the heavens and the earth.<\/p>\n

The Parable of His Light is as if there were a Niche and within it a Lamp<\/p>\n

the Lamp enclosed in Glass: the glass as it were a brilliant star<\/p>\n

Lit from a blessed Tree, an Olive, neither of the east nor of the West,<\/p>\n

whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it<\/p>\n

Light upon Light! God doth guide whom He will to His Light<\/p>\n

God doth set forth Parables for men: and God doth know all things.\u201d- Qur\u2019an (24:35)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Week 4 we learned about the Prophet Muhammad, and the special relationship Muslims have with him. The Prophet is revered by Muslims, like Jesus Christ is by Christians, without him being deified. Muslims see him as the Walking Qur\u2019an, and the Perfect Man. Muslims strive to become like the Prophet by imitating his sunnah, or practices. Still he is seen as human, the Perfect Man<\/em>, which is the biggest difference between Muslims\u2019 relationship with Muhammad and Christians\u2019 relationship with Jesus.<\/p>\n

For my artistic response, I created a non-figural representation of the Prophet Muhammad. The verse quoted from the Qur’an above is the famous light verse. Ali Asani in his book Infidel of Love, narrates “According to Muqatil, the lamp, in this verse, is a fitting symbol for Muhammad, who has been described elsewhere in the Qur\u2019an as a \u201cshining lamp.\u201d ” (Asani 133).\u00a0The Prophet is often connected to light imagery. He is described at times as being a reflection of God\u2019s light, being surrounded by light , and casting no shadow. \u00a0My image is based of the light verse (above) and the comparison between the Prophet and a radiant lamp \u201csiraj munir\u201d. I drew an outline of an oil lamp in the style of Islamic Art, and filled it with attributes of the Prophet. These attributes are connected to Names of God in Islam. For example Al-Rahman, The Merciful, is a name of God while the Prophet is rahmah, mercy. The lamp is filled with, and radiates, the light of the Prophet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Translations:<\/p>\n

rahmah- mercy<\/p>\n

rahim \u2013 beneficent, merciful<\/p>\n

karim \u2013 generous<\/p>\n

nur \u2013 light<\/p>\n

halim \u2013 forbearing<\/p>\n

mu\u2019allim \u2013 teacher<\/p>\n

sabur \u2013 patient<\/p>\n

\u2018azim \u2013 sublime (character)<\/p>\n

wali \u2013 guardian (of the Believers)<\/p>\n

siraj munir \u2013 radiant lamp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGod is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The Parable of His Light is as if there were a Niche and within it a Lamp the Lamp enclosed in Glass: the glass as it were a brilliant star Lit from a blessed Tree, an Olive, neither of the east nor of the West, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jumaiyusuf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}