![\"images\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/files\/2014\/05\/images3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Prologue<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cL\u0101 \u02beil\u0101ha \u02beil \u02be\u0101ll\u0101h, mu\u1e25ammadun ras\u016blu-ll\u0101h\u201d \u2013 <\/em>There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger.\u00a0 The familiar Muslim profession of faith, the shahada, is one of the central tenants of Islam, and its recitation in public one of the five pillars of Islam.\u00a0 It is a profession of Unity, both in the sense of the explicit assertion of the unity of God, and in the sense of the unity of Muslims in this fundamental belief.\u00a0 Yet one of the most striking aspects of the Islamic tradition today is the remarkable diversity of practices associated with it.\u00a0 Islam cannot be reduced to the often-cited five pillars of Islam, nor is it entirely captured in the sacred script of the Qur\u2019an.\u00a0 Islam is a religion practiced by Muslims, literally \u201cthose who submit to the will of God, or Allah.\u00a0 But with the myriad of choices faced by believers every day, the issue of discovering God\u2019s will becomes far more complex.\u00a0 One might turn to the Qur\u2019an for guidance, and indeed, this is often the first course of action for many Muslims.\u00a0 But how can such a compact book, comprising of 114 relatively short surahs (chapters), hope to explicitly describe the appropriate behavior for the uncountable set of situations life presents?\u00a0 To address life\u2019s more subtle concerns one may turn to personal intellect, to tradition, or even to external sources of wisdom.\u00a0 Regardless, each believer must inform his lifestyle, and by extension his religious practice by his individual circumstances.\u00a0 In short, there is no unified religion of Islam.\u00a0 Islam may be a monotheistic religion, but it is certainly not a monolith.<\/p>\n The diversity within Islam runs so deep that it even affects the expression of an explicit command from the Qur\u2019an: to revere the prophet of God, Muhammad.\u00a0\u00a0 An almost universal, ever-present element in the life of Muslims, the \u201cseal of the prophets,\u201d Muhammad, finds his way into the hearts of his followers in various ways.\u00a0 For example, many Muslims connect to the prophet by imitating his recorded behavior and practices, which are collectively known as Sunnah.\u00a0 Others, like many of the Sindhi people, express their connection by writing poetry with the prophet as a subject or theme (Asani, 159).\u00a0 However one of the most striking differences is the appreciation of the fundamental ontological nature of the figure of the prophet Muhammad.\u00a0 In some circles, the prophet Muhammad\u2019s role is strictly limited to that of the human receptacle for the revelation of the Qur\u2019an.\u00a0 As such, he is deserving of great respect, but not to be elevated to any higher station. To others, the prophet takes on another metaphysical dimension as the ideal man: man\u2019s perfect state and his origin in the sense that a platonic ideal is a source.\u00a0 This second view is captured by the piece on the so-called \u201cPrimordial Muhammad\u201d from which the rest of humanity was derived.\u00a0 In this piece, one sees the name, Muhammad, in the center of a circle, and touching one of the encircling dots.\u00a0 This is meant to represent that Muhammad is the origin of humanity, not in the sense of its beginning, but rather in the sense that a circle\u2019s center comprises its origin.\u00a0 Further, Muhammad has a dual expressed nature as \u201cseal of the prophets\u201d and thus, in the circle of time, dotted by the various prophets, he holds a distinguished position, indicated by the light emitted from his dot.\u00a0 And of course, there are even more debates about the appreciation of the prophet Muhammad in Islam.\u00a0 The one most relevant to this blog is the divide over a particular hadith (saying of the prophet) that is frequently cited to justify the ban on images of the prophet and other beings, in which some see this ban as a means of showing respect, while others see their images as a means of expressing their love for him.<\/p>\n This ban on images would seem to pose a daunting barrier to the progression of Islamic art, and in fact there are many other challenges to the aesthetic dimension of Islam, not the least of which is the debate over the place of music and Qur\u2019anic recitation.\u00a0 Still, one cannot help but be amazed at the staggering quantity and quality of work produced by the Islamic community.\u00a0 But, can one be sure that all of the art is truly \u201cIslamic\u201d in nature?\u00a0 It seems a little presumptuous to claim that all art created by Muslims is \u201cIslamic\u201d in nature.\u00a0 In fact, scholars are still split on the definition of Islamic art, or whether it truly should be a category of art at all.\u00a0 However, one notable scholar, Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, does believe in the deep unity and profundity of Islamic art.\u00a0 He expresses his view in his book Islamic Art and Spirituality<\/em>, saying, \u201cWhether in the great courtyard of the Delhi Mosque of the Qarawiyyin in Fez, one feels oneself within the same artistic and spiritual universe despite all the local variations in material, structural techniques, and the like\u201d(Nasr, 3). Inherent in this view is the belief that Islamic art cannot be reduced to a set of materials or their means of construction; there is something symbolic or hidden in Islamic art that transcends its physical manifestation.\u00a0 It is not something that one can decompose entirely, but something that one must \u201cfeel.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, according to Nasr, Islamic art is not concerned with the \u201coutward appearance of things, but with their inner reality\u201d(Nasr, 8).\u00a0 Thus, to Nasr, at least, Islamic art is highly symbolic, where every detail may be a reminder of nature\u2019s inner reality, the innermost of which is God.\u00a0 This maximalist approach to Islamic art is explored in the crude piece presented in the post on the \u201cSeven Spheres of Heaven.\u201d\u00a0 In this post, a multitude of meaning is drawn from a relatively simple clay tablet to show how every minute detail of this piece of art could be viewed as symbolic of the Mi\u2019raj, Muhammad\u2019s ascent through the levels of heaven to meet God. Such an interpretation requires a bit more that the explicit expression of the artwork.\u00a0 To extend this principle, as Nasr would put it, \u201cIt is therefore to the inner dimension of Islam, to the batin\u2026that one must turn for the origin of Islamic art\u201d(Nasr, 5). And thus, art is the necessary companion of those who thirst after any inner meaning, or batin, in Islam.<\/p>\n The prime example of a Muslim concerned with Islam\u2019s hidden dimensions is one who follows the branch of Islam called Sufism.\u00a0 Sufism is a term that is quite difficult to define, however, broadly speaking, Sufis are those who believe in a God that is more immanent than the more distant deity of less esoteric interpretations of Islam.\u00a0 Central to the belief is the view that, since the appearance of creation in \u201cpre-eternity\u201d on the day of alast, all of reality has been bent towards a return to union with God.\u00a0 To the Sufis, this is accomplished by an arduous process of cleansing of the self, and a humbling of the ego, or nefs<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0A particularly meaningful ayat<\/em> (verse of the Qur\u2019an) to Sufi\u2019s is \u201cTo God belongs the East and the West; wherever you turn, you will perceive the face of God.\u201d (2:115).\u00a0 From this, many argue that all things in nature have a symbolism and a hidden lesson to be learned about the true nature of God.\u00a0 In fact, the overwhelming desire for knowledge of and union with God is the source of the multitude of Sufi pieces of art, nearly all of which are laden with layers of symbolism and references to nature.\u00a0 One of the great Sufi poets, Farid al-Din Attar, is best known for his epic poem, Mantiq al-tayr<\/em>, or \u201cthe Conference of the Birds.\u201d In it the poet beautifully describes the souls path to union with God symbolized by the story of a host of birds searching for their king, the Simorgh.\u00a0 Each of the birds in the story takes of the characteristics of a particular human personality, and is taught and led according to their character.\u00a0 Thus, the story provides a guide to the Sufi path for all different types of dispositions.\u00a0 In the post, \u201cConference with a Chicken,\u201d the lessons from the stories centering about the finch are compressed and re-expressed in comic form to show that the story has not lost any relevance since its medieval creation.\u00a0 Like many great poems, \u201cthe Conference of the Birds\u201d has proven to be quite timeless.<\/p>\n Poetry has long been a revered method of expressing devotion for Sufis, however, in a wider Islamic context, it is far more divisive.\u00a0 The history of poetry in Islam is one of misunderstanding and conflict.\u00a0 Before the official advent of Islam with the prophet Muhammad\u2019s original recitation of the Qur\u2019an, pre-Islamic Arabia had been home to a large number of poets whose poems were most often employed in the polytheistic faith of the region.\u00a0 At the conception of Islam, the prophet went to great lengths to distinguish himself from the poets of the time and establish the Divine nature of his revelation\u00a0 (Renard, 109). He condemned many poets and waning his believers to be mindful of them Yet as his position solidified, one of the great poets of the time and formerly one of Muhammad\u2019s greatest opponents, Ibn Zuhayr, presented the prophet with an original composition in his honor.\u00a0 The positive reception of this gift has caused debate over the position of poetry in Islam, an issue that was, and is still, largely left to be answered by cultural contexts.\u00a0 For example, poems may be composed in honor of the prophet, like the Sindhi poems mentioned above.\u00a0 They may also be means of expressing a heartfelt love for God, as many Sufi poets, like Attar, were wont to do.\u00a0 The post on \u201cDivine Love\u201d explores how poetry found expression in the context of Medieval Islamic Persia.\u00a0 The theme of love and the images used to express it are particularly compelling in these renderings, yet at surface level, they have nothing to do with the exoteric practice of Islam.\u00a0 Nevertheless, there are still parts of the Islamic world that shrink from poetry of any form, while other parts embrace poetry to such a degree that it is seen as having a mystical power. For example, the Egyptian poet, Al-Busiri, wrote a poem, the Burda, which is purported to have been received by the prophet in a dream and lead to the poet\u2019s miraculous recovery from a terminal illness.\u00a0 Today, many still hold that the poem has special healing powers, and it is one of the most widely memorized poems in the Islamic world.\u00a0 Poetry does holds a tenuous position in Islam, but its potency is undeniable.<\/p>\n Though it is extremely popular, the reception of the Burda, and most poems vary widely across different cultures.\u00a0 In similar fashion to the imposition of pre-Islamic poetry on Islam, many cultural traditions survive, and find new life with the arrival of Islam.\u00a0 For example, the Berti people of Sudan find that there is a certain spiritual potency to drinking erasures of verses from the Qur\u2019an and lists of the names of Allah\u00a0 (El-Tom 415). This practice is widely employed as a form of medication by faqis, which are better known in the traditional Islamic sense as hafiz, those who have memorized the entire Qur\u2019an (415).\u00a0 This is likely the by-product of a pre-existent traditional conception of the process of spiritual healing blended with the sacred place of the Qur\u2019an in Islam.\u00a0 Novel ritual practices such as this are, in fact, quite common in Islamic Africa, whether it be through devotion to certain marabouts whose practice resembles that of priests of traditional religions, or from the belief in the baraka (spiritual blessing) received from the creation and display of a certain Cheick Amadou Bamba by the Muridiyya Sufi order in Senegal.\u00a0 The intersection of cultural norms in Islam is discussed in the post\u00a0 \u201cOgun\u2019s return,\u201d in which element from a traditional Nigerian mythology (If\u00e1) are embedded within a traditionally Persian, Arabic, or Urdu love poem.\u00a0 The traditional Sufi imagery and Yoruba (Nigerian tribe) insertions serve to express the same sentiment, a desire for return to God.\u00a0 This piece shows that one cannot hope to understand Islam without first specifying the cultural context under which particular practices emerged.<\/p>\n The need for contextual understanding, of course, is not limited to the realm of cultural differences.\u00a0 The interpretation of Islam is just as temporal as the beings who practice it.\u00a0 Islam is a dynamic religion, and while it is evident that certain elements of the tradition persist throughout the ages, the words of modern day scholars cannot be equated with an ancient master such as Al-Ghazali.\u00a0 Oftentimes, \u00a0there will even be a lack of consistency between the two time periods under investigation.\u00a0 Time has presented Muslims with different struggles over the ages, and the writings of the thinkers have mirrored the issues of their day.\u00a0 For example, in the Complaint<\/em> and the Answer, <\/em>Muhammad Iqbal employs the poetic form of conversation with the Divine to examine the place of Muslims in the modern world.\u00a0 In the Complaint<\/em>, he poses as a believer who charges God with having forgotten His people and left them to their present decline (Iqbal, 3-33).\u00a0 Yet, in the Answer<\/em>, the poet responds in the voice of God saying that His people have forgotten the ways of their forefathers (namely Ali, Uthman, Ghazali, ect.) and instead, \u201ceducation and refinement\u201d have lead them to idolatry (Iqbal 59).\u00a0 Iqbal employs this traditional method of expressing devotion to express his view about the state of Muslims in the wake of the expansion of the West and Modernism.\u00a0 Many similar figures followed suit, choosing to express their ideas by drawing on the traditions of the past, and in some cases prescribing a return to said traditions. \u00a0In like fashion, the post, \u201cNasrudin and the Christian\u201d employs the use of a traditional Islamic folk-tale to comment on the ideas of some of the reformist thinkers.\u00a0 The simple stories of this character, Nasrudin, are typically used to present compact truths or bits of wisdom, and so they provided an ideal means for a concise critique of some reformist stances. Through the story presented, one is able to perceive the power of using old mediums for modern reflections.\u00a0 Without a doubt, the ideas in Islam are not exactly those conceived of at its inception, but there does seem to be some continuity, which is quite evident by the efficacy derived from the past tradition.<\/p>\n Islam may, in fact, comprise a continuous tradition, however, the price of this dynamism is the unity of a clear definition.\u00a0 And yet, there remains some conception of Islam as one distinct religion.\u00a0 As the Sufis might say when speaking of the nature of God, Islam participates in both unity and multiplicity.\u00a0 It is multiple and yet one.\u00a0 To ignore either of these aspects would be to miss the true character of the religion.\u00a0 As we have seen, sect, culture, and time each play their role in contextualizing Islam.\u00a0 And yet, according to many scholars like Prof. Nasr, there is a distinct \u201cuniverse\u201d from which all of Islamic art springs.\u00a0 This, however, requires a very nuanced understanding of the batin, or inner meaning of the tradition.\u00a0 For those lacking the exposure necessary, it is far simpler to refine one\u2019s understanding of the multiplicity of Islam and its artwork.\u00a0 One would hope this could combat sentiments of the Muslim as \u201cthe other.\u201d\u00a0 If nothing else, this blog attempted to present the necessity and, indeed, beauty of context in Islam. \u00a0That being said, what is presented here is but a drop in the sea of Islamic art, and only provides a fleeting glimpse at its diversity and profound beauty.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n Asani, Ali. \u201cIn Praise of Muhammad: Sindhi and Urdu Poems.\u201d\u00a0Religions of India in Practice<\/em>. Ed. Donald S. Lopez. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1995. 159-86. Print.<\/p>\n El-Tom, Abdullahi Osman. \u201cDrinking the Koran: The Meaning of Koranic Verses in Berti Erasure.\u201d\u00a0Africa: Journal of the International African Institute<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>55.4 (1985): 414. Print.<\/p>\n Iqbal, Muhammad.\u00a0Complaint and Answer: Shikwa and Jawab-i-shikwa<\/em>. Trans. A. J. Arberry. Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1955. Print.<\/p>\n Nasr, Seyyed Hossein.\u00a0Islamic art and spirituality<\/em>. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. Print.<\/p>\n Renard, John.\u00a0Seven doors to Islam spirituality and the religious life of Muslims<\/em>. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prologue \u201cL\u0101 \u02beil\u0101ha \u02beil \u02be\u0101ll\u0101h, mu\u1e25ammadun ras\u016blu-ll\u0101h\u201d \u2013 There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger.\u00a0 The familiar Muslim profession of faith, the shahada, is one of the central tenants of Islam, and its recitation in public one of the five pillars of Islam.\u00a0 It is a profession of Unity, both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6297,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6297"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"iranbeamoflight\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/olumakindeislamicart\/files\/2014\/05\/iranbeamoflight-223x300.png\")
<\/p>\n