{"id":10140,"date":"2006-02-04T20:28:57","date_gmt":"2006-02-05T01:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2006\/02\/04\/10140.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:53:50","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:53:50","slug":"guest-post-aniconism-and-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2006\/02\/04\/guest-post-aniconism-and-islam\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Aniconism and Islamic Art, and, you know, riots and all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[Your Humble Blogger has been itching to write something about this hoo-hah surrounding the Mohammed caricatures and riots and all. As with all questions, the correct answer is it’s more complicated than that<\/I>, and as with all questions, that answer is not helpful in itself. Fortunately, my Best Reader happens to know a great deal<\/I> about art and religion, and about aniconism specifically (which to me seems to be at the heart of the issue). Anyway, I have asked her to Guest Post, since unlike Your Humble Blogger, she knows what she is talking about.]<\/I>\n\n

A much too abbreviated explanation of Islamic art as it pertains to the current controversy:\n

\tIslamic art has its roots in the semi-nomadic traditions of the Arabian peninsula before the advent of Mohammed (ca. 570-632). If you think about most semi-nomadic cultures, their artistic production is centered around small scale portable works—jewelry, pottery, functional ornaments on weapons and bridles, for example. The primary production here is aniconic<\/b> (focused on vegetal and geometric forms but not human figures).\n

\tLike Judaism which prohibits the making of graven images, generally now thought to actually apply to the production of idols (as current evidence from Jewish synagogues like Dura Europas<\/a> in Syria ca. 256 and catacomb evidence from the Villa Torlonia 2nd-4th c. CE argues for vigorous visual production), Islam has a tenet which argues against the production of the human form. After all, at the Eschaton, artists cannot bring their works to life; only God can do that. That is a negative expression of art and theology, if you see my meaning—it is what you should not do. There is also a corresponding positive valuation placed on aniconic work. Islam also values the artistic aesthetic of unity expressed in its arabesques (curling vegetal patterns) and calligraphy<\/a>. These works generally involve a (masculine) organization of space combined with a (feminine) organic growing of the design. This kind of work—Kufic lettering establishing the composition of the page with vegetal and geometric design—is the only kind of decoration permitted in a Koran. \n

\tConsider the territories which became Islamic first—cultures like the Parthians and the Sassanians. These cultures had figural traditions but they also produced a huge amount of textiles and metalwork where vegetal and animal forms were the basis of this production. Good examples of Parthian and Sassanian works, as well as a fabulous little Arabian head, can be found at www.metmuseum.org<\/a> in the Near Eastern Collection highlights.\n

\tIslamic art has generally separated out its artistic production into sacred and secular spheres. That’s a simplistic distinction but it kind of works. Islamic mosque art—from the exterior tile geometric forms and interior crown and vine mosaics at the Dome of the Rock (687-692) to the mihrab tiles from Isfahan in the late 14th century—emphasizes aniconic<\/b> forms and shows no human forms. But Islamic art also has palaces and luxury production, secular production. Islamic palaces—witness Mshatta<\/a> or the Alhambra<\/a>—used lots of the aniconic imagery. The muquarna, the lovely stalactite stuccowork, decorates both mosques and palaces. It isn’t these stucco forms are sacred or secular; they are fundamentally Islamic in character and like Islam, they are both sacred and secular. But in secular small scale work, one of the most popular motifs is the image of the hunter; there’s also of plenty of Persian love poetry illustrated with paintings of its protagonists. There is just no crossover of figural images in sacred art, narrowly defined to mosques and Korans.\n

\t A really good set of visual exemplars can be found here: http:\/\/www.zombietime.com\/mohammed_image_archive\/<\/a>\n

\tWhat this archive misses is that the images of Mohammed often come from secular<\/b> books. The History of the World isn’t a religious book; it is a history book that incorporates the religious event into its scope. Adam and Eve, the figures who generally start this book, are as real as Alexander the Great and Mohammed is both prophet of God and political leader. The story of Mohammed’s ascent into heaven is similarly religious and<\/I> history. These are books at the heart of a secular tradition that runs simultaneous with the sacred tradition. There are not images in the Koran and they have no place in the religious art and architecture of Islam.\n\t\n

\tNobody likes to be made fun of or to have their beliefs mocked. But I would argue that it isn’t just the image of Mohammed that’s a problem here. The art historical evidence suggests a richer and more complex tradition of depiction than current discussion is allowing. Saying that it is the image of Mohammed that is causing the problem as a way of simplifying the issue; it’s also a way of simplifying Islamic response if you can just say, “you should find this offensive”. It is part<\/I> of the problem but it isn’t the only problem. Sure, at one point is the idea that figural images are religiously offensive; certainly that’s why the Taliban destroyed much of the art of Buddhist\/Hindu\/pagan Afghanistan. But images like the Judensau<\/a> (large pig suckling or being raped by a figure meant to be a Jew) are offensive because at heart they do more than mock—they take a principle of kashrut, believed<\/I> by the Jewish people to have been given to them by Gd through Moses, and force the community into opposition to a fundamental belief. It perpetuates vicious ideas of bestiality and inhumanity in its form. This is more offensive, I think, than the desecration some Christians felt when images of Christ are suspended in urine (Andres Serrano, Piss Christ<\/a>) which attacks the Crucifixion image but not the community’s belief. These Islamic cartoons are a complicated problem. They don’t come from the pen of a believer for a believing community. So on an initial level, they will be repugnant to a rigidly defined\/defining group. They perpetuate stereotypes of violence and stupidity (as if all that was involved in a suicide attack was the chance to go to heaven and get a virgin). They are part of a fundamental insensitivity and ignorance on the part of the West (kind of like if an American editor commissions a series of cartoons to use the word ‘nigger’ and then is surprised to find that people are offended). But they are also being used in a way to incite a response of riot and violence: instead of placing them in the category of “things by stupid Westerners” or trying to teach the West why<\/I> these images hurt, they are included in the level of injustices and offenses felt by a community that already feels isolated, misunderstood, and under attack.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Your Humble Blogger has been itching to write something about this hoo-hah surrounding the Mohammed caricatures and riots and all. As with all questions, the correct answer is it\u2019s more complicated than that, and as with all questions, that answer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17681,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10140\/revisions\/17681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}