User:Jakob1944/Aniconism in Islam

In practice

Interior of the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

Religious core

In practice, the core of normative religion in Islam is consistently aniconic. Its embodiment are spaces such as the mosque and objects like the Quran or the white dress of pilgrims entering Mecca, deprived of figurative images. Other spheres of religion (mysticism, popular piety, private level) exhibit in this regard significant variability. Aniconism in secular contexts is even more fluctuating. Generally speaking, aniconism in Islamic societies is restricted in modern times to specific religious contexts. In the past, it was enforced only in some times and places.

Past

The representation of living beings in Islamic art is not just a modern phenomenon or because of current technology, Westernization or the cult of the personality. Frescos and reliefs of humans and animals adorned palaces of the Umayyad era, as on the famous Mshatta Facade now in Berlin. Figurative miniatures in books occur later in most Islamic countries but somewhat less in Arabic-speaking areas. The human figure is central to the Persian miniature and other traditions such as the Ottoman miniature and Mughal painting, and represents a good deal of the attractiveness of Islamic art for non-Muslims. The Persian miniature tradition began when Persian courts were Sunni but continued after the Shia Safavid dynasty took power. Shah Tahmasp I of Persia began as a keen patron and amateur artist himself, but he turned against painting and other forbidden activities after a religious midlife crisis. From the 13th century to the 17th century, depictions of Muhammad, the later ones usually veiled,) and other prophets or Biblical characters, like Adam (Adem), Abraham (Ibrahim) or Jesus (Isa) and Solomon (Sulaymān) and Alexander the Great (often identified as Dhul-Qarnayn, a figure in the Quran), became common in painted manuscripts from Persia, India and Turkey. Extreme rarities are an illustrated Qur'an depicting Muhammad and, in a Spanish Muslim manuscript from the 16th century, five Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs. Iblis (the Devil) also is present in various illustrated manuscripts. The prohibition on the depiction of God has, as far as is known, remained absolute at all times.

The Pisa Griffin, probably created in the 11th century in Al-Andalus, is the largest Islamic figurative sculpture to survive.

The avoidance of idolatry is the main concern of the restrictions on images, and the traditional form for religious cult image, the free-standing sculpture, is extremely rare, and there are no large examples of humans. The Pisa Griffin, of a mythical beast and designed to spout water for a fountain, is the largest example, at three feet tall in bronze, and probably only survives because it was taken as booty by the city of Pisa in the Middle Ages. Like the famous lions supporting a fountain in the Alhambra, it probably came from Al-Andalus, one of the more relaxed Arabic-speaking regions in this respect. The griffin and lions cannot easily be regarded as potential idols, given their submissive position (and the lack of religions worshipping lions or griffins), and the same is true of small decorative figures in relief on objects in metalwork, or figures painted on Islamic pottery, both of which are relatively common. In particular hunting scenes of humans and animals were popular, and presumably regarded as clearly having no religious function. The figures in miniatures were, until the late 16th century, always numerous in each image, small (typically only an inch or two high), and showing the central figures at roughly the same size as the attendants and servants who are usually also shown, thus deflecting potential accusations of idolatry. The books illustrated were most often the classics of Persian poetry and historical chronicles.

Eschewing figural representation in religious contexts, Islamic art instead relied heavily upon depictions of inanimate objects, calligraphic script, and geometric patterns. The murals of the Dome of the Rock, for example, use crowns and jewels to evoke earthly rulership and "otherworldly" plants to convey a sense of the paradisiacal afterlife. Similarly, the murals in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, which depict an idyllic cityscape are also meant to be an evocation of paradise without figural representation.

The hadith show some concessions for context, as with the dolls, and condemn most strongly the makers rather than the owners of images. A long tradition of prefaces to muraqqas sought to justify the creation of images without getting involved in discussions of the specific texts, using arguments such as comparing God to an artist.

Miniature painting was mostly patronized by the court circle and is a private form of art; the owner chooses whom to show a book or muraqqa (album). But wall-paintings with large figures were found in early Islam, and in Safavid and later Persia, especially from the 17th century, but were always rare in the Arabic-speaking world. Such paintings are also mainly found in private palaces; examples in public buildings are rare though not unknown, in Iran there are even some in mosques.

Muqarnas in the gate to the Shah (Abbasi) Mosque of Isfahan, Isfahan

In Islamic sacred architecture, ornamentation consists mainly in arabesques and geometrical patterns. Mosques do not feature dynamic elements, but aim for a quality of serenity and repose. Similarly, weight-bearing elements are not designed along anthropomorphic lines to present an image of physical strength; cupolas for example often feature muqarnas disguising the transition between the cupola and its supports, creating the impression that the supports, rather than holding up the cupola, have "congealed" from the divine void above.

For many years, Wahhabi clerics opposed the establishment of a television service in Saudi Arabia, as they believed it immoral to produce images of humans. The introduction of television in 1965 offended some Saudis, and one of King Faisal's nephews, Prince Khalid ibn Musa'id ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz, was killed in a police shootout in August 1965 after he led an assault on one of the new television stations.

Present

Depending on which segment of Islamic societies are referred to, the application of aniconism is characterized by noteworthy differences. Factors are the epoch considered, the country, the religious orientation, the political intent, the popular beliefs, the private benefit or the dichotomy between reality and discourse.

Today, the concept of an aniconic Islam coexists with a daily life for Muslims awash with images. TV stations and newspapers (which do present still and moving representations of living beings) have an exceptional impact on public opinion, sometimes, as in the case of Al Jazeera, with a global reach, beyond the Arabic speaking and Muslim audience. Portraits of secular and religious leaders are omnipresent on banknotes and coins, in streets and offices (e.g. presidents like Nasser and Mubarak, Arafat, al-Assad or Hezbollah's Nasrallah and Ayatollah Khomeini). Anthropomorphic statues in public places are to be found in most Muslim countries (Saddam Hussein's are infamous), as well as art schools training sculptors and painters. In the Egyptian countryside, it is fashionable to celebrate and advertise the returning of pilgrims from Mecca on the walls of their houses.

The Taliban movement in Afghanistan banned photography and destroyed non-Muslim artifacts, especially carvings and statues such as the Buddhas of Bamiyan, generally tolerated by other Muslims, on the grounds that the artifacts are idolatrous or shirk. However, sometimes those who profess aniconism will practice figurative representation (cf. portraits of Talibans from the Kandahar photographic studios during their imposed ban on photography).

For Shia communities, portraits of the major figures of Shiite history are important elements of religious devotion. In Iran, portraits of Muhammad and of Ali, printed on pieces of cloth or woven into carpets, are called temsal ("likenesses") and can be bought around shrines and in the streets, to be hung in homes or carried with oneself. In Pakistan, India and Bangladesh portraits of Ali can be found on notoriously ornate trucks, buses and rickshaws. Contrary to the Sunni tradition, a photographic picture of the deceased can be placed on the Shiite tombs. A curiosity in Iran is an Orientalist photography supposed to represent Muhammad as a young boy. The Grand Ayatollah Sistani of Najaf in Iraq has given a fatwā declaring the depiction of Muhammad, the prophets and other holy characters, permissible if it is made with the utmost respect.

Circumvention methods

Persian miniature painting from the 16th century, depicting Muhammad, his face veiled, ascending on the Buraq into the Heavens, a journey known as the Mi'raj.

Medieval Muslim artists found various ways to represent especially sensitive figures such as Muhammad. He is sometimes shown with a fiery halo hiding his face, head, or whole body, and from about 1500 is often shown with a veiled face. Members of his immediate family and other prophets may be treated in the same way. More generally, it can be believed that since God is absolute, the act of depiction is his own and not that of a human; and miniatures are obviously very crude representations of the reality, so the two cannot be mistaken. At the material level, prophets in manuscripts can have their face covered by a veil or all humans have a stroke drawn over their neck, symbolising the severing of the soul, and clarifying the fact that it is not something alive and imbued with a soul that is depicted: a purposeful flaw to make what is depicted impossible to live in reality (as merely impossible in reality is still often frowned upon or banned, such as representations of comic book characters or unicorns, although exceptions do exist). Calligraphy, the most Islamic of arts in the Muslim world, has also its figurative side due to anthropo- and zoomorphic calligrams. Few portraits were attempted, and the ability to create recognisable portraits was rare in Islamic art until the Mughal tradition began in the late 15th century, although in both Mughal India and Ottoman Turkey portraits of the ruler then became very popular in court circles.

A hilya or description in calligraphy of the appearance of Muhammad by the Ottoman calligrapher Hâfiz Osman (d. 1698).

Forms of Islamic calligraphy evolved, especially in the Ottoman period, to fulfill a function similar to that of representative art by means of calligraphic representation, when on paper usually with elaborate frames of Ottoman illumination. These include the name of Muhammad, the hilya, or description of his physical appearance, similar treatments of one or more of the names of God in Islam, and the tughra, a calligraphic version of the name of an Ottoman sultan.