FINDING THE ‘ISLAM’ IN ISLAMIC ART
In order to define ‘Islamic’ art, a person must first have an understanding of the omnipresence of Shari’ah law in the lives of practising Muslims. For those of Islamic faith, religion is not something that is tied to institutional or church worship, but instead is present at all times and governs of all aspects of life - whether political, economic, public, private or artistic.
Many art historians have referred to the indistinguishable relationship between a Muslim’s personal and religious life as authority for suggesting that all art created by Muslims in inherently ‘Islamic’.[1170] This definition is condescending because it suggests that Muslim artists are unable to conceive or engage with the world in their artistic practice outside of the boundaries of religion. It is also incorrect to assume that Muslim art that engages with widely known tropes of Islamic art, such as arabesque patterns and abstract geometric forms does so for religious purposes. Often such designs are simply employed for decorative purposes on domestic items such as vases and tapestries and are not intended to convey religious meaning. It should also be noted that ‘Islamic art’ is not exclusively ‘Middle-Eastern art’, a distinction that is often overlooked by contemporary commentators on the practice of iconoclasm. In fact, Islamic art is ‘more easily defined by what it is not: neither a region, nor a time period, nor a school, nor a movement’,[1171] but a visual culture that spans centuries and continents and which transcends the practice of individuals. To confine any discussion of Islamic art to practices which are exclusive to Middle East is to disregard the diverse qualities of Islam and the widespread Muslim populations in countries including India and Indonesia.The problem of finding an appropriate definition for Islamic art is also heightened by the absence of an international Islamic authority that can provide clarity on the legal issues surrounding the portraiture and the artistic adaptation of the holy text.
The lack of a central authoritative religious body derives from the Islamic belief that Muslims are not required to answer to any legal authority other than God. Although this creates legislative issues on a state level, it also allows for communities to adapt and diversify their approaches to art based on interpretations of the law that can be understood to give the artist creative license to the extent allowed by their cultural context. Law as a product of cultural context can mean that in some cases, Muslims from different schools of thought may disagree over what constitutes ‘Islamic art’. For example, the Taj Mahal, arguably the most famous piece of Islamic architecture, was commissioned by an Indian Muslim as a tomb for himself and his wife, and is considered by some fundamentalists to breach Islamic law because it is an ‘icon’ which commemorates the dead.[1172]Perhaps the best way of determining whether art is ‘Islamic’ is to determine whether it engages with Islamic law through the representation of religious themes or content. Islamic law, primarily derived from the holy texts of the Qur’an and Hadith, has a unique role to play in the production of art. This is because unlike other cultures that are built on the foundation of religion, Islamic law is highly proscriptive of all areas of life. By defining Islamic art in terms of its relationship to law, problematic definitions that are incompatible with the practice of artists living outside a particular geography of place and time can be overcome.
Oleg Grabar, a highly regarded academic in the field, has attempted to understand Islamic art in a similar way, suggesting that it includes art made by Muslims and non-Muslims ‘that is created for the spiritual, intellectual and physical usage or enjoyment of [people] living within the sphere of Islamic thought and civilisation’.[1173] Thus, not all art created by Muslim artists is necessarily Islamic, even if the work engages with traditional tropes usually associated with Islamic art including arabesque patterns and abstracted figuration.[1174] However, this definition does not go far enough to rule out art that engages with tropes of Islam for visual rather than religiously motivated purposes. Whether or not art is ‘Islamic’ should therefore be determined by reference to the engagement with principles of Islam, otherwise it is simply inspired by Islamic aesthetics.
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