The Cranky Professor

In the earliest days of Islam--which some also refer to as the "purest"--depiction of living beings, not just the Prophet, was strictly forbidden. This is due to a text--either Quranic or from the Hadith, I confess to not being sure which, but probably the latter.

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The thought was that only God could create living beings. The attempt of an artist to do so could only be seen as attempting to usurp the authority of God and was therefore blasphemous.

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This led directly to the banning of cinemas in Saudi Arabia and the uprisings following the introduction of both cameras and television in that country. Ultimately, it led to the assassination of King Faisal, in 1965.

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I'm pretty sure you're aware of the defacing of Greek, Roman, and other statuary in response to this iconoclastic belief.

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The further one got from Mecca, however, the more other influences crept in and the more other traditions became "more official". This is strikingly the case when it came to Shi'ism. Shi'ism is more mystically oriented, though not so much as Sufism. In both of those traditions, depiction of the Prophet was acceptable.

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Shi'ism, of course, was the profession of the majority of Persian Muslims. And the Persian influence extended into Afghanistan, from which the Mogul dynasties of India came. Hence the depiction of the Prophet in that art tradition.

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Were you to draw a line from the Black Sea, at the easternmost part of Turkey, down to the Persian Gulf, you will find depictions of the Prophet to the East, but rarely to the West.

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The exceptions are in places where either Shi'a or Sufi influence was considerable. There are Turkish depictions, and Turkey has many Sufis and not a few Shi'a. Egypt, which was ruled by a Shi'a dynasty around the time of the Crusades, also produced a few. Go further West, to North Africa, or South, into Arabia, and not only are there no depictions of the Prophet, but almost none of living creatures, plant or animal: it all goes geometric or makes use of the fluid script of Arabic.

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You can find an equally informative understanding were you to consider the use of alcohol--firmly forbidden by Islam. Turks drink. Iranians, Afghans, and the decendents of the Moguls drank in considerable numbers until the renaissance of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1970s.

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An overlay of colonialism also brought a tolerance toward alcohol in the colonies. Thus, Algeria, then a province of France, ended up with a considerable wine industry. Similarly, there were/are vinyards in Tunisia and Morocco, Lebanon and Syria.

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What this comes down to, I think, is that while certain practices are indeed forbidden in Islam, not all Muslims follow the rules, for a variety of reasons. This pattern of human behavior has rather deep roots.

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As a sidenote, the bombings in Amman killed a Syrian film producer. In addition to his more famous "Halloween" series of horror films, he also produced a film, "The Messenger," in the late 1970s. This film was banned throughout the Muslim world because of its blasphemous nature. It was also one of the complaints of the Hanfi Muslims--a Black Muslim sect--who perpetrated one of the first acts of Islamic inspired terror in the US, with their assaults on both the District Building (city hall) and the B'nai Brith headquarters in Washington, DC.

(Sorry for the lack of paragraph breaks. They don't seem to be taking)

-----Except that the hadith is pretty clearly not about iconoclasm - Muhammad says to some wife or other -- I suppose it's Aisha but my Islamic art books are all at the office -- that the embroidered bunny rabbit on her pillow is a vain thing. He neither prohibits it (destroys it) nor commends it (in other words, using the 3-levels-of-law idea, the depiction is neutral)! Another commonplace about Islamic art is that even though there *might* be 2-d representations of humans there are *never* 3-d ones. There are surviving frescoes AND life-sized STATUES of human figures from Ummayad Palaces. What I'm pointing out here is that the commonplace is demonstrably false. It might be even MORE demonstably false if the Saudis permitted archaeology of early sites in the Peninsula. To say that a Hadith leads directly to a late 20th century phenomenon in Saudi Arabia is the kind of reification of a Universal and Unchanging Islam that I'm challenging here. It isn't unchanging and the Law is not what it is represented to be by the Wahabbis. And THEN there's the tradition that Muhammad actually stopped the iconoclasm in the Kaba precinct; he spared the icons of Jesus and Mary. I've never known quite what to make about that, but then neither have the anti-image critics. I understand what you mean about the Iranian and Turkci traditions being more open to depiction, and it's generally true, but that's part of the point -- we can't allow peple to generalize about Islam and exclude such HUGE swaths of historical evidence. (oh - about the paragraph breaks, sorry. I know that I have my comments formatted not to accept html, but that's weirder than MT usually gets). --MCT

Actually, instead of three levels of "legality," it's five: 1) to be done mandatorily; 2) to be done with merit; 3) neutral; 4) to be avoided if possible; 5) completely forbidden.

The problem, as you note, is the hadith. Personally, I consider them to be so suspect as to be worthless. It's not terribly difficult to find one to contradict another. Sort of like finding the right priest for the purpose of confession.

Muslims try to sort through these contraditions through the "chain of authority," isnad, to determine who is reliable and who is not. But there is much varience in which hadith are accepted by which groups. There's an obvious split between Sunni and Shi'a acceptance of authority. I certainly haven't done a study to compare them when it comes to art and representation, but I suspect it would make a good PhD thesis.

I do assert, however, that it is demonstrably true that within some groups, an 8th C. prohibition (based on the acceptance of a particular hadith continues to be in greater or lesser effect. It is true that traditional Saudi Arabs, and the government, are not enamored of representational art. You simply do not find representational art in government buildings, for instance.

For those who follow that line of interpretation, that is, indeed, the interpretation, QED.

But not all Saudis do follow that line, of course. Lladro figurines can be found for sale, as can baby dolls, statues of horses, etc.

Equally, a considerable number of Saudis seem to find a prohibition of music in the hadith and behave accordingly. A large number do not, of course, and music stores abound. But in trying to please everyone, governmental interpretation of the rule permits men to enter a music store, while women may not! You can find musical instruments for sale in Jeddah, but have to look hard in Riyadh. These cities have very different histories and traditions. But you don't find Saudis whistling, in any city. The isnad on a prohibition of music does not seem to be strong. Most Muslims do not accept it.

I think the best we can say is that while religious laws can be found to prohibit representational art, those laws have not been uniformly followed across the Islamic world, nor across all times.

Catholics were once religiously compelled to not eat meat on Fridays. Not all followed that rule, of course, and various countries and times had different interpretations of what constituted "meat." Some permitted water fowl, some permitted frogs and other waterlife. Others seem to have prohibitied anything with a pulse. That was, however, a universal rule, or at least commonplace: "Catholics do not eat meat on Friday".

At least a major interpretation of orthodoxy supports the prohibition. Similarly with the representational art prohibition.

Is false, or is it merely an overextension of a perception? A majority of Islamic orthodoxy prohibits representational art, but there are many exceptions to be found.

PS: The formatting problem seems to be in the preview function. Let's see what happens in this, normally entered comment.

.....I think that the contemporary situation is an overextension of a perception of an only recently-enforced prohibition -- that a majority of Sunni Islamic orthodoxy prohibits representational art today but did not in the past. I would be fascinated to read a well-researched book on the topic; there are none in the western European languages I read. Indeed, this hadith interpretation might even prove to be a recent "discovery," in the way that some 20th century American Protestant groups believe in the Rapture, a teaching "discovered" in the New Testament the late 19th century.

.....The Sunni/Shia divide is useful and interesting, but not final; let me give two examples of large bodies of evidence. Remember that the Turks were both Sunni AND strongly influenced by the Sufi orders, which is why they may have permitted more representational art in 2 dimensions and even some sculpture; very little of the sculpture survives, but enough does that we know it was neither prohibited nor hidden away in private. Likewise the Muslims of Andalusia had no problem with representational painting and relief carving before the Almohad intrusion -- but they were already Sunni rather than Shia.
.....In terms of the problems of evidence, almost all our knowledge of the first 100-150 years of Islamic architecture based on excavation comes from modern Jordan, Syria, and Iraq (and was done before the 1970s). The Saudis have never permitted much excavation and have been accused of intentionally destroying-by-remodelling ancient sites so that we have a more Wahabbi-approved idea of what early Islam in the Peninsula looked like. Very little excavation of secular architecture in Islamic countries has ever taken place; in Iraq, for instance, most archaeologists were interested in pre-Islamic remains; Samarra is virtually untouched and modern Baghdad gets in the way of understanding earlier Baghdad. All in all, our knowledge is very partial. --MCT

I'll certainly agree that the state of Islamic archeology in the Middle East is less than it should be. But things are improving, even in Saudi Arabia. Most of the reporting, though, is being done in Arabic.

In the 1980s, the Saudi official stance toward excavation is exactly as you note. Since then, though, it has changed for the better. If you go to the National Museum in Riyadh today, you will find not only exhibits of pre-Islamic Arabia ("Jahaliya" era), but also early Islamic history. As more Saudis take an interest in their own history--even more, now that Saudi female archeologists are now "legal"--much is being done.

Take a look at "Adamatu," a bilingual journal that focuses on Arabic archeology. Most, as you say, is pre-Islamic (if not prehistoric), but the field isn't a void. While hardly deep, the National Museum also has a web page, with a section dedicated to early Islam (http://www.saudimuseum.com/jazaslaming.htm)

You might also be interested in an article from the Saudi "Aramco World" magazine on Islamic arts (http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/196402/from.the.artist.s.hand.htm). Not a refereed journal, this PR magazine nonetheless offers an interesting look at the Arab world. You can find an index to articles on art over it many years of publication at http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/index/Subjects.aspx#ART

There's a nice note on the use of the veiled prophet (anyone from St. Louis reading? That's where it comes from.).

So why does a Catholic city have a Veiled Prophet ball? (I know it's not the Catholic ball -- just wondering how it ended up happening here in the first place.)

Check out this link which has the 12 Danish items plus about 60 other graphic depictions:

http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

Islam has gone through periods of iconoclasm, like all religions. You are completely right when you write ``The physical depiction of the Prophet Muhammad may be a taboo subject matter in some sects of contemporary Islam.'' What people are really upset about is that Mohammed has been insulted, or to use the words of King Abdullah of Jordan, villified, because that is against Islam.

.....But there remains the question about who decides on what counts as vilification - esp. given reports that the pictures have not been widely reproduced outside the web -- and who determines it. And "against Islam" and "burning down embassies." Hmmm. I'm left asking "whose Islam?" "Which Islam?" --MCT

John Burgess:
I very much appreciate your knowledge of the subject because I haven’t read a single Catholic commenter who has any knowledge of the subject and I spent a considerable amount of time writing a response only to have it disappear into the ether when I hit "post".

Veiled depictions of the Prophet and other revered Islamic figures are common as is the rather odd custom of simply giving them a "blank" face with no features at all instead of a veil.

The point is that Islam is a 16 centuries old, complex world religion and as such, cannot be regarded as a monolith. Just like Christianity, practice, worship, spirituality, and art has varied widely over the centuries and from culture to culture. There is a substantial iconoclastic tradition within Islam which has been interpreted very strictly in some circles and very casually in others. But the fact that the interpretation of this tradition has varied widely within Islam does not make it non-existant.

These cartoons would have been controversial if published by Muslims but published by non-believers, who were obviously intending to ridicule the Prophet by doing so, during a time of heightened conflict – they were an conflagration waiting to happen – and Muslims extremists are no doubt delighted that the west has given them such a perfect trigger for popular rage.

.....Ummm, Sherry - this is not John's site - and *I'm* Catholic. --MCT

Dear Professor,

The original Danish cartoon came out in September last year. If this was limited to just the Danish paper this incident would have subsided.

The real uproar started when a few weeks ago the European papers re-printed them which the Muslims took as a deliberate provocation.

You are right, the depiction of the Prophet can be found in Sufi and Shia literature in the form of fuzzy depictions of the Prophet.

The question is not about depicting the Prophet, but it is a matter of degrading the Prophet and the entire religion of Islam.

e.g. In Iran the Shia Muslims are accustom to the depiction of various Muslim figures. In this case the cartoons were demeaning to one of the most important icons of Muslim belief, which is why even Iranian Muslims along with Muslims all over the world are outraged.

Considering all the other geo-political issues of "War on Terror" and the Muslim perception of it to be a "War on Islam", depicting the Prophet with a bomb in his turban associated the entire religion to terror.

At the same time it is regrettable that certain people have poorly expressed their protest against the publication of these cartoons. The action of these people is a separate issue, that requires its own condemnation.

Images depicting the Prophet or any other prophets in Islam is forbidden. I repeat. Forbidden. That is the reason why whatever images you may find of the Prophet are fuzzy or veiled. I'm not sure if such images are even allowed but the point is that no face is allowed to be made up to depict the Prophet.
I understand there are images of the Prophets out there and they belonged to Muslims or were made by Muslims. They should know that such act is forbidden. But as mentioned earlier, its a basic human behavior. Muslims are still humans and they have errors. And Islam should not be judged only by a number of these people who violate its laws.
Also to clarify, there are four main Muslim sects with different parts of the world a member of one sect. But there are only minor differences between these sects such as what would invalid the prayer and what not but when it comes to the issues in the Qur'an and the Prophet, everything is uniformed. A Muslim cannot just change or ignore the very core of the Islamic religion. The hadith saying about depicting the image of the Prophet is correct by the way. Even by the 'level of authority' it is considered one of the oldest and truest.
But let us not forget that while some hadiths are true, some are made up by irresponsible people who wish to lead astray the true meaning of the Qur'an.

.....Sorry. You're wrong, and the history of Islamic art proves it. Check the links. Not all varieties of Islam have prohibited the face of the Prophet Muhammad - or other prophets. Sometimes the veil or the obscured face has been used, but not universally. Islam is much more complicated than many modern Muslims would like to admit. --MCT

Blogger "The Dissident Frogman" actively maintains a posting with some very high quality "Support Denmark" graphics in multiple languages (the list of which is growing) such as English, French, Italian, Polish, German, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, and Romanian:

http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/dacha/001580.html

I recommend downloading and using these banners on our blogs.

The above link has excellent information regarding this story. The protests weren't all that much until some Danish Muslims took some cartoons that were NOT part of the newspaper to the Middle East.

That is, Muslims in Denmark were upset but nobody outside. In order to drum up support for the War for Terror, they took some nasty cartoons that had been sent by hate mailers and presented them as if they had been in the paper.

Just Prove that QURAN is not the WORD of GOD (ALLAH)

I m a Muslim but I love all the people those who are know how to respect each other as a human in this world. In Islam, we suppose to respect each other and we are not allowed to criticize any religions. If you all want to know more about how Islam teaches their people to be good, you can get all the information from Al-Quran.
Now have many people claim that they are Muslim but they are not. They do not know the meaning of ‘Jihad’ and they assumed that Jihad only related to the ‘War’ between Muslim and non-Muslim. In Al-Quran there have many types of ‘Jihad’ that we suppose to follow first to avoid a war. Many Muslim in the world never follow what the Al-Ouran said but they like to follow their own heart.

Prophet Muhammad SAW said, “When you are angry, take a seat first and if still angry please go to sleep. After that you still cannot calm down, go take WUDUQ (clean yourself for pray) and pray to Allah SWT. If you are good Muslim, Allah SWT will help you in many ways.” The conclusion that we learn is do not make any decision when you are angry or not stable. This is the one of the Islamic beautiful way to see life and have so many peaceful and graceful things that has in Al-Quran. So, if have anything bad between humans please don’t ever condemn or blame the religion. The world gets trouble and worse now because of human stupidity not because of religion.

The world will get peaceful if everybody follows Al-Quran not only for this matter but over all. The problem that we are facing now is lack of respect among the people and religion.

Please……all of us are in wrong direction now. Before we get loss from the real track better we turn back and try to correct, think and find out the right way to go. Nobody plan to fail but they fail to plan. The world now likes to focus on the problems, that are why the problem increases, why not we focus on the solutions??? THAT’S WILL BE BETTER.
“Blood cannot be washed out with blood.”

I read many articles in the net that people like to condemn each other including religion. Actually all of us are blind and do not know what is right and wrong. Human made mistake and the religion get punished. Why not we punish the people that cause the havoc? Wrong is wrong and don’t try to cover. An apology is the superglue of life. It can repair just about anything. It’s fair to everybody.
Don’t let a one rotten apple spoil the whole basket!!!!!!!

What is Islam?
Here have 10 the meaning of Islam:
1. Islam is peace.
2. Islam is beautiful.
3. Islam is harmony.
4. Islam is love and prosperity.
5. Islam’s not hatred or adversity.
6. Islam is one in unity.
7. Islam means no harm or affliction.
8. Islam is not a terrorist or for a pretender.
9. Islam is patience and perseverance.
10. Islam is winning hearts through honesty.

Still have a lot of the meaning for Islam found in Al-Quran. So, please don’t misunderstand and condemn the Beauty of Islam.
“WE DO OUR BEST AND GOD WILL DO THE REST…”

Erossa9
Malaysia
"To you your religion and to me my religion"

John Burgess writes:

"The problem, as you note, is the hadith. Personally, I consider them to be so suspect as to be worthless. It's not terribly difficult to find one to contradict another. Sort of like finding the right priest for the purpose of confession."

this is typically the western academic neo-orientalist attitude used to dismiss the vast and endlessly complicated science of hadith criticism. It reflects a very flat understanding of the subject. The mere fact that "one can be found to contradict another," even easily so, does not render the bulk of them as suspect and worthless. Western Academics have long refused to acknowledge the scrutiny with which the body of hadith literature has always been handled by Muslim scholars.

The simple fact is that Muslims are the first ones to throw out faulty and suspect traditions. The less obvious culprits are still being debated a thousand years later. There are hadiths that only one person of ill repute reports and hadiths that hundreds of people report. If one contradicts the other, can this hardly make a case for ignoring the body of hadith literature? Of course not. It makes a case for a critical examination into the authenticity of the quote, a science which revels in minutae as much as any other in the world.

Many hadiths are almost universally accepted. The majority of them are not though. The fact that very few hadiths are accepted by both sunni and shia scholars is basically irrelevant since the cause of that lies in an ideological divide between who is a credible narrator and not the content of the hadith itself.

"The isnad on a prohibition of music does not seem to be strong. Most Muslims do not accept it." This is also not true. The isnads for hadiths dealing with the prohibition of music are often very strong. However, it is true that most Muslims do not accept them :)

.....Your point about music, Omar, is especially well-taken. I am always reminding my classes that when archaeologists excavate the American highway system 2000 years from now SOME people will assume that the posted speed limit signs were always obeyed! --MCT

I have read how the tradition of not eating meat on Fridays started with a pope supporting the local fishermen....Where can I find information to support this idea or is it wrong?

this cartoon incident is not coorect thing.no one can draw or write which is blame its hollyness.

why in this huge world don't have at least one picture of Muhammad the seif named prophet??????