4 ms·

I love this sort of writing. Bringing attention to something you don't pay too much attention to, even as a muslim. My prayer rug has tessellation patterns, pro

I love this sort of writing. Bringing attention to something you don't pay too much attention to, even as a muslim. My prayer rug has tessellation patterns, probably a testament to God's infiniteness. Where I'm originally from in Diyarbakir, Turkey, the Christians also use prayer rugs when prostrating (to, I think, Jerusalem) so this isn't an exclusively "Islamic" thing.

nicbou 2y ago
I look for this sort of thing whenever I travel, but it’s really hard to find.
noufalibrahim 2y ago
Islam generally has a prohibiton on representational art. Most of the artistic skills were pulled into calligraphy and tesselations. It's why these show up in almost all Islamic artifacts.
- karim79 2y ago
  Can you please elaborate on 'representational art' in this context?
  - Cyph0n 2y ago
    In the context of Islam: art that depicts living things, especially humans.
    - karim79 2y ago
      From Wikipedia[0]: "The Quran, the Islamic holy book, does not prohibit the depiction of human figures; it merely condemns idolatry. Interdictions of figurative representation are present in the hadith, among a dozen of the hadith recorded during the latter part of the period when they were being written down." [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam#:~:text=The%20Quran%2C%20the%20Islamic%20holy,they%20were%20being%20written%20down https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam#:~:text=T....
      - Cyph0n 2y ago
        In Sunni Islam, the Hadith is essentially a companion source to the Quran - in particular, Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. But I should have been more specific. I think Shia art has the same restrictions though - could be wrong.
        noufalibrahim 2y ago
        Islamic canon law (the Shariah) is derived from primary texts (the Quran and Hadith) and uses interpretive methodologies (like deductive analogy - Qiyas) to derive rulings that are not explicitly discussed in the primary source material. This gives some amount of openness and causes some differences of opinion resulting in multiple schools of thought. Practicing Muslims rely on books and texts that systematize this knowledge and provide it in a practical form for daily use rather than go to the source material (which can be overwhelming if one wants to find, for example, the ruling on whether a certain action in a specific context is permissible or not). Most Muslim children, as part of their basic religious education, learn the basics of Islamic law and practice from such a book. That's usually enough to go through ones life. The ruling on representational art is based on this kind of derivation. There are some exceptions (e.g. for educational, security etc. purposes) but they're generally narrowly circumscribed. Sunni tradition relies primarily on the Quran and 6 books of Hadith (of which the two you've mentioned are the main ones). Shia tradition has a smaller Hadith corpus because of theological differences about the reliability of the chains of narration of the Hadith and hence the derived rulings are very different in some areas. I've generally seen Shia works of art where prophetic companions, angels etc. are pictured but non-realistically (unlike Christian iconography). Some of them blank out the faces but it's not a tradition I'm deeply familiar with so I don't know. My theory is that the huge emphasis on calligraphy and tesselations in Islamic art is mainly because of this. We don't have (many) paintings and sculptures of religious figures like in the Christian traditions.
        noduerme 2y ago
        [flagged]
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Idolatry. Graven idols. That sort of thing. Hence geometry instead.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - dieppe 2y ago
    There's a _great_ book about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Red https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Red Helps understand how arts, religion, and power are intermingled. Made me question what we mean by "tradition" ; they always seemed fixed to a present observer, but are also the result of constant change. Anyway, there's more to the book and it is really a great read (maybe more so if like me you know close to nothing about the Ottoman empire). (and just to be clear: this book talks about what was admitted as acceptable art at a specific period in a specific region where Islam was the state religion, not commenting on the art in Islam as a whole as I would be incapable of doing so)
    - noufalibrahim 2y ago
      Thanks for the recommendation. There's considerable latitude in implementation of the rulings. Even within the law itself, there are strong/weak positions, dispensations for some circumstances etc. Among schools of thought, there are differences in opinions which might, to a non specialist, seem very trivial but they have huge consequences when implemented at scale. Music and it's role in the Ottoman sultanate is one example that comes to mind. And outside of that, there are cultural, economic and human factors that also have their effect on the practice (and sometimes even the theory) of religion. Generally speaking, Islamic canon law keeps evolving over time while trying to stay faithful to first principles. It's a specialist field and requires a lot of time and study to formulate rulings. It's the reason why, I mentioned in another comment that studying the basics from a derived text is sufficient for "most Muslims". People often turn to the primary texts for general guidance and succor but for details about a narrow situation, they refer to the other books or speak to a scholar.
  - 2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
    like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan#Destruction_by_the_Islamic_Emirate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan#Destruction...
rayiner 2y ago
I remember my grandmother carting her prayer rug all the way from Bangladesh to the U.S. when she came to visit.

nicbou 2y ago

I look for this sort of thing whenever I travel, but it’s really hard to find.

noufalibrahim 2y ago

Islam generally has a prohibiton on representational art. Most of the artistic skills were pulled into calligraphy and tesselations. It's why these show up in almost all Islamic artifacts.

karim79 2y ago
Can you please elaborate on 'representational art' in this context?
- Cyph0n 2y ago
  In the context of Islam: art that depicts living things, especially humans.
  - karim79 2y ago
    From Wikipedia[0]: "The Quran, the Islamic holy book, does not prohibit the depiction of human figures; it merely condemns idolatry. Interdictions of figurative representation are present in the hadith, among a dozen of the hadith recorded during the latter part of the period when they were being written down." [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam#:~:text=The%20Quran%2C%20the%20Islamic%20holy,they%20were%20being%20written%20down https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam#:~:text=T....
    - Cyph0n 2y ago
      In Sunni Islam, the Hadith is essentially a companion source to the Quran - in particular, Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. But I should have been more specific. I think Shia art has the same restrictions though - could be wrong.
      - noufalibrahim 2y ago
        Islamic canon law (the Shariah) is derived from primary texts (the Quran and Hadith) and uses interpretive methodologies (like deductive analogy - Qiyas) to derive rulings that are not explicitly discussed in the primary source material. This gives some amount of openness and causes some differences of opinion resulting in multiple schools of thought. Practicing Muslims rely on books and texts that systematize this knowledge and provide it in a practical form for daily use rather than go to the source material (which can be overwhelming if one wants to find, for example, the ruling on whether a certain action in a specific context is permissible or not). Most Muslim children, as part of their basic religious education, learn the basics of Islamic law and practice from such a book. That's usually enough to go through ones life. The ruling on representational art is based on this kind of derivation. There are some exceptions (e.g. for educational, security etc. purposes) but they're generally narrowly circumscribed. Sunni tradition relies primarily on the Quran and 6 books of Hadith (of which the two you've mentioned are the main ones). Shia tradition has a smaller Hadith corpus because of theological differences about the reliability of the chains of narration of the Hadith and hence the derived rulings are very different in some areas. I've generally seen Shia works of art where prophetic companions, angels etc. are pictured but non-realistically (unlike Christian iconography). Some of them blank out the faces but it's not a tradition I'm deeply familiar with so I don't know. My theory is that the huge emphasis on calligraphy and tesselations in Islamic art is mainly because of this. We don't have (many) paintings and sculptures of religious figures like in the Christian traditions.
        noduerme 2y ago
        [flagged]
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Idolatry. Graven idols. That sort of thing. Hence geometry instead.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dieppe 2y ago
  There's a _great_ book about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Red https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Red Helps understand how arts, religion, and power are intermingled. Made me question what we mean by "tradition" ; they always seemed fixed to a present observer, but are also the result of constant change. Anyway, there's more to the book and it is really a great read (maybe more so if like me you know close to nothing about the Ottoman empire). (and just to be clear: this book talks about what was admitted as acceptable art at a specific period in a specific region where Islam was the state religion, not commenting on the art in Islam as a whole as I would be incapable of doing so)
  - noufalibrahim 2y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation. There's considerable latitude in implementation of the rulings. Even within the law itself, there are strong/weak positions, dispensations for some circumstances etc. Among schools of thought, there are differences in opinions which might, to a non specialist, seem very trivial but they have huge consequences when implemented at scale. Music and it's role in the Ottoman sultanate is one example that comes to mind. And outside of that, there are cultural, economic and human factors that also have their effect on the practice (and sometimes even the theory) of religion. Generally speaking, Islamic canon law keeps evolving over time while trying to stay faithful to first principles. It's a specialist field and requires a lot of time and study to formulate rulings. It's the reason why, I mentioned in another comment that studying the basics from a derived text is sufficient for "most Muslims". People often turn to the primary texts for general guidance and succor but for details about a narrow situation, they refer to the other books or speak to a scholar.
- 2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
  like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan#Destruction_by_the_Islamic_Emirate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan#Destruction...

rayiner 2y ago

I remember my grandmother carting her prayer rug all the way from Bangladesh to the U.S. when she came to visit.