5 ms·

In the context of Islam: art that depicts living things, especially humans.

by Cyph0n 2y ago

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]
      - noufalibrahim 2y ago
        It's a larger discussion but not really HN material so I'll leave it at that
      - flir 2y ago
        > Guess my religious background. Protestant? (Based on the emphasis on a personal experience of the text, unfiltered by mediators).
      - handfuloflight 2y ago
        > you must expect most people to accomplish very little. Well, yeah—we would expect most Muslims to accomplish little in the space of Islamic jurisprudence as its a whole discipline unto itself.
        noduerme 2y ago
        Yet that jurisprudence pertains to all aspects of life. It strikes me as odd for a system which puts itself forth as a total solution to all issues, and which demands so much in the way of obedience and submission, to expect so little in the way of questioning and intellectual exercise from the people who follow its tenets. Then again, I'm sure that's why my comment was flagged.
        handfuloflight 2y ago
        > Yet that jurisprudence pertains to all aspects of life. As does secular law. Is it feasible for everyone to become a lawyer? Because that's the analogue. > to expect so little in the way of questioning and intellectual exercise from the people who follow its tenets. But that's just not true. You would only assume that if you were not acquainted with the Islamic intellectual tradition. Rather most people simply do not put in the effort that's necessary to develop the rigor and depth required to join the discussion. That's more of a comment on average human nature.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    Only the Quran is guaranteed to be unchanged (but the interpretations and translations are not so guaranteed), the Hadiths are not. The proper perspective is that if the Hadith and Quran are in conflict, the Quran is the authoratative source. From our Sufi perspective, the Hadiths are a lot of game of telephone. And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      >And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions. Clearly a few of gods prophets dropped the ball pretty hard on this one. To bad he isn't interested in correcting the record.
      - MrMcCall 2y ago
        God has left the truth in our hands to honor or disrespect as per our free will's choices. When a person truly loves God, they will love other human beings. If a person wants worldly power and self-superiority, they will live in destructive ignorance, no matter what path they claim to follow. What a person says and does is little compared to what their intentions reveal. That is why God always looks at our heart to determine our worth.
    - syspec 2y ago
      > And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions. Or, in practice, the opposite
    - handfuloflight 2y ago
      > From our Sufi perspective, the Hadiths are a lot of game of telephone. Devaluing ahadith is a minority position in Sufism. The transmission of authentic hadith is not dissimilar to the transmission of the Quran.
  - cess11 2y ago
    Shiites often depict their important religious figures and martyrs, but with the face replaced with a bright glow. Like this: https://www.deviantart.com/shia-ali/art/YA-ALI-343625919 https://www.deviantart.com/shia-ali/art/YA-ALI-343625919 It's also not uncommon to depict e.g. Ali with a face. Sunni salafist movements are the ones that are fanatically against such art, and they are quite savvy with propaganda and backed by very powerful friends on the peninsula and elsewhere, such as the backers of the Gulf dictatorships in London and Washington.
  - NickC25 2y ago
    It does and it doesn't. AFAIK Shia doesn't specifically ban all images outright, but instead relies on context. For example, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)* - Sunni Islam bans all images of him and other prophets, while Shia Islam might allow some images as a reference to him or other prophets as historical figures such as Jesus, Adam, Moses, David, etc... which they undoubtedly are. That's why some images of prophets are basically a white outline surrounded by fire, or a figure with a veil over their face. As long as you aren't defaming or purposely offending the religion, it's frowned upon in most cases, but not explicitly banned due to the historical context - humanity, after all, did and does rely on images instead of words at times and did so when most people were illiterate but could understand images. As long as the prophets aren't made into idols or worshiped or defamed, and are illustrated for historic context in a non defaming way, it's OK, sometimes. *I say this while not Muslim to avoid the notion that I am purposely offending Islam - I'm not.

In the context of Islam: art that depicts living things, especially humans.

by Cyph0n 2y ago

In the context of Islam: art that depicts living things, especially humans.

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]
    - noufalibrahim 2y ago
      It's a larger discussion but not really HN material so I'll leave it at that
    - flir 2y ago
      > Guess my religious background. Protestant? (Based on the emphasis on a personal experience of the text, unfiltered by mediators).
    - handfuloflight 2y ago
      > you must expect most people to accomplish very little. Well, yeah—we would expect most Muslims to accomplish little in the space of Islamic jurisprudence as its a whole discipline unto itself.
      - noduerme 2y ago
        Yet that jurisprudence pertains to all aspects of life. It strikes me as odd for a system which puts itself forth as a total solution to all issues, and which demands so much in the way of obedience and submission, to expect so little in the way of questioning and intellectual exercise from the people who follow its tenets. Then again, I'm sure that's why my comment was flagged.
        handfuloflight 2y ago
        > Yet that jurisprudence pertains to all aspects of life. As does secular law. Is it feasible for everyone to become a lawyer? Because that's the analogue. > to expect so little in the way of questioning and intellectual exercise from the people who follow its tenets. But that's just not true. You would only assume that if you were not acquainted with the Islamic intellectual tradition. Rather most people simply do not put in the effort that's necessary to develop the rigor and depth required to join the discussion. That's more of a comment on average human nature.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  Only the Quran is guaranteed to be unchanged (but the interpretations and translations are not so guaranteed), the Hadiths are not. The proper perspective is that if the Hadith and Quran are in conflict, the Quran is the authoratative source. From our Sufi perspective, the Hadiths are a lot of game of telephone. And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    >And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions. Clearly a few of gods prophets dropped the ball pretty hard on this one. To bad he isn't interested in correcting the record.
    - MrMcCall 2y ago
      God has left the truth in our hands to honor or disrespect as per our free will's choices. When a person truly loves God, they will love other human beings. If a person wants worldly power and self-superiority, they will live in destructive ignorance, no matter what path they claim to follow. What a person says and does is little compared to what their intentions reveal. That is why God always looks at our heart to determine our worth.
  - syspec 2y ago
    > And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions. Or, in practice, the opposite
  - handfuloflight 2y ago
    > From our Sufi perspective, the Hadiths are a lot of game of telephone. Devaluing ahadith is a minority position in Sufism. The transmission of authentic hadith is not dissimilar to the transmission of the Quran.
- cess11 2y ago
  Shiites often depict their important religious figures and martyrs, but with the face replaced with a bright glow. Like this: https://www.deviantart.com/shia-ali/art/YA-ALI-343625919 https://www.deviantart.com/shia-ali/art/YA-ALI-343625919 It's also not uncommon to depict e.g. Ali with a face. Sunni salafist movements are the ones that are fanatically against such art, and they are quite savvy with propaganda and backed by very powerful friends on the peninsula and elsewhere, such as the backers of the Gulf dictatorships in London and Washington.
- NickC25 2y ago
  It does and it doesn't. AFAIK Shia doesn't specifically ban all images outright, but instead relies on context. For example, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)* - Sunni Islam bans all images of him and other prophets, while Shia Islam might allow some images as a reference to him or other prophets as historical figures such as Jesus, Adam, Moses, David, etc... which they undoubtedly are. That's why some images of prophets are basically a white outline surrounded by fire, or a figure with a veil over their face. As long as you aren't defaming or purposely offending the religion, it's frowned upon in most cases, but not explicitly banned due to the historical context - humanity, after all, did and does rely on images instead of words at times and did so when most people were illiterate but could understand images. As long as the prophets aren't made into idols or worshiped or defamed, and are illustrated for historic context in a non defaming way, it's OK, sometimes. *I say this while not Muslim to avoid the notion that I am purposely offending Islam - I'm not.