There is a program on TV called “This is Civilisation” on Channel Four (UK) at the moment.
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| Civilisation |
It's premise is that an art critic makes a personal selection of the greatest artistic moments and monuments of history, in a story that weaves together three great civilisations – Christianity, Islam, and the Pagan culture of ancient Greece – showing how each has influenced the other, and how the art that all three religions have left behind continues to shape our world.
Islamic Art?” Well maybe (depending on whether you consider women and men dancing e.g. Ballet, or no faces on paintings etc as part of art), there were at various times a sort of art renaissance in Islam that produced Artists and Poets e.g. poems by Hafez, Persia’s most famous poet.
“OH Cup-bearer, set my glass afire
With the light of wine! Oh minstrel, sing:
The world fulfilleth my heart's desire!
Reflected within the goblet's ring
I see the glow of my Love's red cheek,
And scant of wit, ye who fail to seek
The pleasures that wine alone can bring!”
With the light of wine! Oh minstrel, sing:
The world fulfilleth my heart's desire!
Reflected within the goblet's ring
I see the glow of my Love's red cheek,
And scant of wit, ye who fail to seek
The pleasures that wine alone can bring!”
Wine was being produced in the Shiraz region right up until 1979, so the imposition of an alcohol ban was actually a very non Iranian act. Alcohol was on open sale in Pakistan until Gen Zia Ul Haq made Sharia the base of the law system. In fact that’s really where it starts and ends for Islamic art, Iran and India.
The Arabs were quickly reduced to producing mainly abstract design tiles and calligraphy (often a sign of a society in sterile cultural isolation… for example when China turned in on itself, it started producing calligraphy), whereas Iran still produced writers, and painters (for example by Al-Biruni) including by the way, depicting (warning muslims: There are pictures of your Prophet, created by Persians, Uzbeks, Turks, Saudi's and other Muslims depicted here) Mohammad in books and paintings and coins, while Muslim India produced architecture as well as poets and writers.
Now the Persians had been a civilisation for millennia before the Arab invasions. They adapted to Islam and wouldn’t allow the wholesale destruction of their older culture by the Arabs (who they considered were basically fanatical desert barbarians), who had no written culture, no representative art, and only oral story telling even though the Arabs had conquered literate peoples. … even the Quran wasn’t completely written down for over a hundred years after Mohammed died (790 AD .. 200 AH). Similarly the Muslims in India couldn’t just destroy the art of the Hindu’s, Buddhists and Jains, not without having to fight millions of Indians…..
What of Islamic Art today? It's obviously restricted because of religious constraints, because to my eye, there seems to be nothing but sterile reproductions of old patterns being made now. Is this the culture that destroyed the Buddha’s in Afghanistan? …. Or even today when there are Pakistanis who are still destroying ancient Buddhist monuments in the name of Allah, and have been doing so for decades. A few lone voices from the Muslim world speak out about these atrocities, but they have no power, no influence and if a Mullah issues a fatwa, probably no life either.
The Saudi's have suppressed everything 'different' in Islam and Art, in a quest for Wahhabi conformity, and art only ever flourishes when the practise of Islam was a local matter. You could say that the death of Islamic Art was a function of Empires and Globalisation of communications, which allowed ideas to travel easier e.g. Under the British Empire, extreme hard-line versions of Islam were first exported to India in the late 18th and early 19th century. Without Globalisation, ideas are slow moving things, but under Empires, and now the Global Internet, they can be swiftly passed on.
As Taliban leader Mullah Omar said at the time "Muslims should be proud to destroy idols. Our destroying them was an act of praise for God." … This is echoed by the latest of the “faithful” who thinks the Quran is call for destruction and death, “Mullah Maulana Fazlullah” who is currently the strong man in the Swat region (the Pakistani region,under Taliban control in 2007 where schools were destroyed and girls barred from education), notwithstanding his youth: He is only 28 years old. He thinks of himself as part of the Taliban movement, and accepts only one authority: Mullah Omar. He has even proclaimed an "Islamic emirate" in his area of influence, and he commands a militia estimated to comprise some 4,500 men.
Of course that fact that these idols, paintings, and sculptures, often represent other cultures, beliefs and pre Islamic times, means that they can justify destroying nearly anything. The beautiful Byzantine mosaics in churches in conquered lands were defaced (if not completely destroyed), as well as parts of the Egyptian heritage which were hacked.
You have to ask what would happen in the ‘conquered’ areas, if the “Caliphate” the Taliban envision was ever restored? Would all the major museums be ransacked and “Un-Islamic” items defaced or destroyed? Is this the fate that awaits all of Western Art at some time in the near future?
It’s very disturbing that the apologists refuse to recognise that those labelled ‘moderates’, are only moderate in relation to the very extreme religionists. If they could recognise that, by and large Muslims are largely indifferent to, or actively hostile towards all art that the West considers beautiful, then they might consider what will happen to those items in the future.
Ponder this, when the Taliban were in power (and probably when they return), they banned music, art and destroyed works of religious art, and ransacked the state museum. To treat the Taliban as somehow a freak regime, is to miss the fact that this is exactly the sort of regime that Islam descends into when the zealots get power. The new Iraq is barely a step above the Taliban in its treatment of Art, Non Islamic faiths and buildings, and Iraq now has an extreme Shia in charge of its museum and antiquities.
There are large parts of Pakistan where the Taliban would feel happy, as there are in Somalia and other ‘Sharia’ areas. We are fooling ourselves if we think that Muslim states are generally moving towards secular tolerance and enlightenment. All the evidence is depressingly that extremists have the upper hand in many states …. Who doubts that without the army, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Syria and countless others would become “Theocratic” states?
In Pakistan General Zia Ul Haq's campaign of Islamification was the start of a long decline of education and political standards in the country. The schools stopped teaching in a secular manner, respect for other beliefs lessened, and intolerance has become the norm. Thirty years later, is it any surprise that madrassa's are laws unto themselves, burning and destroying Bhuddist and other non Muslim monuments, attacking Christians (because they are "Crusaders") or even their fellow Muslims who are in minorities e.g Ahmadi's and now bidding to break Pakistan into several states. Ul-Haq may turn out to be the father of the destruction of Pakistan.... either because the border regions are currently lost to the Taliban, or worse because the zealots may seize power (and get hold of nuclear weapons.)
Now the Persians had been a civilisation for millennia before the Arab invasions. They adapted to Islam and wouldn’t allow the wholesale destruction of their older culture by the Arabs (who they considered were basically fanatical desert barbarians), who had no written culture, no representative art, and only oral story telling even though the Arabs had conquered literate peoples. … even the Quran wasn’t completely written down for over a hundred years after Mohammed died (790 AD .. 200 AH). Similarly the Muslims in India couldn’t just destroy the art of the Hindu’s, Buddhists and Jains, not without having to fight millions of Indians…..
What of Islamic Art today? It's obviously restricted because of religious constraints, because to my eye, there seems to be nothing but sterile reproductions of old patterns being made now. Is this the culture that destroyed the Buddha’s in Afghanistan? …. Or even today when there are Pakistanis who are still destroying ancient Buddhist monuments in the name of Allah, and have been doing so for decades. A few lone voices from the Muslim world speak out about these atrocities, but they have no power, no influence and if a Mullah issues a fatwa, probably no life either.
The Saudi's have suppressed everything 'different' in Islam and Art, in a quest for Wahhabi conformity, and art only ever flourishes when the practise of Islam was a local matter. You could say that the death of Islamic Art was a function of Empires and Globalisation of communications, which allowed ideas to travel easier e.g. Under the British Empire, extreme hard-line versions of Islam were first exported to India in the late 18th and early 19th century. Without Globalisation, ideas are slow moving things, but under Empires, and now the Global Internet, they can be swiftly passed on.
As Taliban leader Mullah Omar said at the time "Muslims should be proud to destroy idols. Our destroying them was an act of praise for God." … This is echoed by the latest of the “faithful” who thinks the Quran is call for destruction and death, “Mullah Maulana Fazlullah” who is currently the strong man in the Swat region (the Pakistani region,under Taliban control in 2007 where schools were destroyed and girls barred from education), notwithstanding his youth: He is only 28 years old. He thinks of himself as part of the Taliban movement, and accepts only one authority: Mullah Omar. He has even proclaimed an "Islamic emirate" in his area of influence, and he commands a militia estimated to comprise some 4,500 men.
Of course that fact that these idols, paintings, and sculptures, often represent other cultures, beliefs and pre Islamic times, means that they can justify destroying nearly anything. The beautiful Byzantine mosaics in churches in conquered lands were defaced (if not completely destroyed), as well as parts of the Egyptian heritage which were hacked.
You have to ask what would happen in the ‘conquered’ areas, if the “Caliphate” the Taliban envision was ever restored? Would all the major museums be ransacked and “Un-Islamic” items defaced or destroyed? Is this the fate that awaits all of Western Art at some time in the near future?
It’s very disturbing that the apologists refuse to recognise that those labelled ‘moderates’, are only moderate in relation to the very extreme religionists. If they could recognise that, by and large Muslims are largely indifferent to, or actively hostile towards all art that the West considers beautiful, then they might consider what will happen to those items in the future.
Ponder this, when the Taliban were in power (and probably when they return), they banned music, art and destroyed works of religious art, and ransacked the state museum. To treat the Taliban as somehow a freak regime, is to miss the fact that this is exactly the sort of regime that Islam descends into when the zealots get power. The new Iraq is barely a step above the Taliban in its treatment of Art, Non Islamic faiths and buildings, and Iraq now has an extreme Shia in charge of its museum and antiquities.
There are large parts of Pakistan where the Taliban would feel happy, as there are in Somalia and other ‘Sharia’ areas. We are fooling ourselves if we think that Muslim states are generally moving towards secular tolerance and enlightenment. All the evidence is depressingly that extremists have the upper hand in many states …. Who doubts that without the army, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Syria and countless others would become “Theocratic” states?
In Pakistan General Zia Ul Haq's campaign of Islamification was the start of a long decline of education and political standards in the country. The schools stopped teaching in a secular manner, respect for other beliefs lessened, and intolerance has become the norm. Thirty years later, is it any surprise that madrassa's are laws unto themselves, burning and destroying Bhuddist and other non Muslim monuments, attacking Christians (because they are "Crusaders") or even their fellow Muslims who are in minorities e.g Ahmadi's and now bidding to break Pakistan into several states. Ul-Haq may turn out to be the father of the destruction of Pakistan.... either because the border regions are currently lost to the Taliban, or worse because the zealots may seize power (and get hold of nuclear weapons.)
There has been much speculation about 'Clashes of Civilisation', but not so much talk about the 'clash of cultural and artistic values', but I think that there is just as big a gulf between the current Wahhabi form of Islam, that’s sweeping the Muslim world on the back of Petrodollars from the Saudi peninsular, and Western values. We believe that Art, Religion, Music and Expression are intertwined and that freedom in all, is where beauty resides. Islam holds religion to be supreme, and restricts what can be performed as "Art" in its name. In the more extreme forms it bans music, art, and of course freedom of expression.
Of course, there is a certain hypocrisy in all these bans, on the one hand a writer or artist can be condemned to death by some semi 'illiterate', with a beard and a turban masquerading as a 'scholar', because they have 'insulted' Islam, in a book the mullah has never read, or in a picture he has never seen, but televisions, and camera sales are not effectively banned (despite the ban on images) because the powerful of Iran, Pakistan and Saudi like them. The Saudi's drive across the borders to watch movies, or fly to Europe to drink etc, and then go back to their mosques as if they had committed no sin .... is that not hypocrisy?
If the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I had taken Vienna in 1526, it’s likely that Muslim influence would have swept across Europe, with Austria, Southern Germany, Northern Italy, and Central Europe under direct control, with the rest under Islamic influence. It’s even possible that if Vienna had fallen to Suleiman, His Empire might have eventually reached all the way to the North Sea, the alliance with France notwithstanding.
Should that have happened, Christianity (already in the middle of Catholic and Protestant wars), would probably have fallen to Islam, and we may have had no Rembrandt, Beethoven, Mozart, Reubans, Holbein, Spenser, Shakespeare, Monteverdi, Caravaggio, Huygens, Van Dyck, Velázquez, Milton, Molière, and John Dryden to name but a few of the artists and musicians who would never have flowered in a regime, where no faces, or bodies could be painted, where music and dancing could be banned as Un Islamic and writers would be censored in thought.
I point to the treatment of writer Taslima Nasreen, firstly in Bangladesh and then in West Bengal by Muslim zealots. Her crime? She had "seriously hurt Muslim sentiments" by calling for more rights for women in her writings. When she called for Islamic religious edicts to be changed, she was referring to the Sharia laws (which are man made and biased against women), but that didn't stop an illiterate rent-a-mob being drummed out of the mosques by Mullahs who probably had never read the books, to destroy property, burn and loot in the name of 'protecting the honour' of their religion (contrast that to the peaceful monks of Burma, or the Christian peace marchers of the West), and then predictably, they pronounced a death sentence on the writer, and offered $2,000 to anyone who would kill her.
When a religion of a billion people can't tolerate any criticism, and tries to kill any one who has 'insulted it' (and let's be honest, it doesn't take much), then that isn't a religion that should be called a civilisation.
Finally I simply ask "How much poorer the world would be, if suppression of the arts had ever taken place across Europe, and how much more unpleasant it will be, if this ever takes place in the future?".
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