Islamic Art History Week 1

shahada, Du'a, salat, Hajj, Ramadan, Zakat

5 pillars _____ (testimony): Profession of faith, there is not god but (Allah) God and Mohammad is the prophet of God -they do believe in the old prophets (dating back to the old testament) Prayer ___: personal spontaneous prayer not bound by rules and rituals _____: ritual prayer offered prescribed words and motions 5 times everyday -sunrise, sunset, midday, evening, afternoon -wash hands and feet -orient towards Mecca ______: at least one in a life time. Every Muslim is required to go on a pilgrimage to 2 holy cities in Arabia, Mecca and Medina. This is are an enactment of migration of Muhammad from mecca to medina Sawm (fasting) observing _______: fast and abstinence (in the 9th month of Muslim year) for whole month, all adults must abstain from sunrise until dusk from food, drink, and sexual relations. Meals are served before dawn and again after dusk. During the night special prayers are recited This can be postponed if traveling, sick, or pregnant Charity _____: Give financial contributions paid by Muslims to the community or the state (this is a type of tithing). sharia: Islamic canonical law based on the teachings of the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet (Hadith and Sunna), prescribing both religious and secular duties and sometimes retributive penalties for lawbreaking. It has generally been supplemented by legislation adapted to the conditions of the day, though the manner in which it should be applied in modern states is a subject of dispute between Islamic fundamentalists and modernists.

aniconism

Feudal and Imperial- two types of governments/power >think of imperial art as grand, but Feudal lords copied and made their own. The lords also made more. So is one more important than the other. >People from all kinds of places and older civilization art was incorporated into the art so imperial and feudal does not defined this. Additionally these civilizations and empires were consistently changing and collapsing Let's think of art in social-economic levels (by upper and lower class) but fail to take into the account the constant change, the diversity of form and experience. >Labels does not truly define because humans are very complicated >people who were making the artwork weren't talking about it terms of social-economics. So but categorizes it takes away their intent and it gives it a different space and origin Meanings and constraints 1) the nature of representation: talks about _____ the idea of creating art that does not represent the physical world and figures. Create a spiritual experience by how they represent stuff. Their preference is to create metaphysical and unseen in the natural world 2) the problem of ornament: ornament is about creating a relationship, an experience, with a object and enhance the experience. You have to take care of it. It is beautiful thing (beauty in a object) but is a philosophical relationship with it. It more about the experience with the objet and the object itself being the experience 3) elements for a theory of aesthetics:

Monotheistic

Modern "Islamic" World -North Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, some South Asia and India, South East Asia Muslims follow Islam and means "Those who have submitted to god" Is the fastest growing religion in the world (1.8 billion people) 1 of the 3 biggest _______ religion (Islam is the youngest) (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) They all claim Jerusalem as holy land

explanation

Oleg Grabar (1929-2011) Conflict: Islamic art covers many different and incompatible objects, events, and ideas and interpretations. What does Islamic imply? its a religious ______ Islamicate: as alternative to describe Islamic -take away religious attribute the west assigns to it (not so connected to Why not used: hard to separate religion and things associate with it. -the word "Islamic" is too entrenched Iranicate: national (ottoman and Mughal culture from Iran) in the nation state. Why not? too specific, geography is too broad Problem with geography? Objects move between different countries so who do you attribute it to. Place get new powers, rulers, boundaries change etc. It does not accurately describe something from the past (the nation is relatively new thing). Iran as a country is new, before it was Persia. West: Why does this historical subject get a religious description? 1) We don't know about Islamic culture only about their faith so we filter their art through that. 2) Art history is something grounded in being produced and generated in the west. 3) West took the art because it look nice but they don't bother to learn about it and what it represents nor do they categorize it Ornaments: West not trying to understand it from Islamic perspective and its significance but rather by how it look and luxury

Islamic art, Islamicate

The Aesthetics of Islamic Art* The expression "_____ ____" covers many different and possibly incompatible objects, monuments, and even ideas and interpretations. In fact, some scholars and critics, especially from areas which have preserved or inherited whatever is understood to be Islamic art, have, over the past decades, in writing and more frequently orally, challenged the use of the expression. Part of their reasoning is simple enough to understand. It derives from the feeling that the word "Islamic" implies or even requires a religious explanation whenever it is used and thereby misrepresents the values of an artistic creativity which was much richer than whatever is involved in religious thought and in piety and which included aspects of life and forms of behavior incompatible with the precepts of the faith. The point is certainly valid in a narrow and lexicographic sense. The late Marshall Hodgson had recognized the difficulty and proposed using "________" instead of "Islamic" whenever wider issues come up than strictly pious ones. But, in the conservative world of humanistic scholarship, new terms are rarely accepted with ease, and it is very slowly and irregularly that the neologism "Islamicate" is in fact used. Yet it has even spawned a descendant with "Iranicate," to separate the numerous and often deeply settled components of Iranian origin found in Ottoman and Mughal culture which emerged from the culture and history of a land called "Iran."

Umayyad

Where and when does Islamic art appear Iran: Shias While Sunni covers many areas Chronological change (650-1250) _______ was the first dynasty (776-1031) They lived a very different life than other dynasty. They had different priorities and objectives and were unified by faith (but visual different) Islamic art and architecture does not imply solely religious materials or content. Hisham's Palace: Remains of Umayyad Palace at Khirbat al-Mafjar 8thc, Jericho was a luxury mansion of a young Umayyad prince. Its not a place of worship but is identified as a Islamic monument became it the prince was Islamic. Palace, Monuments, and Gardens: Taj mahal: was made by Mughal dynasty (who were Islamic) Portable objects ceramics, metal work, and textiles made by muslim artists in the holyland but for Christian patrons (so it has christian images)

Aesthetics

______: philosophical theory or set of principles governing the idea of beauty at a given time and place the clean lines, bare surfaces, and sense of space that bespeak the machine-age aesthetics; the Cubist aesthetics >attributes/concepts give to a "category" a particular individual's set of ideas about style and taste, along with its expression: the designer's aesthetics of accessible, wearable fashion; a great aesthetic on her blog >Individuals' set of ideas about style/taste, outward appearance, a set of visual, personal taste, millennials style one's set of principles or worldview as expressed through outward appearance, behavior, or actions: the democratic aesthetic of the abolitionists. >embodiment on idea/ideology/in practice and philosophically, religion embodies (the art embodies Islam) The West: not understanding the meaning, their use, their intent just thought it looked nice They saw it as exotic and luxury items.

Ka'bah

_______: is at the center of the main mosque in mecca. It is basically what Muslims are prayer to (central structure (shrine) they must orient to) Predated Muhammads birth. There was a shrine with idols on it and a stone (from the time of Abraham). When Mohammad and Islam colonizes Mecca (after they were pushed out) Mohammad comes to the Ka'bah and stripes down all the idols. He builds this cube, this space around the scared stone. Mohammad kissed and bless the stone establishing it as a holy and sacred center. Its a cube 50 feet high by 35 ft wide (enshrouds the stone). It is covered with decorative fabrics (changed every year) and pilgrims walk around it (holiest thing they can do).

Mohammad, Hijra

__________: the last prophet Born in Mecca in 570 c. (now Saudi Arabia) was a trader/merchant 595 he married Khadija (they have 6 children together) 610 he has his first revelation in a cave North of mecca (on the 9th month of Islam's calendar) Gabriel revealed god's word and truths to him 622 Mohammad flight to Medina (____) Mohammad preaches and gains followers. The government grows concern and force him and his followers to leave the city. 632 Mohammad dies in Medina Within 10 years Islam has spread to a huge part of Arabia Him and his followers were able to reclaim Mecca In 300 years it spread and by 900 c. it spread all the way to Spain and India (South Asia)

Sunni, Shiites

Interpretation of Islam ______: those who hold that the secession of leadership after mohammad's death was elective rather than hereditary. 85% of muslims believe this Mohammad left his close friends in charge after he died (rule in his stead) and he also had a lot of wives and children when he died. So they believe leadership does not have to be tied genetically to Mohammad. Shias/____: believe that Allah wanted the prophet and his descendants to lead the muslim community. In the 11th and 12th century there is a schism between them and continues into today.

Hadith

Islamic art Avoidance of figures (aniconism) Mosques have beautiful writing (the act of writing is purifying) never see image of god or Muhammad, only in writing The ＿＿ (Account) record of the words, actions, and the silent approval, of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (images of Mohammad are not for worship)

broadly, ethnic, regional, doctrine

One could adopt the word "Islamicate" or one could even argue that, like so many adjectives identifying historical categories (Gothic or Romanesque for example), the adjective "Islamic" should not be taken seriously in its literal sense. It is a conventional term to cover a _____ defined cultural entity over many centuries and the faith of Islam is only one aspect of that entity. But the criticism against the term "Islamic" runs deeper than a sort of negative objection to its most apparent, religious, association. There are positive objections as well. Some have argued, for instance, that national or _____ categories should be the primary ones in dealing with the arts, and much has been written on Arab, Turkish, Uzbek, Tajik, Indian or Persian art. This tendency has at times been refined into the art of each of the forty- four contemporary countries which claim to be Muslim or to have a significant Muslim past. Others have preferred ______ distinctions and separated Anatolian from Egyptian or North African art, southwestern Iranian from northeastern (Fars as different from Khorasan), Bengali from Punjabi, and so on, ending up with cities like Herat or Aleppo as individualized centers of artistic production. Or else the argument could be developed, although I do not believe that it has been done except indirectly and by implication, that the art of Muslim lands would best be understood in socioeconomic terms. One [xx] can indeed identify imperial themes and modes reserved to caliphs and sultans, themes associated with viziers or feudal lords, or else the art of the merchants and artisans from large cities. Using more complex ethnographic procedures, one can probably even talk about the art of the illiterate, of peasants and of nomads, perhaps even of the urban poor. Or else, in line with the most contemporary critical thinking, one could attempt to separate the making or appreciating of art by women from the ways of men and to imagine, if not always demonstrate, an enormous range in the taste of traditions, "Islamic" or other. One last reason for questioning the notion of "Islamic" art is a more technical one. So far no real evidence has been brought to light which would have presented a ______ about the arts created by the theology and the ethics of the Muslim faith or, even if its sources were other than the faith, shared over the centuries by a significant number of Muslim communities. It would be silly to expect medieval manifestos on art, but an event like the Iconoclastic controversy in eighth-century Byzantium showed that medieval cultures did develop very sophisticated arguments about the arts, when such arguments were needed. Does the absence of such discourse say something about the values of the arts in a given society? Granted the validity of nearly all of these queries and criticisms, it is both common and appropriate to group together the products of the artistic creativity from Muslim lands. It is common, as collections from their medieval or later times are, almost everywhere, housed in museums or galleries of Islamic art, not medieval or national (except for the latter in some of the countries from which objects originate). And it is appropriate in the sense that elementary observation and judgment tend to separate works from Muslim lands from other groups, Western or African and east Asian, and to find that all of them possess what is called in French an air de famille, a relatable series of formal and other characteristics. If indeed these common features exist, how can this apparent family relationship be defined and then explained, especially in light of an alleged absence of a doctrine about the arts? Was there not after all some other impulse than a doctrine for the arts of Muslims to seem alike? Should one argue for the term "Islamic art" on some other ground than that of visually perceived commonalities? Some social structure perhaps or some way of life? Should it not, in the final analysis, only be considered as a convenient, even if misleading, label like "Gothic"? The purpose of this essay is to initiate a discourse for eventual answers to these questions. The premiss of my argument is that, before an aesthetic can be defined or rejected, some awareness must be obtained of the range and type of categories through which an artistic tradition, whether justifiably or improperly identified, defines the differences and commonalities within it. I shall discuss five very different factors which affected the ways in which works of art were made within the cultures of the Muslim world and the attitudes we have today toward Islamic art. Two of these factors - the spaces and times of Islamic art and its meanings and constraints - are essentially the products of the very history of Islamic culture. Two others - the ways of judging and appreciating Islamic art and the "Orientalism" effect - are functions of the critical approaches which have led scholars or amateurs from whatever origin to study, collect and enjoy [xxi] Islamic art. With varying degrees of intensity and not necessarily in the same ways as my own, these four approaches have already been elaborated by other writers. The fifth considers how our own time has learnt to deal with the arts, especially those of other cultures than one's own. These five factors are probably not the only ones involved in the formulation of a theory of understanding Islamic art, but they will, I hope, help to provide more solid foundations for an aesthetic definition of that art than seems to be currently available. In conclusion I shall then try to return to the questions raised earlier, but, it is hoped, at a different and more useful level of meaning than before.

prophet, suras

Saudi Arabia The first mosque (spaces of worship) was at the ______'s home resulting in mosques being modeled on domestic architecture Mohammad had 11 wives The Qur'an says you can have 4 wives At beginning women had more rights and powers (which is why some women converted) The Qur'an or Koran captures the words of Mohammad (includes 114 _____ (chapters))

islamic art

_______ ____ encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century on wards by people, not necessarily Muslim, who inhabited or ruled by Culturally Islamic civilization. (The similarities between art produced at widely different times and places in the Islamic world is the key feature of Islamic art. It includes calligraphy, painting, glass, ceramics, woodwork and textile.)