Arts
&
Crafts

When searching for the artistic expressions that unite the muslim world,

like the love of decorative pattern,

there is a tendency to see those preferences

not as choices but as essential aspects of Islam,

rules to be followed with no thought as to

the world from which they sprang.

And so it is with human imagery,

with traditional rulings concerning its forbidden nature

having to face up to the heavily image laden nature of modern media.

Makka in the time of the Messenger was a non-literate society,

reading and writing being skills limited to a rare few people,

but images can be recognised by everybody,

tangible records of shared understandings.

So when people wanted to give shape to a shared idea of a god,

they made a recognisable image of it,

and as people were not in the habit of using pen and paper,

those images were more likely to be three dimensional,

carved or constructed,

gods represented as idols.

This meant that when those false gods were intellectually rejected,

part of the process was the physical destruction

of the representations that were used to give them the impression of reality,

aiding belief in what had simply been conjured up

in human imaginations.

But muslims never did live in a vaccuum,

especially as they spread and mixed with christians

with traditions of pictorial associations with religious topics

and storytelling, and shared ideas of artistic beauty.

And there were areas of understanding

that were almost impossible to separate from images,

such as the zodiac seen in the night sky,

overlaying mental images in the heavens to map the stars,

images then engraved on astronomical instruments as decoration.

But images unrelated to idols

would also inevitably have surrounded those muslims in their daily lives,

from the walls of their houses to the everyday items that they used.

Even before the use of paper

you can find pictures of people woven into fabrics or carpets,

painted on ceramics, and carved or engraved into weapons and armour,

representation as decoration.

The imagery that was scrupulously avoided in mosque decoration

was not necessarily associated with idol worship

when used on a smaller scale amidst the pragmatism of daily life.

But little more than a hundred years after the death of the Messenger,

muslims learned how to make paper,

and that changed everything,

as it quickly became cheap and easy to produce books,

with all their various uses.

As they are now,

books were made beautiful by the use of decoration,

and it was similarly recognised

that sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words,

so scientific text books and engineering manuals

used illustrations to show what they were describing,

just as photographic illustrations might be used today.

But books are also used for the simple entertainment of storytelling,

and here also pictures were used to stimulate the imagination of the reader.

And of course, then as now,

those in power liked to feel that their image was being recorded for posterity,

and commissioned paintings of themselves

presiding over courtly occasions,

or great events like successful battles.

And along with this, images were used

to record and preserve representations of everyday life under their rule,

people working at various trades

or farmworkers in their fields.

With regard to beautifying the Qur'an, however,

decoration was limited to pattern and arabesque,

avoiding the association of human imagery with the words,

just as such images were avoided in the place of prayer

that is the mosque.

Because as any advertising executive will tell you,

images have great power.

Images have an ability to make what is imaginary seem real,

and with that comes great danger.

Whether it be movie idols in the cinema,

or pop idols on TV,

everything except the image is imaginary,

which means that the idol can be imagined as perfect,

everything anyone could want for themselves

with no flaws attached.

And this impossible perfection can also be applied to historical figures,

imagining them as somehow super-human,

making Pharaohs into gods,

and for this reason muslims have always found it essential

to avoid confusing the truth with what is imaginary.

So whenever images have been used

to help tell stories of the Messenger and his family,

images representing their characters

were distinguished from others by being shown with a flaming halo,

and to make clear that the image

does not really show what they looked like,

their faces are hidden behind veils.

On occasions where any of the Holy Family are represented,

great care is taken to make clear

that what we see is an icon and not an idol.