Week 2
In this week’s readings, I was struck by the amount of confusion about Islam both from within and without. It was frustrating to read the Sardar reading, in which the author describes her fond memories of growing up with the Qur’an and contrasts them with the ways in which the words of the Qur’an have been distorted to serve political and nationalistic purposes. I could not believe that one verse of the Qur’an has been interpreted variously to either condemn persecution or to promote it.
The Asani reading offered an anecdote of a Sufi saint, Rabia al-Adawiyya, who wanted to burn heaven and drown hell in order to prevent people from fixating so much on the rewards and punishments of the afterlife. She is reported to have said:
O Lord, if I worship you out of fear of hell, burn me in hell.
If I worship you out of hope of paradise, forbid it to me.
And if I worship you for Your own sake,
Do not deprive me of Your eternal beauty.
She instead believed that love of God was the singularly most important, and perhaps only, facet of Muslim life. Though this proposal to destroy the afterlife is clearly radical and figurative, I found it to be a refreshing contrast to the painstaking (mis)analysis of the Qur’an depicted in the Sardar and Asani readings. With the strict guidelines and recommendations set forth by the Qur’an and its interpreters, as a non-Muslim (and perhaps as a Muslim, though I cannot speak to that experience), it is easy to forget that Islam is foremost a religion about submission to and love of God.
With this perspective in mind, I chose to paint the scene of Rabia al-Adawiyya with a torch and pitcher of water with a background of heaven and hell, respectively. During her excursion through the streets with a torch and pitcher, she responded to questions about her intentions with:
I am looking for Paradise so that with this fire I can burn it and I am also looking for Hell so that with this water I can put out its fires…Because people worship God either out of hope (of going to Paradise) or out of fear (of being cast into Hell).
My painting should evoke, as Rabia intended, a visceral response from the viewer, as the prospect of destroying the afterlife is heretical. However, it should also make the viewer question what they themselves would do should the there be no “incentives” to follow the guidelines of the Qur’an (or of their respective religious text). The Qur’an in fact warns against the dangers of performing charitable works only to serve selfish purposes (2:264). I hope that my painting abstractly portrays this concept.