Civry's CB12 Blog

“The sweetest of relationships is that with the Prophet;

all the rest are meaningless!

The Creator created you [Muhammad] in the highest rank.

My moist eyes…

The Lady Amina gave birth to the Lord smilingly.

My moist eyes…

O Muhammad, the Arab, I, “the rebel,” am afraid

My moist eyes…” (Poem by ‘Abd ur-Ra’uf Bhatti)

 

This poem, which was in Professer Asani’s article in the week 4 readings, depicts the experience of reading the hadith, the collections of sayings of the prophet Mohammed, and crying because his words are so moving.  The lines are continuously cut off by the refrain “my moist eyes” to show that the author is so touched by Mohammed that he is speechless and can do nothing but weep. Unlike in some of his other poetry, in which he uses the third person, Bhatti chooses to use the first person in this poem. This highlights the deeply personal effect that reading the Hadith and the Qur’an have on Muslims, and demonstrates that one should form ones own relationship with the Prophet.

My creative response to this poem is a self-portrait in which you can only see my eyes. I am crying from reading the words of the prophet Mohammed in the Hadith, and also as a way of imitating him. As my tears flow, they are becoming a hijab that covers my face and my head and protects me from the world. My face is devoid of color to highlight the intensity of my tears, which are a vibrant blue. I decided to create this visual representation in order to demonstrate the power of crying, not only within this poem, but in the Muslim world. As we have discussed in lecture, many Muslims make themselves cry when they read the Qur’an with the hope that if they continue to do this, it will eventually happen naturally. Crying is a sign of piety, and even in place where people don’t show any emotions at all it is important to cry when one reads the Qur’an. Shii Muslims also cry when they see the Taziyeh in Iran because they are so moved. Crying is important because it shows that one is connecting on a deep level with Allah, who is lovesick and created the world because he wanted to connect with people.

This image came to my mind when I was reading the week 2 reading,  Infidel of Love: Exploring Muslim Understandings of Islam by Professor Asani. This text refutes the idea that there is a duality between being ‘American’ and being ‘Muslim’. In fact, the ideals of America are actually the same as many Islamic ideals, and the system of governance upholds the values of Islamic law. One quote from General Colin Powell particularly struck me:

“…one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in you can see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Karim Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American, he was born in New Jersey, he was 14 at the time of 9/11 and he waited until he could go serve his country and he gave his life.”

When I was reading this essay, I started to think about how Muslims read the Qur’an in Arabic because it is no longer the word of God when it is translated to English. However, the overall concept of Islam can be translated into English and is everyday by Muslims. When used with a lowercase first letter, the word muslim means “one who submits” and islam simply means to submit. In this way, Islam can be seen as a universal religion, and one that is fully integrated into American society. When I was thinking about this things, this simple image came to my head, with the Arabic and the English words combined.

Then I started to think about the many layers and interpretations of Islam, and how it is a fluid religion that is ever changing and is practiced by a diverse population of people all around the world. The many colors and shapes represent the different interpretations of Islam, and the two words meshed together represent how two different ways of looking at the religion (from the outsider “American” perspective and from the Muslim perspective) are really the same thing. As Asani demonstrates in his essay, a person can be “both a Muslim and an American citizen” and can as proud of being American as there are of being Muslim.

“God is the Light of the heavens and the earth; His Light is like a niche in which is a lamp, and the lamp is within a glass, and the glass is like a shining star kindled from a sacred olive tree neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil nearly glows though fire touch it not: light upon light; God guides to His Light whom He will. And God coins similitudes for human beings, and of everything God has knowledge.” (Q 24:35, Renard 7)

In the graphic novel workshop, we talked about the symbolic meaning of calligraphy and how using the comic form as a medium can bring to life a story out of just words or pictures. We also talked about using the “gutter” which is the open space between the pictures, and how this can be utilized to allow the reader to make a mental leap and imagine what happens between the pictures. In addition, we were provided with a bunch of magazines at the workshop and told that collage can be a great way to make a comic.

I decided to depict the Qur’an surah about light because it is a theme that has continuously been brought up in lecture and in the readings. The first time I encountered it was in the week 1 reading “Seven Doors to Islam”. In this reading, the passage was used as an example of something that Sufis would interpret in a mystical way. It is a verse with a lot of symbolism, so it is easy to interpret in a number of ways. Sirad, which means lamp, is also a name for Mohammed, as both lamps and Mohammed illuminate the way and guide you along the path.

For this reason, I decided to depict Mohammed in the opening picture as a figure carrying a light. However, I decided not to include his head to show that there are a lot of different readings of who or what the lamp in the glass represents. For example, Shii people believe the lamp in the glass is the Imam, the spiritual leader who guides them. Whoever the figure may be, I placed him so that he transcends the gutter, a place that is usually left untouched in comic books, to show that his light is everywhere. I also demonstrated this sense of universality by using a magazine cutout to continue my picture in the second panel, demonstrating that the light of God is everywhere. In the next panel (when you read it from right to left) the lamp also transcends the gutter and is shown onto an ordinary man who looks puzzled. In the last panel, I used a sheet of “scratch magic” to demonstrated stained glass in the shape of Allah, to demonstrate that the light passes through Allah to shine on to the rest of the world. The line “light upon light” is reflected in my comic through the literal use of different types of light in each panel: the first light is the light from the stars, the second is the light from the sun, the third is the light from a lamp, and the fourth is the light from God.