For the Love of God and His Prophet: Rediscovering Islam Through the Arts

Inspired by week 9’s reading The Green Sea of Heaven by Elizabeth Gray, I decided to try and illustrate the Persian love lyric in a still installation of some of the motifs we encountered throughout this unit. It was an attempt to bring the Ghazal to life.

In class and in section we discussed at length some of the issues mentioned in Gray’s piece, such as human love as a stepping stone to the divine love, the many classic motifs that are found in the Ghazal, the open symbolism and the gender ambiguity, and capturing the experience of ecstasy in a poetic form. We talked about the mystics’ dilemma in regards to expressing things that are beyond rationality, language or analysis and of poetry being an effective device. We also discussed the key and controversial idea of intoxication in Islam and how Sufi tradition reverses the role of intoxication from an act of halal to the complete opposite—a state of experiencing the divine love and practicing Islam in the most truthful sense. In addition, we talked about the contrast between yearning as a source of pleasure as well as suffering, as Gray points out: “the true lover understands the ecstasy and the pain of loving.” This installation is attempting to capture all of that at once. It is attempting to illustrate chaotic ecstasy that is, literally, framed to accommodate some sense of order and rationality. It is trying to capture the controversy by displaying chaos that may be erotic and pleasurable but may also be violent and dangerous. It is attempting to capture pleasure and suffering at the same time.