This blog is a collection of creative responses to the weekly readings of a class titled “For the Love of God and His Prophet: Religion, Literature and the Arts in Muslim Cultures”. The artworks gathered here represent an engagement with the ideas and themes of this course, the primary one being the cultural studies approach. […]
The Partition A little BOY stands on tiptoes with his back to the audience, hands cupped around his face, which is pressed to a huge stone wall. An older GIRL stands to a side, anxious to leave. GIRL. Let’s go. BOY. Hold on. GIRL. It’s time to go. BOY. Not yet. Come here and look! […]
This piece was inspired by our lectures and readings this week on contemporary Islam, especially with the focus on how social, political, and religious energies and conflicts play out on the body of the woman. A key point in the readings – particularly Weber’s “Unveiling Scheherazade: Feminist Orientalism in the International Alliance of Women, 1911-1950” […]
The Voice of the Ass “The most objectionable of voices is the voice of the ass.” (31:19) They were laughing uproariously, and it made him sad. All it had taken was one note, one single little emission that swelled from the surging tide of emotion in him and burst joyously, audibly, from his throat… […]
I wanted to bring many ideas together in this video, ideas of art, architecture, geometry, spirituality, divinity, nature, and interpretation. First, to explain the medium of a series of images and the pace – I wanted to create a meditative end product, one where all the various big ideas I was bringing together would be […]
Just as the prophets were the sources of symbols and imagery for poets, and served as inspiration for the Islamic arts such as calligraphy (Asani, lecture), it was the prophets that inspired my design. Specifically, it was the concept that “Every nation has had a messenger” (10:47) and that these prophets make up a fraternity, […]
I dream of the Prophet In the centre of the garden he stands very still Barging through and begging pardon, I watch from the hill All these people watching with me aren’t just watching him – Do they see a man a myth see light, or human limb? His bright presence is enchanting and sets […]
This piece was mainly a response to Abdullahi Osman El-Tom’s “Drinking the Koran: The Meaning of Koranic Verses in Berti Erasure” and the idea discussed in lecture and in section of the Qur’an as talisman. I wanted to create something that speaks to the understanding of the Qur’an as a text, particularly as a text […]