Studying Islam through an Artistic Lens

I never used to question this thing on my head

Until I changed schools at age 13, wearing this thing on my head

My mother asked me if I really wanted to continue

Carrying on this practice or starting anew

I said ya, sure why not?

It’d feel sort of naked with an exposed top

I went to high school and everything was fine

Learning freely, no one asking anything or seeming to mind

All the buzzfeed videos and memes of strange things people ask hijabis

I couldn’t relate to, even though they made me cheese

Until that day in college, when she asked me across the table

Why exactly do you cover, while aren’t able?

And I listed all the cliché reasons: for modesty, for identity

To show people that they need really value me

For more than my looks

But it didn’t get much deeper than that: I felt like a textbook

I’m starting to see the argument of inequality

Why is it always on the women to sacrifice her “freedom” and sexuality

For men? I’m still trying to understand it but

I feel in my gut

That it won’t make sense to liberal folk

Or others that say they’re “woke”

Sometimes I feel attacked

Like the proof for covering my hair is not rooted in fact

So many interpretations to the verse in the Quran

What does God really want from a woman?

Why am I really donning this clothpiece?

When when this answer be revealed to me so I can live in peace?

I don’t think I’m comfortable yet with the thought

That at the end of the day, I have to decide that for myself

In this week, we discussed “Muslim Women and Defining Identity”, where we discussed the interpretations of veiling, the politics behind it and feminism. We learned that the origin of veiling came from aristocratic women in the eastern Mediterranean, when hair was associated with sexuality. There are several Quranic verses like (24:30-31) that tell men and women to lower their gaze and practice modesty and (33:59) that tell women to cover themselves so they can be identifiable as Muslims and saved from sexual assault. From a western perspective, it seems like women are oppressed in Islam, and that they must shrink themselves to avoid men’s arousal. There are many female scholars who have interpreted these verses in ways that empower women. For example, we discussed Amina Wadud Muhsin’s point from Qur’an and Women, where she says that veiling is a decision made by Muslim women and how they interpret the concept of modesty. The manifestations of veiling and modesty are specific to certain time periods and contexts.

This poem is inspired by my views on veiling. Taking this class was very interesting, considering that even though there were several other Muslims in the room, I was the only one covering. It made me feel a little self-concious, almost like when a black student is in a majority white classroom and feels like they have to represent for their race and defy negative racial stereotypes. When I was asked by a classmate, why I actually wear the scarf, like I said in the poem, I wore it because I was taught by my Islamic Studies teachers to wear it because it was a symbol of modesty and my identity as a Muslim woman. I never questioned why women had to wear a physical barrier between them and the world. I’ve come to the realization that I may never know the right answer. Just because there is an array of interpretations that may make the veil obsolete, I’m not willing to give it up so easily. But, this means that I have to find a reason that makes sense to me, and maybe I have to be comfortable with my choice.

A Changing World

This week, we discussed the reformist and revival Islamic movements during the 18^th to 20^th centuries. This was the period during which the European imperialists powers were colonizing Africa and Asia – in effect destroying the thriving Muslim Empires. These reformist movements emerged as as a solution to this problem. Some Muslims behind these movements thought that God had abandoned them because they were no longer practicing Islam the “right” way. This “right” way was essentially a strict fundamentalist interpretation of the religion that shunned other denominations. They targeted practices like visiting shrines, music and dancing of the Sufi tradition, emphasizing the principle of tawhid, or the oneness of God. Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb believed that Muslims were living in a state of jahiliyya, which is the time before the Prophet delivered his message to the Arabians, and needed to revert back to the “right” path to regain rule of their lands. We also discussed the rise of Wahabbism, which V. Nasr in the Oxford History of Islam describes as, “possibly the best known of the eighth century movements of Islamic revival” (p. 517). In class, we discussed how this ideology was “as much a product of political and economic considerations as of religious dogma” (Lecture Notes). The founder, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, studied under fundamentalist Hanbali scholars and came to the conclusion that traditions like Shiism and Sufism were not based in Islam. He actually openly declared people like Jews and Christians were kaafir, or non-believers. Tombs and shrines were destroyed. He questioned the ulamas’ authority and made literal translations of Quranic verses. This strict ideology was able to stay put in the Arabian region first by the addition of Abd al-Aziz ib Saud’s military power and the legitimization they got from the Western powers to combat communism. V. Nasr also how movements like these inspired the rise of jihadism and reformism in West Africa and Southeast Asia. There were a variety of other movements in the Islamic world, like those that sought to imitate or replicate Western models, like the establishment of the Turkish nation state by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk or liberal “back to fundamentals” like Sir Sayyad Ahmad Khan in India who argued that Western and Islamic thought were compatible.

For this blog post and my artpiece above, I wanted to focus on revivalist movements that moved to stricter interpretations and practices of Islam around the world. I use red cones that stick out from the Earth and look like tornadoes as a way to represent the way they disrupted the land and literally divided Muslims in these regions.

The Achievement of Khudi

This week, we delved deeper into cases studies of reform and revolution: one in Pakistan inspired by Muhammad Iqbal, and the other, the Iranian Revolution. Thinkers like Iqbal emerged during the reform movements in the postcolonial era. They believed in empowering Muslims through adaptive and integrative methods, in other words integrating Western “foreign” models within an “Islamic” framework. Muhammad Iqbal was an Indian-Muslim poet and philosopher who was influenced by European and Islamic thinkers like Rumi and Al-Hallaj. He criticized nationalism and materialism. In Ralph Russell’s Iqbal and His Message, he discusses the effort Iqbal made to speak not only to Muslims in Pakistan but all throughout the South Asian world. He famously interpreted the Quranic verse (23:14) that God was the “best of creators” to signify that humans were also creators in their own rite (p. 177). He also makes an innovative interpretation of the word khalifa, or leader, based on the Quranic verse (2:30), which says that God created Adam to be a leader on Earth. He argued that God entrusted everyone with the ability to be a leader on Earth and constantly adapt to new situations by using the Prophet’s example and guidance from the Quran (p. 177).

He also introduced the term khudi, which is a new conceptualization of the self. Different from the Sufi term nafs, which is the ego that must be annihilated in order to bring a person closer to God, one’s khudi should be embraced. Iqbal uses the Quranic principle that God will help those who help themselves to bolster the idea of khudi.  I was inspired by the concept of khudi when I decided to draw this image above. It suggests that humans were born in a pure state and throughout our lives, we are working towards our purpose: self-actualization of our God-given potentials. I drew this picture to represent the soul slowly attaining khudi. The soul is the white form and it has almost achieved its true form, in other words becoming yellow and purely full of light. The green background represents the impact this purified soul has had on the world around it. Since the soul has acted like a khalifa, it was able to improve the world around it like Iqbal describes. I left the head of the soul white because the mind is the hardest part to change in a person. Iqbal says that that one must forfeit aql (rationality) to achieve ishq (love) in this spiritual transformation (p.178). The author criticizes this extreme replacement of aql for ishq, which I agree with, and which is why I also left the head white (p. 179). I agree with the author in that a person can use ishq and aql together to face the world and makes changes.

Taziyeh

This week, we discussed how stories of the Prophet and his companions are depicted in the theatric arts of different cultures – mainly the taziyeh, the traditional performance of the martyrdom of Hussain and his family by Yazid in Karbala, Iran. We were exploring the differences between Shia and Sunni traditions and how the taziyeh marks one of the main distinctions. Taziyah is as much as part of the Iran culture as it symbolizes the persecution that Shias went through in a Sunni dominated environment. I chose to delve into Sir Lewis Pelley’s, The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husein. In this scene of the taziyeh, Husain is about to be slain by his enemies when he sees his grandfather, the Prophet. The Prophet comforts him using a prominent Shia concept of the pious people always having to suffer in this life. He assures him that his suffering in the world will be rewarded with something better in the afterlife. Importantly, this depiction of Hussain’s murder illustrates his humanity and of his family and the pure tragedy that they endured simply due to very different interpretations of who deserved to be in power over the Muslim ummah. Even though It is human nature to feel betrayed by the people that want to kill him, his piety and transcendence above basic human feelings is revealed, as he eagerly meet his family in the afterlife instead of dwelling on the betrayal. This narration is played out every year to commemorate Husain and his family’s death. Another unique characteristic of taziyeh is that there is active participation from the audience members. Through the taziyeh, we get to explore Iranian tradition of feeling this eternal sorrow of their leader’s death and displays their “own faith and devotion within the context of a religious happening” (Chelkowski, pg. 21).

Who has the Power?

This week in section, we discussed the Beggar’s Strike, a Senegalese satire of the transactional relationship between the common people of the town, the beggars and the marabouts. We discussed the interesting dynamic of who was really the most powerful force in the story, whether it was God, the citizens, the beggars, or the marabouts. In general, this week, we discussed how certain ritualistic practices of Islam would always be influenced by the context and culture they are practiced in. This story deals with the practice of charity and the duty of all Muslims to help those that are less fortunate. The main character Mour Ndaiye, was solely preoccupied with advancing in society and used every avenue he could to accomplish his goal of becoming Vice President. In my drawing, I depict him being pulled in different directions by the other characters in the narrative and how his relationship with God is weakened due to his lack of sincerity in the intent of giving to the poor. One part of the story that stuck with me was when one of the beggars noted that he knew that the wealthier townspeople didn’t really care to improve their condition, but rather, they cared more about their self-preservation and the fact that they were getting prayers and blessing in return for their money. The marabouts are also somewhat satirized, especially Serigne Birama, who gets jealous that Mour is consulting another marabout about how he should deal with the beggars and therefore increase his status.

Interestingly, the transactional relationship between beggars and townspeople had already existed prior to the application of an Islamic lens of giving charity. Also, the powerful role of marabout, as a sort of intercessor or intermediary between God and the people, gets critiqued because there is a tension between whether this person is advising people for the sake of Islam or whether they are more interested in profiting from the transactional relationship with their followers due to their charismatic and powerful personalities. I also include the influence of postcolonial structures on the reasons for Mour even wanting to deal with the beggars in the first place. The are also a powerful force in the community. I show that Mour is being tugged to one side for all these reasons, but on the other side, the bigger hand represents God’s power, which is believed to ultimately be the underlying force of his fate.

Different ways to breathe

This week, we were talking about the significance of the Quran as not just a written religious scripture but also as an oral tradition. We learned about different styles of recitation and the repetition of sounds in the poetic verses. We discussed how the Quran was never compiled in written form during the Prophet’s time, and how that impacted the styles of recitation and how they were regulated in Islamic society. I specifically wanted to focus on the Ghazali reading with my piece. He clearly and coherently described 10 rules of Quranic recitation and used Hadith and the examples of prominent companions or scholars to justify his “one-sided” and fundamentalist views.

In my piece, I express the importance of tartil, which is the style of reading the Quran slowly and clearly. This is why I include verses that have the vowel markings on them and space them out roughly equally from each other. I also acknowledge through this work that we cannot tell if the recitor has adhered to any other of Ghazali’s rules, whether is be making abulution before recitation, or weeping “for his lack of grief and tears”, referring to the fact that he should be so moved and consumed with humility in front of God that he expresses this form of emotion. I try to question how realistically, the Muslim community, will actually subscribe to all these rules and not have be able to express or read the Quran in styles influenced by their emotions and culture. This is what I try to represent with the slight change in color with the individual verses and colorful lights coming from the person’s mouth. Sometimes the Quran is read for a variety of reasons, whether it is to appreciate the beauty of the letter sounds or to reflect on its meaning.

Prologue

Coming into this class, I honestly thought that I would be learning about the same type of Islam that I learned in elementary and middle school. I am Muslim and for the first 13 years of my life, I attended a Sunni Muslim school in Maryland. Therefore, my foundational knowledge of my religion is heavily influenced my what I learned from my teachers. I never really questioned anything – maybe besides the mind-blowing concept of Qadr or destiny and if humans really had free will. But I digress. I did not expect that we would go through an in-depth cultural studies approach of Islam and analyze different denominations of the religion other than the majority Sunni one. For a lot of my young adult life, I’ve been craving to know what actually created the Sunni-Shia divide and what Sufism actually was. It was also a new experience for me studying religion through artistic lens. This opportunity gave me a new appreciation for the multi-faceted philosophies in my religious tradition.

One of the concepts that I will never forget is that what the religion was first introduced, it was much more inclusive and those who submitted to God (i.e. spiritual people, Jews, and Christians) could be considered muslims and followers of islam. When the religion started to gain more political power, followers of the religion wanted to distinguish themselves from others and became Muslims, followers of Islam. These blog posts are a reflection of me in a way discovering the hidden treasures of my faith and uncovering different interpretations of mundane traditions and practices.

My first blog post from Week 3 discusses the recitation of the Quran. During my time in Islamic School, we had a Quranic Studies period where we would read and memorize verses and chapters and have the teachers test us on our memorization. We went over tajweed rules. In this class, we went more in depth of the significance of the Quran as not just a written religious scripture but also as an oral tradition. I realized that the Quran is a work of poetry and that there are many styles of recitation. In my piece, I express the importance of tartil, which is the style of reading the Quran slowly and clearly. This is why I include verses that have the vowel markings on them and space them out roughly equally from each other. Depending on what kind of emotion you want to convey or what cultural background you are from, your Quranic recitation will reveal these differences. This diversity is something I tried to convey with the different colors of the letters in the verses and the rainbow color in the background. Although I was brought up to focus on the meaning of the Arabic words I was reading, it was nice to appreciate the Quran for its poetic verses and musicality in recitation.

My blog post from week 5 reflects the stories of Prophet and his companions from the Iranian storytelling lens. The taziyeh was one of the main artistic outlets used to educate the masses about their Shi’a beliefs. I had only heard negative things about Shi’a Muslims coming from a strict Sunni background, so I was eager to clear up the misconceptions I had learned. We discussed the traditional performance of the martyrdom of Hussain and his family by Yazid in Karbala, Iran. This theatrical art form is a very deep part of Iranian culture and humanizes Shiites by showing the persecution they went through in a Sunni dominated environment. In Sir Lewis Pelley’s, The Miracle Play of Hasan and Hussein, the scene that caught my eye was when Husain is about to be slain by his enemies and he sees his grandfather, the Prophet. The Prophet comforts him using a prominent Shia concept of the pious people always having to suffer in this life. He assures him that his suffering in the world will be rewarded with something better in the afterlife. Even though it is human nature to feel betrayed by the people that want to kill him, his piety and transcendence above basic human feelings is revealed, as he eagerly meets his family in the afterlife instead of dwelling on the betrayal. Learning about this story definitely humanized the Shi’a tradition in my eyes, as I can understand the great confusion that there was after the Prophet died and no clear appointment of a leader after him. However, this confusion definitely does not justify murder of anyone, especially the Prophet’s family.

My blog post from week 7 discussed the Beggar’s Strike, a Senegalese satire of the transactional relationship between the common people of the town, the beggars and the marabouts. Reading this story took me back to the days of my childhood, where I’d read stories about Muslim people and that had an underlying Islamic moral. I was also excited to read a story from an African perspective, as Islamic education is often overpowered by Arab and South Asian perspectives. The concept of charity, which is a pillar of Islam, was examined as not only a religious tradition, but as a practice already embedded in the Senegalese culture. A major theme of the story was the sincerity of Mour Ndaiye. He was solely preoccupied with advancing in society and used every avenue he could to accomplish his goal of becoming Vice President. In my drawing, I depict him being pulled in different directions by the other characters in the narrative and how his relationship with God is weakened due to his selfish ways. One part of the story that stuck with me was when one of the beggars noted that he knew that the wealthier townspeople didn’t really care to improve their condition, but rather, they cared more about their self-preservation and the fact that they were getting prayers and blessing in return for their money. The marabouts are also somewhat satirized, especially Serigne Birama, who gets jealous that Mour is consulting another marabout about how he should deal with the beggars and therefore increase his status. Interestingly, the transactional relationship between beggars and townspeople had already existed prior to the application of an Islamic lens of giving charity. The marabout is also a powerful player in the story because he acts as an intermediary between God and the people. His sincerity is also criticized because there is doubt in the reader’s mind on whether he advises people for the sake of Islam or whether he cares about the food or money he gets from his clients more. Besides religious factors, postcolonial structures also play a part in the story, as one of the reasons Mour wants to get rid of the beggars is to attracted white tourists to the city. One difference between the religious stories I used to read as a child and this story is the presence of God. In my childhood stories, God plays and active and visible role in the characters’ lives. This depiction of Allah is intentional, as to teach children of God’s power. However, The Beggar’s Strike shows a more realistic and mature vision of God as working in mysterious ways and not being at the forefront of the action.

My blog post from the first part of week 10 discussed the reformist and revival Islamic movements during the 18^th to 20^th centuries. Despite going to an Islamic school for so long, we barely learned about the history of Islamic empires and the effects of colonialism and post-colonialism on the regions in Africa and Asia. Surprisingly, I only learned some things about them in high school, and small snippets from my college friends and the news. We learned that these movements were a response to colonialism and the destruction of Muslim Empires. These reformist movements emerged as as a solution to this problem. Professor Asani captured the sentiment perfectly, suggesting that the Muslims asked, “what was going on? Why were the non-Muslims being favored while the Muslims that submitted to God were not? We must be doing something wrong.” There were fundamentalist movements like Wahhabism, where some Muslims thought that God had abandoned them because they were no longer practicing Islam the “right” way –  a strict fundamentalist interpretation of the religion that shunned other denominations. They targeted practices like visiting shrines, music and dancing of the Sufi tradition, emphasizing the principle of tawhid, or the oneness of God. In class, we discussed how this ideology was “as much a product of political and economic considerations as of religious dogma” (Lecture Notes). The founder, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, studied under fundamentalist Hanbali scholars and came to the conclusion that traditions like Shiism and Sufism were not based in Islam. This strict ideology was able to stay put in the Arabian region first by the addition of Abd al-Aziz ib Saud’s military power and the legitimization they got from the Western powers to combat communism. V. Nasr also how movements like these inspired the rise of jihadism and reformism in West Africa and Southeast Asia. There were a variety of other movements in the Islamic world, like those that sought to imitate or replicate Western models, like the establishment of the Turkish nation state by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk or liberal “back to fundamentals” like Sir Sayyad Ahmad Khan in India who argued that Western and Islamic thought were compatible. For this blog post and my artpiece above, I wanted to focus on revivalist movements that moved to stricter interpretations and practices of Islam around the world. I use red cones that stick out from the Earth and look like tornadoes as a way to represent the way they disrupted the land and literally divided Muslims in these regions. There is danger in condemning the interpretations of other Muslims, as many Muslims around the world dislike the Wahhabis strict practices even to this day. Islam has a tradition of being interpreted in many ways, and when people try to say that one interpretation is better than another, there is risk for severe division.

The second part of week 10 was spent discussing “Muslim Women and Defining Identity” – veiling and feminism. As a covering Muslim woman, I was very keen on hearing about the history of veiling, the interpretations for and against the physical headscarf, and the opinions of my classmates. I had never really questioned why I wore the scarf because it was part of my uniform in Islamic school and our teachers taught us that God commanded all women to be veiled to be modest. However, sometimes, I’d see my friends outside of school not wearing it. Some of my Muslim friends in college don’t wear the headscarf. Was there a clear answer on whether it was obligatory or not? I knew I might not find the answer in this course, but it was worth a start. There are several Quranic verses like (24:30-31) that tell men and women to lower their gaze and practice modesty and (33:59) that tell women to cover themselves so they can be identifiable as Muslims and saved from sexual assault. From a western perspective, it seems like women are oppressed in Islam, and that they must shrink themselves to avoid men’s arousal. This poem is inspired by my views on veiling. Taking this class was very interesting, considering that even though there were several other Muslims in the room, I was the only one covering. It made me feel a little self-conscious, because I felt like people would look to me as a physical symbol and representative of my faith, or that I was supposed to know all the answers to Professor Asani’s religious questions. Though I’ve been more confronted by this question in college, I’ve come to the realization that I may never know the right answer. Just because there is an array of interpretations that may make the veil obsolete, I’m not willing to give it up so easily. But, this means that I have to find a reason that makes sense to me, and maybe I have to be comfortable with my choice.

Finally, I was inspired to end my blog posts on a spiritual note. In week 11, we discussed cases studies of reform and revolution: one in Pakistan inspired by Muhammad Iqbal, and the other, the Iranian Revolution. Thinkers like Iqbal emerged during the reform movements in the postcolonial era. They believed in empowering Muslims through adaptive and integrative methods, in other words integrating Western “foreign” models within an “Islamic” framework. Muhammad Iqbal was an Indian-Muslim poet and philosopher who was influenced by European and Islamic thinkers like Rumi and Al-Hallaj. In my drawing for this week, I decided to focus on his famous concept of khudi, which is a new conceptualization of the self. Different from the Sufi term nafs, which is the ego that must be annihilated in order to bring a person closer to God, one’s khudi should be embraced. It aligns with the belief that I have that humans were born in a pure inclination or fitrah, towards goodness and God. Ultimately, the problems in the world and societal views taints our fitrahs and our purpose in life is to try to keep coming back to that pure state. We all have the potential for greatness when we struggle in this life and do good deeds to become better people. In my drawing, the soul is the white form and it has almost achieved its true form, in other words becoming yellow and purely full of light. The green background represents the impact this purified soul has had on the world around it. I left the head of the soul white because the mind is the hardest part to change in a person. Iqbal says that that one must forfeit aql (rationality) to achieve ishq (love) in this spiritual transformation (p.178). The author criticizes this extreme replacement of aql for ishq, which I agree with, and which is why I also left the head white (p. 179). I agree with the author in that a person can use ishq and aql together to face the world and makes changes. I ended my blog posts on this note because it represents the place I am in my spirituality currently. Though it is very difficult to keep my faith with the terrible things happening in this world, I find comfort in knowing that philosophers like Iqbal have an optimistic view on how all humans can change the world for the better by changing themselves.

My blog posts follow my journey through the cultural-studies approach of this course and help me reflect on my now ever wider perspective of my religion.