Blog Post 2
For my second blog post, I have decided to express the idea of Islam vs. islam from week one readings through painting. In Chapter One of Dr. Asani’s “Infidel of Love”, it is seen that the word Islam is a word that is given to describe the “ideal religious system, and later as a civilization.” The word Islam was mainly created so that the Muslims had a way to differentiate themselves from the Jews and Christians in both the political and social aspects. “According to a historian named Fred Donner, the emergence of the term “Islam” as the name of a specific religion can be traced to the early eighth century, when ruling members of the Umayyad dynasty attempted to legitimize their political authority in the aftermath of two traumatic wars over succession to the Prophet.” I strived to illustrate this idea in my painting by portraying a crown which symbolizes the political authority, and the green rose with the Arabic word for “Allah” in the middle to symbolize the Prophet. The green rose shining unto the crown is supposed to materialize the idea that the prophet blesses the crown; thus, legitimizing the political authority of the ruler. On the other hand, the term “islam”, mainly used by the earlier generations of Muslims, focused on the idea that God said to Abraham to submit, and he did. This relates back to the sincerity of Abraham’s submission exemplified by his willingness to sacrifice his own son for God. I tried to illustrate this particular idea by painting a brilliant shine with the Arabic word for “Allah” in the middle so that it represents God’s ego, next to God’s ego, I painted a smaller gray-white patch symbolizing the Abraham, submitting to God. The deliberate placement of the Abraham’s ego beneath God’s ego is to illustrate the total submission to God’s ego. http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/adamoh/files/2014/03/2014-03-22-01.36.18.jpg