Aliya's response blog

I made this piece by cutting out the Arabic for Nur Muhammad using a photo I took at a market in Istanbul. Nur Muhammad or Light of Muhammad is an important concept for Muslims. I have used this picture to represent it, because, often the lamp is used as a metaphor for the Prophet. Muslims think of Muhammad as a guiding lamp that shows the correct path in life, or sunnah. By cutting the words out of the page I create a way of seeing through the page, which evokes the way the Prophet gave Muslims a lens through which to see past obscurity and become enlightened. By using the Arabic text I also allude to the Qur’an, the Prophet’s greatest gift to the Muslim people.

Light is associated with creation. It is light that brings beings into existence out of nothingness. It is the creative act of Allah. In one worldview, every light in the universe is but a reflection of God’s light and his power, and knowledge. “Allah created His creation in darkness,” said the Prophet,”then He sprayed them with His light. Those whom this light reached became rightly guided, while those it did not went astray.”

The importance of light is not just in being, and non-being but also in believing and not believing. Light is God’s gift to the believer. It is knowledge handed from above. The light of the Prophet is the source of the light of all believers. 

In the Miracles of Muhammad, part of J. Knappert’s Myths and Legends of the Swahili, which we read for class these two significances are linked in a discussion about the conception of Muhammad, “…the almighty created the seed of the prophets out of a handful of His light… God decided that he would send one of these sparks to earth from time to time, and with it he would reveal the Light of His Wisdom…. the largest and brightest of these fiery sparks He picked out first and set it apart. That would become the essence of Muhammad’s soul.”

I was particularly attracted by the use of light as a metaphor for knowledge, and faith. I find the idea particularly beautiful. With this concept in mind, I looked at the photo in a new light. Not just as a beautiful collection of objects in a market, but also as a testament to the values of the culture which created them. They are symbolic of a powerful world vision.

I filmed this shot on a spring break trip to Israel. I was walking around the old city in Jerusalem and I could hear the call to prayer coming from a small mosque down the lane. I walked towards the mosque and then noticed that directly in front of me I could see manifestations of all three sister religions. On my left was the mosque, on my right an armenian church and further down the lane a large menorah- the symbol of the Jewish people. This moment reminded me that, despite conflict, Jerusalem is a holy city for all three faiths. Though they operate in their own spheres, all three coexist and interact.

In Islamic thought, religions possessing divine books, such as Judaism and Christianity, are distinguished from religions which are not based on divine revelations. These “People of the Book” are known as Ahl al-Kitab. The Prophet Muḥammad gave many privileges to Ahl al-Kitāb. For instance, they were granted freedom of worship. During the early Muslim conquests, Jews and Christians were not forced to convert to Islām and had only to pay a special tax for their exemption from military service. Muslim authorities are responsible for the protection and well-being of Ahl al-Kitāb, for, according to a saying of the Prophet, “he who wrongs a Jew or a Christian will have myself [the Prophet] as his indicter on the day of judgment.” After Muḥammad’s death, his successors sent strict instructions to their generals and provincial governors not to interfere with Ahl al-Kitāb in their worship and to treat them with full respect.

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To begin this blog, it seems appropriate to use the image of a threshold. I took these pictures on visits to the Taj Mahal in Agra, India and the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. The shots represent windows into two different Islamic worlds. The architectural styles of Mughal and Ottoman Empire were born from different cultural and historical contexts, yet they share many qualities. Moreover, they both share a power which I think is very palpable in these shots. The tourists, entering the doorways are spellbound by the beauty of what they behold.