LECTURE 3. VCL 155The Concept and

Principle

Islamic World View

The most outstanding and far reaching feature of the Islamic world view is:

embodied in the proclamation, La ilahailla Allah (“There is no god but God.”), and in the monotheistic principle of tawhid which it proclaim.

in the monotheistic principle of tawhid, which it proclaim.

Tawhid:

derived from the word for “one”, “unique,” or “peerless” (wahid), it is a concept

implying oneness and utter transcendence of God.

Tawhid:

precludes any confusion or absorption of the divine in the non-divine.

Tawhid is:

a loaded concept which not only implies a definition of the Muslim’s view of God,

but

also of his view of this world and of his role in life as an individual and a member of society.

• The view of nature

“In Islam, nature is creation and gift. As creation it is teleological, perfect and orderly; as gift it is innocent good placed at the disposal of man. Its purpose is to enable man to do the good and achieved felicity. This treble judgment orderliness, of purposiveness and goodness characterizes and sums up the Islamic view of nature.”

Islam rejects:

1. The representation of the Divine with figures from nature

2. The creation of any form of religious image

The beautiful and the significant in art:

is not in the aesthetic portrayal of humanity or human attributes, or of the truths of nature.

Instead, this transcendence-obsessed culture sought, through the creation of the beautiful, to stimulate in the viewer:

a. An intuition of,

b. An insight into,

the nature of Allah SWT and of man’s relation to Him.

Islamic Aesthetics

The Islamic message of Tawhid permeated both

the content

and

the form of Islamic art.

• Content

It can be demonstrated that Islamic art is primarily abstract art.

Since Allah (SWT) is so completely other-than natural world, no creature from

nature could stand as symbol for Him.

The artist concentrates on:

1. Geometric and other abstract designs

2. Elaborate calligraphy

3. Heavily stylized and denaturalized figures from the plant world

4. Animal form became fantastic creature divorced from nature

Beauty for Muslim artist is not the idealization of nature.

Beauty is consisted in a portrayal which expressed something other than nature,

something meant to generate an intuition of the real essence of the Transcendent.

There two level of content in Islamic art:

a. Content with a small “c” - which involves with the obvious, surface “content”.

b. Content with a capital “C” – which through its representation of the ostensible motifs,

figures, characters, or events, seeks to reveal a deeper message or “Content”.

• Form

The Islamic view of God and reality has influenced the artists choice as well as the organization of those non natural or denaturalized motifs.

Two formal characteristics of Islamic artistic creations reveal their conformance with Islamic message :

1. Their non-developmental nature

Example of a non-developmental form in Islamic painting : has no one focal point to which all minor elements of the picture point and subordinate themselves.

2. Their conjunct and disjunct arabesque structure.

The definition of arabesque is primarily a matter of the structure of art.

Arabesque can be separated into two types: the conjunct (muttasil from wasala, “to connect”) and the munfasil (from fasala, “ to divide in sections”). A conjunct arabesque resembles a continuum.

• A disjunct or munfasil arabesque comprises a combination of motifs in such a manner as to present a series of self-contained units, each complete in itself. Each component is also loosely interwoven with those other units around it in such a way as to produce a larger pattern of which small unit is but a single pattern.

“…art also becomes an essential means for gaining knowledge, and, in its fuller development, for attaining the final awareness. Knowledge and beauty become one, single experience.”

“Art and contemplation:

the object of art is beauty of form,

whereas the object of contemplation is beauty beyond form,

which unfolds the formal order qualitatively whilst infinitely surpassing it.”

“To extent that art is akin to contemplation it is knowledge, since Beauty is an aspect of Reality in the absolute meaning of the world. Nor is it the least of its aspects, for it reveals the unity and infinity that are immanent in things”.