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What Our Artists Teach Us
In July, we will have the opportunity to collectively work on a mural designed by contemporary Muslims, one has consciously places itself in the highest tra-dition of Islamic artistic design. For this reason, this issue of the AMILA Newsletter is a perfect opportunity to (re) acquaint ourselves with some of the historically prominent features of Islamic art and architecture. A core principle of Islam is that of tawhid, or unity. Not only does this mean the unity of Allah (swt), but also, through Him, of all creatures, by virtue of being part of His creation. At no point does a person, an object, or a place - no matter how mundane - ever stop being part of the divine plan, imbued with the divine spirit. Muslim architecture mirrors the principle of tawhid by making few conscious divisions between the sacred and the secular. Structures often combine within themselves both aspects: a masjid may at other times function as a madrasa, a caravanserai, a hospital, or even a vending stall. Also central to Islam is the notion that there is a cosmic order to every-thing, and that this is a key element of beauty. Islamic art has therefore traditionally embodied and exalted order, pattern, and balance. The emphasis on devotion to Allah alone over any individual entity has lead both to a discouragement of realistic representation in favor of the abstract and imaginative, as well as tendency to downplay the unitary subject in favor of depicting people and objects always as part of a multiplicity, a greater whole, an ever-repeating pattern. The spiritual awareness that we are none of us a new creation, but are rather variations on a theme, has been reinforced by the religious sciences of Islam, which have emphasized the importance of always remaining within the tradiiton Ð within the jama'ah Ð even while we are con-tinually applying that tradition in new ways to our own circumstances. Thus the Islamic arts have placed high value on ornamentation. Far from being seen as superfluous or artificial, ornamentation is the method par excellence of taking the vast tradition and making it oneÕs own. And so we find in our artistic legacy the technique known as "overlay," in which an object fashioned of a natural material such as wood or clay or cotton, is covered over in a highly decorative way, with gold, silver, semi-precious beads or glasswork. The ultimate value of the object is not in its original materal, but rather the work that has gone into it, the transformative process that has taken something ordinary and made it exquisite. In this is the moral and spiritual lesson, for our aesthetic tradition tells us that it is not being born that makes us truly human, but rather the transfor-mative work that we put forth into our own becoming. - Hina Azam Previous story: AMILA/ICCNC Soup Kitchen Opening Soon In Oakland! Next story: The Shari'a: A Spiritual Path?
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