The British Museum in London is one of the most visited museums in the world. While it holds the fourth position in terms of annual visitors (4 million in 2022), trailing behind the Louvre in Paris, the Vatican Museums, and the Natural History Museum (London), it is arguably the most significant and influential institution of its kind. The museum boasts a permanent collection that exceeds 8 million objects, making it the largest museum in the world, dwarfing all others. By comparison, the Louvre has only 490,000 in its collection. The British Museum also claims to be the first global ‘public national museum to cover all fields of knowledge’—a ‘universal museum’. To understand the significance of such numbers and claims, the question must be asked: why were museums established, and what purpose do they serve today?

According to UNESCO, there are an estimated 100,000 museums worldwide, 70% of which are located in Europe and North America, and 20% in the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region. Museums are considered to be an essential part of the preservation of historical heritage and local traditions. They are an invaluable cultural and historical resource, independent of politics and ideologies, and are deserving of an unquestionable place in our societies and imaginations. However, were museums created for this purpose?

When the British Museum first opened its doors in 1759, it had a collection of 71,000 items, all bequeathed by a man named Hans Sloane. Sloane’s career as a collector fortuitously began during his time in Jamaica, where he had been working as a doctor on the British Empire’s slave plantations. He later married an heiress to sugar plantations, amassing great wealth that allowed him to accrue even larger collections from around the British colonies. These included rare books, manuscripts, coins, medals, natural history, art, antiquities, and ethnographic materials. In his will, Sloane gifted his entire collection to the British government on the condition that it would be freely accessible to the general British public. His condition was partly met, as the poor were initially excluded, and the British Museum was born.

While what Hans Sloane collected was by no means unique (many rich European aristocrats had similar collections), he set a precedent for just how much one could easily acquire in such vastly different areas (‘all fields of knowledge’) from around the world for no apparent purpose. Sloane cemented the idea that he, as a European, could and would be the custodian of mankind’s knowledge and history, and whether or not he understood the value or purpose of his collections was irrelevant. Serious investigative work could be done later, if needed. In the 260 years since Sloane’s death, the British Museum collection has grown from 71,000 to a staggering 8 million objects through what the museum calls ‘difficult histories’. According to the museum, the acquisitions were made through ‘colonial acquisition and missionary activity’, ‘conflict’ [read: war and genocide], ‘purchase and commissions’, and ‘excavations and donations and bequests.’ While such honesty might surprise some, it shouldn’t. The British Museum is well aware of its dark colonial past and has strategies fine-tuned to deal with criticism. It writes: ‘The British Museum acknowledges the difficult histories of some of its collections, including the contested means by which some collections have been acquired, such as through military action and its consequences.’

The museum is well aware that old colonial tactics are no longer effective, and it has no choice but to at least acknowledge what had previously been denied. The question of returning collections will be dealt with later, or never, it hopes. The British were not unique in this. The French, Dutch, German, and Belgian governments followed the same practices in filling their ‘national’ museums (see: The Louvre in Paris or the Pergamon Museum in Berlin). It was in this period that certain other ‘oriental’ disciplines, such as Egyptology, were born out of a European obsession with the East and its people. The East, home to the oldest of human civilisations, suddenly became a mystery that needed to be investigated. According to Edward Said, the Western speculation of the East (and of itself) is such that the European adventurer, whether a collector, sociologist, artist, or writer, must represent the Orient. Only he, the enlightened man of reason, could illuminate the darkest parts of the world to discover what the irrational native could not bring himself to do. If the native wished to represent himself, ‘it is only credible after it had passed through and been made firm by the refining fire of the Orientalist’s work’ (Said). This practice and belief system formed part of a wide and deeply institutionalised European phenomenon that led to the pillage, exploitation, and an ultimately irreversible transformation of the East. Edward Said called this Orientalism.

‘On the one hand there are Westerners, and on the other there are Arab-Orientals; the former are rational, peaceful, liberal, logical, capable of holding real values, without natural suspicion; the latter are none of these things.’

By representing the Orient this way, the West was creating an equal and opposite impression of itself for itself. There is perhaps no single event that demonstrates this phenomenon better than the conquest of Egypt by Napoleon in 1798. Alongside his army, Napoleon took hundreds of academics, historians, and scientists to document the architecture, objects, and people of Egypt. The resulting studies were the first of their kind by a European colonial power and would pave the way for other Western powers to document the people of lands they would conquer in the same way. The native also began to appear in literature, i.e. Heart of Darkness by J. Conrad, The Jungle Book by R. Kipling, or in the Orientalist Art movement (see the works of John Frederick Lewis). But the physical manifestation of the colonial imagination was exhibited in museums. If one visited a European museum in the early nineteenth century, alongside displays and studies on the natural sciences (botany, etc.), one would find the native and his world on display in glass cabinets and museum halls—as if the Orient was no different than the natural and bestial world. Both were worthy of speculation and theory.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a rapid increase in private collections of objects from the East. While some collections were acquired by private collectors or fortune seekers, the majority of them were taken by government agents directly or by their armies as a result of war (see the Benin Bronzes). So what is the future of the British Museum?

British Museum Today

Though colonialism is long over, British imperialism lives on, and there is no better example of this than in the British Museum. The historical obsession of the British Museum with representing the ‘other’ in its collections has been revealed, but if we look at the museum today, it is evident that not much has changed. One must then ask the question: Has the need to represent the ‘other’ endured in the mind and imagination of the British (and by association, the European)? Furthermore, what tools of rationalisation are being employed to justify the parallel existence of what Said called ‘Orientalism’ and what the British Museum claims to be its ‘ideals and values of enlightenment’? In the language and lexicon used by the British Museum, it writes:

“Enlightenment ideals and values – critical scrutiny of all assumptions, open debate, scientific research, progress and tolerance – have marked the Museum since its foundation.”

The ‘About Us’ page of the museum states:

“The British Museum is unique in bringing together under one roof the cultures of the world, spanning continents and oceans. No other museum is responsible for collections of the same depth and breadth, beauty and significance.”

It is bizarre that a ‘modern’ institution in the twenty-first century can use such lofty imperial-era claims of self-importance which are easily contradicted through a basic reading of history. To the British Museum, it appears that the centuries of British colonial rule, with all its barbarity, violence, and exploitation, are merely an inconvenient footnote. While the rest of the world might have moved on from such brazen public self-righteous rhetoric, the museum is somehow excused and can carry on believing that for it, the age of enlightenment never ended. As a single institution in an increasingly isolated and irrelevant country in European and global politics, it possesses a ‘uniqueness’ and a mission to bring together all the ‘cultures of the world’ that span ‘continents and oceans’—the ‘universal museum’. The audacity of the British Museum to plead ignorance and then celebrate the violent and genocidal history (see the Bengal famine of 1943) that led to it acquiring some of its most spectacular collections could only be understood, not justified, by Orientalism.

“To say simply that Orientalism was a rationalisation of colonial rule is to ignore the extent to which colonial rule was justified in advance by Orientalism, rather than after the fact.” — Edward Said (Orientalism)

Orientalism as Self-Identification

According to Said, the Orientalist assumes some sort of ownership, precedent, or prior knowledge of the Orient (the ‘other’) to which he refers and on which he relies, not to understand the Orient but to understand himself. The British Museum’s past and recent history indicate that it is going through a self-identity crisis. It is unable to accept that its future can be based on anything other than its colonial-era collections. Acknowledging its ‘difficult history’ is one thing, but taking action based on it is another. The museum and the British government have been so afraid of returning collections that in 1963 the British parliament passed a law that prohibits the museum from returning objects, followed by another in 1983. Without repatriations, the museum will remain under permanent scrutiny. But this is a uniquely British Museum position. In recent years, some European museums have begun to return some of their many contested collections, signalling their acceptance to change with the times. But the British Museum has doubled down. In response to the creation of some unofficial tours by its critics that take visitors through the contested collections, the British Museum followed the trend and created its own tour of twenty-one contested items, naming it a ‘Collecting and Empire Trail’. It appears as if the museum not only accepts the controversy, it wants to be part of it. Such self-awareness confirms that the museum is actively paying attention to what is being said and is choosing to embrace the criticism rather than fight it. Each collection is an intimate part of the museum’s identity, and the controversy says more about the museum than it does about the collection. Losing one object, it seems, would further magnify the crisis.

At present, there are around nine official requests for reparations from foreign governments — all of which have been denied. The Benin Bronzes, a group of sculptures from the historic Kingdom of Benin; the Rosetta Stone from Egypt; and the Parthenon Marbles (Ancient Greek sculptures) are among the most requested. The museum’s refusal represents an exchange of moral power (what the British believe they ‘can do’ and ‘can understand’ vs. what the Orient ‘can’t’), which Edward Said argues is one of the many facets of Orientalism. The British establishment, and to a similar degree, other European governments, view requests from these countries as unimportant because the Orient is seen as the unequal half, and they simply can’t be trusted with custodianship. The arguments for refusal to repatriate are as follows: a) the claimant country lacks the proper facilities for preservation and display, or b) the claimant country is unstable or unsafe, thereby putting the collection at risk. The Greek government, standing as an uncomfortable anomaly being a European state, responded by constructing a dedicated museum with state-of-the-art facilities to welcome back the Parthenon Marbles. The current stance of the British Museum is that by keeping the marbles, ‘the widest possible public’ has access to them, and that because the collection is part of a wider ‘shared humanity’, the British have as much right as anyone else, and arguably even more so because their museum is a ‘universal museum’. Unfortunately for them, in August 2023, it was revealed that several thousand artefacts (the exact number is unknown) had been stolen from the British Museum’s storeroom and resold on the private market. This revelation renewed calls for reparations and exposed the hypocritical position of this antiquated institution.

It is time for the British Museum to reinvent itself. If it truly believes in the ideals of tolerance, diversity, and ‘shared humanity’, it needs to right the wrongs of the past. Only half of its 8 million objects have been fully documented and made available online, and only 1% of its total collection is ever on display in its halls. This idea of the British Museum being a ‘universal museum’, accessible to all, is a myth. Western cities — whether London, Paris, or Berlin — are out of reach for many of the people whose heritage is housed in the museum’s collections. However, a change is underway that could potentially balance the equation.

While the expression of power politics once demonstrated an uneven exchange, a continuation of old-world imperial Orientalism, a number of museums and galleries are opening in the East that are not only challenging ownership but possibly rewriting narratives. The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul have opened up avenues for a new audience to explore art and history. Millions of visitors who might not be able to visit Europe or North America can for the first time see ‘their’ collective history in institutions that carry none of the burden of old European museums. These museums have heavy pockets and are able to ‘loan’ back objects once taken from the East. However, a danger looms that few are giving much thought to: Are these new museums simply mimicking the behaviour of the old European ‘universal’ museums, or are they re-imagining themselves outside of the framework of Edward Said’s Orientalism?

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My first trip to Cuba was in the summer of 2009. Castro was still alive, and this small Caribbean island was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution. I arrived on a small propeller plane from Panama City, greeted by the humid air and tall palms lining the airport. As I left the plane and walked towards arrivals, I took a deep breath. I was in Cuba, but why? This was the exact question the immigration officer asked me. Tourism had been growing, but I imagined it must still have been rare for Muslims like myself to visit this socialist island. After a few minutes of back and forth, he handed back my passport with a “bienvenido”, welcome. I had come to Cuba with one purpose: to see if life could flourish and a society could prosper outside capitalism. I wasn’t a communist, but I wanted to believe in a philosophy that offered social harmony through the principle of brotherhood.

After spending a few days in Havana, I travelled around the island, visiting Cienfuegos, Trinidad, and as far south as Santiago de Cuba, passing by Guantánamo Bay. Religion as a whole had largely vanished after the 1959 revolution, but each city and town still has a cathedral located in its main square. Socialism had replaced the Catholic Church, and for decades, atheism became the state’s official ideology. It wasn’t until the 1980s that attitudes towards religion softened, allowing Catholicism and Santería (an Afro-American religion of Caribbean origins) to be practised more openly. But what of Islam?

In 2007, Castro promised to build a mosque following a request from Cuba’s Muslims. It would not be until 2015, one year before his death, that the country’s first mosque was established. Funded by the Saudi government, this mosque provided a public, central space for practising Islam. Until that point, Cuban Muslims either prayed at home or, if they were in Havana, within the Casa Del Árabe (House of the Arab).

For 22 years, congregational Friday prayers were held in this beautiful Andalusian-style house, once belonging to an Arab trader. I remember visiting it in 2009. The ground floor featured an open courtyard, brightly lit, with a finely cut stone fountain at its centre, still flowing, surrounded by tropical plants and a few guava trees. The house was built in a typical Damascene style, undoubtedly brought from Syria to al-Andalus during the Umayyad period, and later lovingly transplanted to Cuba by an Arab trader in the early 20th century.

I climbed the stairs and found the first floor carpeted, unusual in this climate, and devoid of furniture, having been converted into a prayer space. A simple yet beautiful wooden minbar occupied one corner, with an old Moroccan glass lamp hanging above it. While exploring the house, I met the caretaker, who explained in Spanish that this casa was only opened once a week, on Fridays, for prayers. I was surprised to find that Havana even had a Muslim community. In addition to Cuban Muslims, some of whom had Arab roots, this makeshift prayer space was also attended by foreign dignitaries and diplomats, mainly from the Arab world. After the caretaker left, I descended to the fountain, performed wudu, and completed my afternoon prayers. Just as I was leaving, I noticed a peacock standing beside the fountain, a vivid reminder of paradise that would stay with me as I travelled the world.

I returned to Havana in 2016, eager to visit the casa again. It was Friday, and I hoped to meet the small Muslim community gathering for prayer. As I walked through the historic centre of Havana, the city seemed changed. The streets were livelier, and where I once saw old men reading newspapers or playing chess, musicians and artists now lined the way, hoping to attract tourists. The atmosphere felt charged, as though a long-awaited festival was about to begin. Cuba had started to reform its tourism and economy, slowly allowing capitalism to creep in.

When I reached the casa, I found the doors shut, with no signs of activity. I tried to push open the heavy wooden doors, but they wouldn’t budge. Just as I was about to give up, feeling as if I had some claim over this place, I noticed a new mosque across the street. It was the Abdallah Mosque, which had opened a year prior with government permission, providing space for hundreds of worshippers. The walls were whitewashed, supported by wooden columns, a distinctly Caribbean urf (custom). Inside, the walls bore large black Qur’anic verses, and a straw mat covered the floor for prayer. Soon, around a hundred men and women gathered, and we prayed together.

When I left the mosque, the casa’s doors were open. God had answered the plea of my heart. I entered quickly, in case it closed again, and walked around, noting how much was as I remembered. Yet, something felt different. Since the mosque’s opening, the casa was no longer used for prayer. The call to prayer had ceased, and worshippers no longer prostrated on its floors. The peacock, too, had disappeared.

114 Calle Oficios. That’s the address if you find yourself in Havana. Though, I’ve been told that the casa is now permanently closed.

Note: This essay is taken from the travel series found in Finding Him: A Journey Across the Islamic World

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The story of the East is written by the West, and no one else must write or document it without their blessing. The global travel photography industry is monoplised by a few Western institutions, and none more prestigious than National Geographic. An American organization founded in 1888, it runs annual photography competitions that are at par with the Oscars, and over the past half-century, National Geographic has created a homogenised standard and feel of ‘travel photography’. The editorial board have chosen, despite repeated criticisms, a practice of rewarding photographers who depict the ‘poor world’ in a way that attracts the attention of its readers and helps shift millions of its printed magazines.

So, what does National Geographic want?

If you’re a photographer who wants to grab the attention of National Geographic and dream of being shortlisted for one of its many competitions, then you must adhere to the following list of unspoken, yet widely practiced, methods of photographing the non-Western hemisphere:

• Travel to any spot in the world, the more remote, the better. For you, no borders exist, no stories too wild, no pain or tragedy too painful. However, if you’re a photographer from certain Eastern countries, you may not enter any of its competitions to show your land. However, a Western photographer can enter your country (as they usually do) and snatch awards by photographing your land and your people. This manipulation of the rules allows certain places to remain less known, maintaining the allure and mystery for a Western audience.
• Know your audience. National Geographic’s audience prefer the unfamiliar and as long as the native is photographed, no boundaries exist. The native can be naked (entirely), in extreme pain (dying or dead) or practicing their religious rituals, but whatever you do, do not show the ordinary. The East is a zoo. Its inhabitants’ beasts and we must at all costs focus on their unfamiliar existence.
• Ethics are optional. If you’re a photojournalist and you want to stretch the truth, do it. If you’re caught, say you’re a ‘visual storyteller’. Consent forms and privacy? Rubbish. The Eastern world is unchartered territory, consent forms aren’t needed.

Creating the ‘Native’

• The native must remain the ‘other’. They key to successfully creating the native is to demonstrate without doubt the stark differences between the native and us. The native found in remote spots of the planet is different in every way. It is through these differences that identities are created, of the native and of us (the Western audience).

‘poor and in suffering’, ‘zealous and colourful’, ‘observable and spectacle’

• To create opposite identities the travel photographer must create the native (an existing or a new). The lens of the camera will be used to identify and exaggerate the natives attributes: race, skin colour, environment, cultural practices, economic and social condition. Any similarities between the native and the photographer are overlooked or wiped, and if a story needs to be told, the photography will also become the writer, social commentator, journalist and/or historian.

• The native is an ‘observable entity’. The native can be observed, tabulated and exhibited. The same way Darwin mapped and organised species, the travel photographer can and must plot the native into a story, a journey, an event. An important exercise that will allow the photographer to claim the natives as his unique own.

• The native is in a state of permanent wait. The native awaits the travel photographer to be finally photographed, his story remains untold. When the outsider enters his home, village or rural society, his voice and life, which had remained inconsequential suddenly take form. And if the native is chosen to be photographed, his story might or might not be heard. The photographer owns not only the photograph but also the story that will be associated with it. Accuracy and integrity are secondary, for what is truly important is that the native is magnificently captured in his strange and bizarre world for a faraway audience.

• The native is not an individual.  Whether in Kenya or Cambodia, India or Chile, the native resembles any another. Often is hard to tell where the photography is taken, for the location takes backseat to the visual appetite the photographer has prepared for the viewer: the native is dark and naked, exotic and mysterious, either very jubilant or extremely depressed, either the backdrop is the Amazonian jungles, the Ganges or the shoddy and decrepit surroundings in a nameless urban neighborhood.

• The native is always suffering. The old Catholic belief that poverty and disease is a curse for the wretched holds true in photography. The native is either facing a dire famine, or drowning in a flood, either he is unemployed and weak, or overworked and broken, he is either on the move as a nomad, or he in a state of permanent homelessness. In any case, he is helpless and at mercy of those who might care to pay attention. Often the photographer will take it to himself to turn his photography into a ‘awareness campaign’ or to become the self-appointed ambassador for a whole people.

• The native is truly unlike us. The native is rarely shown completing daily rituals that might normalize his existence. The native is usually a nomad, or if stationery, in a mud or straw hut, for organization and society is reserved for the Western people. The native lives exposed to the natural elements; whose existence is as versatile as the natural world.

• The native lives in extremes. The native sits on the heavy ends of every measurable scale. He is very religious, his rituals and traditions rich in superstition, his colours a rainbow of mixture, his sounds loud and unfamiliar, his tattoos and piercings unlike anything we know, he is either entirely naked or fully cloaked. To be moderate is not characteristic of the native.

• The native lives a remote life. To be fully immersed into the life and otherly world of the native, we must see them in their natural settings. No urban high-rises, no book shops or cafes or photos of traffic, the native can only be truly captured in their true authentic environment. The Hindu bathes in the Ganges, that is dirty and unsanitary (albeit holy to the naïve native), this is his identity, the Arab rides his camel in sand dunes and is always angry, it’s the only thing he knows, the African is but another animal on the Safari, that’s his natural habitat, the Peruvian hides in the Amazon, for he’s a wild and undiscovered beast. If the native is shown in an urban environment, he is the megalomaniac oil rich Sheikh, or the modern native who yearns to escape his native land for the dreams of rich Europe.

• The native cannot tell his own story and therefore it must be told for him. His illiterate and limited grasp of the world beyond his village and hut disqualifies him from commenting on his condition, and if he wants to he or she can only discuss on a finite set of topics: his poverty, his large family, poor education and infrastructure and his perpetually broken dreams and hopes for a future. Which is clear, from the way the native is photographed, an unlikely reality. Rarely is the native shown to be genuinely smiling, to be a human interacting and living a life with which the outsider can relate.

• The native needs constant re-discovering. The story of the native can be written and re-written, with often the same details, recycled for an audience who might have already forgotten the wretched native from the previous publication. The natives existence is one that, over a century, has yet to be fully exposed, for the native is mysterious and his culture marred in secrecy. Iran, for example, has been ‘de-mystified’, ‘un-veiled’, its ‘hidden secrets’ exposed, it’s ‘cloaked culture’ unhooded. Yet after a century, Iran remains a deliciously unknown fruit that the Western reader loves to bite into whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Why does this all matter?

So what are the real world implications of photographing through the oriental lens:

• Permission is rarely, if ever sought. Although street photography and the question of consent is open for debate, given the nature of outdoor photography, photographers rarely think consent to be integral part of the practice when it comes to photographing portraits or personal spaces. The East is known for its hospitality to guests, especially foreigners, and this kindness is easily exploitable.

• Boundaries do not exist. And if there is one, it does not apply to the Western Photographer. The mysterious happenings behind a door, a curtain or a bedroom wall are to be explored and captured. It’s as if the photographer owes it to himself to shine light on the unknown at any cost, and he will keep crossing boundaries until something dark and alluring will appear, and if nothing is found, photographing the native in his most personal intimate space will do. For example, the photographer Yasmin Mund photographed a set of families asleep on their rooftops. Ms Mund, without seeking and consent, photographed and then had her photo published on multiple global outlets. The photo includes fully and partially naked children and women. Ms Mund’s photo won multiple accolades, including one by National Geographic in 2016. The caption to the original photo was so racially insensitive, it was heavily trimmed after I pushed National Geographic to withdraw the award and remove the photo.

• The narrative to be written. The photograph is often accompanied with a backstory, and it is very difficult to verify the details of what led to the photo to be taken and what exactly is happening in the photo. This is especially true when the person or place being photographed is considered ‘remote’, and names are either not asked or not included in photo essays. Steve McCury’s infamous photo of Sharbat Gula (the ‘Green eyed girl’) is relevant here, as Steve neither had the girls name (it’s doubtful he even asked), nor did he accurately reflect the situation in which the photo was taken. The photo was later accompanied by text that vilified with Russian’s invasion of Afghanistan, implying the intense gaze in the eyes of Sharbat Gula was from the fear of war. Simply not true. This is a common practice in photo journalism and modern storytelling, where one photo will be used to tell a different narrative.

• The natives are all the same. A global non-Western population are categorised into a small subset of buckets. The richness and complexity of people is removed, until an entire continent (e.g. Africa) can be described with a single visual adjective.

• Stereotypes and themes are reinforced. The world today is smaller than it once was, and it is clear we in the wider human family are not all that different despite our incredible diversity. Positioning certain people and societies in a light that reinforces old stereotypes is harmful and creates further divisions. The veil of the conservative ‘Muslim World’ remains a popular visual choice for any photographer in Iran, Iraq and Pakistan when showing women, naked worshippers in the Ganges or Buddhists in their temples are repeatedly shown. Immigrants, climate refugees and victims of drug cartel violence are perhaps the most popular ways South and Central Americans are shown. It’s as if the East, or the native, has not moved on, stuck in their quagmire of superstition and turbulent existence.

• Previous research, imaginings and work done by the native can be discarded or ignored due to their natural irrelevance and inevitable “bias”. The native cannot tell his story, so it must be told for him. This is perhaps the most common and destructive way to re-frame an already framed people and is often delivered by parachuting in Western photographers to cover local events in a country which could easily be captured by native photographers.

At the editorial board level, the same orientalist lens that has proved so profitable is rewarded and celebrated and encourages more of the same behaviour in new photographers.  Pain sells, tragedy gets clicks and if a ‘feel good’ story is needed, then a bland story about a non-event in the West is used to deliver that. This recycled approach of covering the ‘native’ and ‘us’ is deeply ingrained in almost every Western newspaper and photography publication.

Further Reading

Challenging Orientalism (Articles, Essays and Podcasts) at Sacred Foosteps

Orientalism by Edward Said

Culture and Imperialism by Edward Said

The post De-constructing Orientalism in Photography appeared first on Zirrar.

The author will borrow certain Islamic traditions, philosophies and figures to suit a narrative and conveniently discard of the serious and the boring orthodox Islam that might come with the story. In any case, religion is bad at worst, or irrelevant at best –  but the intrinsic egotistic desires of the individual that yearn for freedom are without doubt good and must not be questioned.

This phenomenon is nothing new. At least for the past two centuries, European Orientalists have been active participants in this practise. The mysterious East with its harems and magic carpets, the one thousand and one nights and the endless horizon of sand dunes has become a particular delicacy for the Western reader. Modern authorship from writers who themselves trace their roots to the East have simply continued the same reductionist model, though with varying degrees of success. Before Elif Shafak, the author of the imaginary ‘Forty Rules of Love’ came along, the famous British Orientalist Edward Fitzgerald had already introduced a very loose translation of poetry attributed to the Persian mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was only received with open arms in Europe because his poetry was seen as ‘liberating’, liberating not only the poor English reader, who was tied down by puritan Christian doctrines of Europe, but also free of any serious Islamic influence that might have creeped up in Khayyams work. Later Coleman Barks and others would strip Islam from any and all works of Rumi, Hafez and Saadi.

Orientalist authors like Kipling and Conrad are long gone, and today’s reader is ever more aware of the old trappings of the past. Furthermore, never before in history have millions upon of Muslims called the West their home. With second, third and in some case fourth generation Muslims of immigrant ancestry, identifying themselves as quintessentially ‘Western’, there is a certain appetite and nostalgia to read something about their ancestral homelands, ideally from one of their ‘own’. This untapped demand has been met, quite successfully, by Elif Shafak, Khaled Hosseini and to a degree Orhan Pamuk. All three authors born in the East, but left the East to make the West their permanent home. With little to no fictional literature available in Western bookstores on what life is like in Afghanistan, India, Turkey or Iran, novels fictionalised in Kabul, Tehran, Istanbul or Delhi offer a rare insight into life, love and pain in a far away land. Though none of these authors pretend to write non-fiction, there are certain assumptions and liberties taken by the author and their publisher when a story set in a far away city is published. Yes, the story is fictional, but are the backdrops entirely imaginary? If actual religious or historical characters and events are used to set a story, can the reader really tell what is real and what is pure fabrication? I would argue not. An unaware reader who picks up a copy of the world best-seller ‘Kite-Runner’ with the name Khaled Hossein printed below at an airport bookstore, will almost certainly assume the author is genuine, qualified and the story no matter how fictional is based on real events.

Many such authors are not representatives of the land they write about. For example, Khaled Hosseini after the age of 9 left his homeland of Afghanistan for the West and never returned. His privilege upbringing afforded him the safety and comforts most Afghan’s know not. Then how qualified is Hosseini to tell a story about tribal-ethnic tensions, the social, political and human crisis under the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s or the pain and tragedy that befell the entire nation over the course of his books?

Though some would argue, and many do, that any voice is better than no voice. Let’s be clear, there are many native authors who either still live in the East and do continuously write fiction and non-fiction work about their homeland and many who have moved to the West, and chose to not play the Orientalist game of robbing their lands of its richness by playing the old and tired tunes of ‘there is nothing but pain, oppression and tragedy, and only escape to the West is a remedy’.

Elif Shafk (Forty Rules of Love)

Elif Shafak, the author ‘Forty Rules of Love’, ‘The Architect’s Apprentice’ and ‘The Bastard of Istanbul’ has gained worldwide fame for her English novels that are framed in a pseudo spiritual/Sufi ‘Islamic’ cloak. Originally from Turkey, Shafak now lives in London. But the works of Elif Shafak are not without their many controversies.

When reviewing Shafak’s work, we must me mindful that unlike the critique that is often put-on poor translations of Eastern literature (Rumi or Hafez), there is no issue of translation with Shafak. She is one of the few ‘Eastern’ authors who writes directly in English (alongside Khaled Hosseini), though her work ironically enough is translated back into Eastern languages for local audiences to digest.

Shafak is a self-described atheist:

“I am not a religious person at all. But I am interested in spirituality and mysticism and inner-oriented spiritual journeys all around the world”

From the offset, Shafak distances herself from Islam immediately when interviewed by international publications or reporters, because to be even a ‘Cultural Muslim author’ carries baggage that is not only unnecessary but also harmful to book sales. Especially when is selling a ‘feel-good’ religion that has no set doctrine. Shafak is strategic and cherry-picked history, events and ideas from Turkey’s Islamic heritage (the Ottoman’s) that suits her stories, and thrown away the medium (Islam) without which the characters, events and philosophies in her story form could not exist.

For Shafak, “spirituality”, “mysticism” and the “inner-oriented spiritual journeys all around the world” (whatever that might mean) are all beautiful ornaments to be inserted in stories and characters, but when describing Sufism in its entirety, it suits her to not mention Islam and the orthodoxy that comes with being a Sufi.

For example, in the book ‘Forty Rules of Love’, Ella the protagonist, relies heavily on some form of Sufism and an ostensible overlay of Islamic theology to engage in an adulterous affair. Very far from the abandonment of self, advocated by Sufism, Shafak’s lead protagonist glorifies self-indulgence rather than the love of God. Entirely in conflict with traditional Sufism. Is the average reader able to understand and decipher where Shafak’s imagination takes over, and where actual practises of Sufism (from any of its schools) exist? Or is Shafak creating her own cocktail of religion, and the reader must accept that this is pure fiction?

However, to ensure the reader does not become too disoriented in her own fantastical imagination, pulls the read back with certain hooks with symbolic gestures to Sufism. For example, each chapter of Forty Rules of Love starts with letter ‘b’ she claims. Why? She claims because the secrets of the Quran lay in ‘Surah Al-Fatiha’ (the opening verse of the Quran) and its spirit is contained in the phrase Bismillah hir Rehman nir Rahim (In the name of Allah, the most Beneficent and Merciful). The first Arabic letter that forms the word ‘Bismillah’  – b – (ب) has a dot below it that symbolises the Universe, an idea she borrows from Sufi thought.

Forty Rules of Love also has a side story that is based around the love between two men (the love between the student and the teacher or master). Rumi and Shams. Both figures are heavily revered Muslim theologians, poets and philosophers in their own right, with Jalal ad-Din Muhammad (the light of the faith) Rumi considered to be the most read poet in the world (in any language). Shams Tabrizi was said to be the spiritual teacher of Rumi, who early on in the life of Rumi, left on a journey and never returned. Though this ancient story has been around for almost a millennium, Shafak took many of the orientalist readings of this legend, and filled the holes with her own imagination, often with grotesque and disturbing concepts. The love that existed between Rumi and Shams is universally considered amongst Sufi’s to be purely platonic, and the relationship of student and master in Sufism is one that perhaps might be odd and hard to understand for many outsiders, yet Shafak implies throughout the book (without adding any nuance) that such love, though spiritual, is also physical and sexual. In other instances, Shafak also takes poorly translated verses from Rumi’s Mathnavi and goes as far as to even imply that bestiality was practised.

So, what about the famous ’40 Rules of Love’?

They do not exist, not in the way Shafak presents them and not in any way that come across in the book. Most if not all of the work completed by Rumi and Shams was in Persian. Shafak does not speak nor read Persian, so how was she able to find a set of rules (not one, two or even ten but forty!) from amongst the writings of Tabriz and Rumi in Persian?

In the references for her book, Shafak notes she owes credit to the following authors and their works for her research:

• The Mathnawi (translation by R. A. Nicholson, an English orientalist who completed the first literal translation of Rumi)
• Autobiography of Shams Tabrizi by William Chittick (an early archaic copy), Coleman Barks (based on the translation of Nicholson and almost entirely fictional, Idris Shah (there is question on how accurate his work is), Kabir and Camile Helmeniski (A good and accurate translation), Refik Algan and Franklin D (I am not familiar with their work)
• Poems of Rumi by William Chittwick and Coleman Barks (Both unreliable and poor)
• Poems by Omar Khayyam by Richard Le Gaillienne (Incomplete and riddled with countless errors).

It can be argued that Shafak has created an amalgamation of ideas and philosophies from the various writings of at least three Muslim poets which she transformed into her own 40 rules. Her own imagination determined which verses, which lines and which words spoke to her and nothing more. By relying only on others translations (majority of which are quite poor in accuracy), it should be assumed almost all of the rules has created are fabrications, if not in meaning, then in spirit from the original work of the author.

But Shafak has found success not only in the minds and hearts of non-Muslim readers, but also amongst Muslims. She has masterfully crafted her image as an ‘authentic’ Eastern author, who borrows from her own Turkish culture and history, to pen stories that has full right and privilege to. Her own atheistic values do not, and should not, disqualify her from writing about Islam, but her decision to conflate Sufism with new-age spiritualism that is agnostic at best, is highly dubious. Shafak also holds no theological qualifications, her ability to decipher and interpret religious doctrines of Rumi and Shams in her own mind hold no weight in even a generous academic test. The love that Shafak constantly refers to in her book is human love, often masked as spiritual and higher, forgetting (perhaps by purpose) that the love Rumi and Shams spoke of was usually for God, the very religious idea of God in Islam. Not a cosmic spiritual force that many pseudo-Sufi interpretations apply today to Rumi.

The global rise of interest in Sufism has created a multi-million industry in yoga, spirituality, poetry and literature. Much of the ‘Sufi’ industry is filled with imitators who openly reject any faith, but borrow and decorate empty spiritual concepts with the label of Sufism. The void left by religion in the West clearly needs a filler, and the need to belong to something, without belonging to the whole religion, is a popular decision made by many. This ‘Sufism-Lite’ which has no clear God, no Prophets, no hell, no strict doctrine is allusive and yet alluring. Shafak has masterfully captured the hearts of many who seek meaning in the meaningless.

In summary, Shafak is a very successful writer. She writes fiction, pure and simple. Her work is marketed as such, so we must ask, why is it not consumed as such? To her credit, she is honest about her personal beliefs, so we must be honest with what we take away from her works. So when we read, for example, the Forty Rules of Love, we must remember the following points:

• It is fiction not based on Islam or Sufism. At best, it is loosely inspired by some generic tenets found in Sufism.
• The book does not instill any real Islamic values. Its protagonist is a woman who justifies her own affair through fabricated values and rules attributed to Rumi or Tabriz.
• There are no such ’40 Rules of Love’ anywhere in the works of Rumi, Shams or Khayyam.
• Shafak is not a scholar of Islam, but instead a novelist. She shows no signs of understanding even the basic tenets of Sufism. Although she touches upon the concept of shedding the ego in the book, the story clearly leans towards a worldly love, not one of God. It glorifies (and sanctions using religious doctrine) of one’s lower desires without regard to the consequence to others.

An atheist secular Turkish novelist should not be the start, middle or the end point for any students of Sufism or spirituality that stems from Islam. Any serious readers or curious minds should head instead to the topic of ‘Tasawwuf’ (the actual concept of Sufism found in Islam). In closing we must remember who Rumi was and for whom his breath exhaled, and for whom his heart beat. On his death bed, he was asked by his wife: “Oh Rumi, plead with God to let you stay here longer”, to which he replied: “Am I a thief? have I stolen someone’s goods? is this why you would confine me here and keep me from being re-joined with my Love?”

This Love is Allah. The night is known as Seb-I Arus – The Wedding Day. The day Rumi joined his Creator. The Almighty God. The very Muslim God.

The post Reading Elif Shafak (40 Rules of Love and Pseudo-Sufism) appeared first on Zirrar.

This article sparked some debate into what harm there is in translations, and whether poetry could ever be accurately translated. The conclusion presented was that certain translations of Rumi’s work were not translations at all, but imaginative interpretations.

Rumi is the most popular poet in the world. Fact. Before Rumi, the Persian poet Omar Khayyam was the most popular poet in the West for over a hundred years.

In the 1980s however, Playboy magazine published several couplets by Rumi in its publication and it was a sign of changing time. It was the first time the pornography industry had become interested in poetry. Could it be because Rumi had become associated with sensual love? With wine and intoxication? Often the translator responsible for Persian poetry (or we should just call them interpreters) spoke little to no Persian, removed Islam partially or completely from couplets, then inserted themes, rhymes, icons and messages that would transmit the writers own view of spirituality and mysticism.

Rumi it seemed, alongside a few other Islamic (and non-Islamic) poets, thinkers, saints, had become the vessel for Western infatuation with eastern esotericism (spirituality and mysticism). The West, it can be argued has become void of spirituality and meaning, with rationalism and materialism as its primary religion (Christianity it appears was thrown out with the ‘enlightenment’). I argue the average person in the west feels the emptiness in this materialistic Godless society and looks elsewhere for spiritual fulfilment. This new-age need for a godless feelgood religion that has no church or temple has fed this thirst for secularised Rumi. Whether it’s Madonna pushing Kabbalah, Tom Cruise and Scientology, or your Hare Krishna hippies counterculture that followed the Beatles back from India into the streets of western capitals, there is a hole in the West that yoga and meme spiritual poetry will not fill.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

In 1859, an English man named Edward FitzGerald ‘translated’ the poetry of the 12^th century Persian Astronomer and Poet, Omar Khayyam. FitzGerald’s translation was rhyming and metrical, and rather free in its interpretation. Many of the verses written by FitzGerald are paraphrased, and some of them cannot even be traced to Omar Khayyam. To a large extent, the Rubaiyat can be considered original poetry by FitzGerald loosely based on Omar’s quatrains rather than a “translation” in the narrow sense.

By the 1880’s, “Omar Khayyam Clubs” (fan clubs) opened up in the English-speaking world, with FitzGerald’s extremely loose translations of Omar Khayyam becoming best sellers.

FitzGerald however was not done with simply re-writing Omar Khayyam, he directly attempted to remove Islam from his poetry. FitzGerald belonged to what is called the ‘Pre-Raphaelites’ (a set of English poets, artists and creatives who wanted to revive the honesty and spirituality in Christian art). FitzGerald began by claiming that Omar was “hated and dreaded by Sufis, who he called hypocrites”. Going as far as to claim, with support from his fellow Pre-Raphaelites that Omar was despised by other great Sufis such as Shams Tabrizi, Attar and Al-Ghazali. Who claimed Omar was not a ‘Sufi’ but a ‘free-thinking scientist’. A brave set of propositions by English writers and artists who spoke no Persian, had access to no original manuscripts but were keen to make Omar Khayyam one of theirs. The comedic value in mediocre English artists attempting to make such claims deserves applaud. In recent years news research even claims that Khayyam wrote no poetry himself, but the work of authors over a span of 200 years wrote quatrains that were attributed to the famous scientist (why, its not clear but perhaps because it would stick more if a name as big as Khayyam could be used, similar examples exist of poetry assigned to other Persian scientists including Ibn Sina).

Coleman Barks was asked once why he removed Islam from the poetry of Rumi, to which he replied:

“I was brought up Presbyterian,” he said. “I used to memorize Bible verses, and I know the New Testament more than I know the Koran.” He added, “The Koran is hard to read.”

Rumi has become the ‘Prophet’ of many people who associate themselves with no God or faith, he represents the age of a ‘feel-good’ religion, where spirituality is internal, goodness inherent, and kindness inevitable. All one needs to be at peace are beautiful harmonic verses that speak the ‘human language’. No Allah. No Prophet. No Quran. No Jibreel. Nope. No religion in Rumi. Please.

We now need to ask and answer the question: What do ‘we’ owe the West, if anything, for making Rumi this incredibly popular. Is there gratitude owed to the West for the translations of, importing to, and learning from the works of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi.

Entry of Rumi into the West

It was in 1898, that James Redhouse wrote in his introduction to his translation of the Masnavi, that “the Masnavi addresses those who leave the world, try to know and be with God, efface their selves and devote themselves to spiritual contemplation”. For those in the West, Rumi and Islam were now separated a long time ago.

Some academics trace this removal of Islam from Islamic poetry back to the Victoria period (1837-1900). Translators and theologians could not reconcile the notion that a desert religion that the Christian Europe had been at war with for centuries, with its bizarre moral and legal code could produce beauty found in Rumi, Hafez or Khayyam. Later, Rumi became vastly more popular through translations by Nicholson A.J. Arberry (fluent in Persian), and Annemerie Schimmel. Rumi was to become a big name in the English-speaking world. Then came Barks. It was his interpretations of Rumi that skyrocketed Rumi into the hands of the young college student, pseudo poet/intellect, and the curious Westerner who wanted a taste (a mild one) of the mysticism of the East.

Barks however does not read or write any Persian.

“Of course, as I work on these poems, I don’t have the Persian to consult. I literally have nothing to be faithful to, except what the scholars give.” – Barks

Barks however did dabble in Sufism after which he had a dream in which a stranger appearing in a light told him “I love you”. Barks then began to rephrase other English translations into his own poetry. Thus, begins the re-framing, re-writing, and re-creation of Rumi in the imaginations of one man. Barks interpretation of Rumi’s poetry have become the most popular in the world. There is a high chance if you have read Rumi in English, you have read his work. He is to Rumi, what FitzGerald was to Omar Khayyam.

What do we then owe Barks for his contribution to the spread of the very Muslim Rumi?

For one, Barks began by removing most, if not all references to Islam from the work of Rumi. Sufism that Barks entertained did not insert, but rather encouraged him to de-couple all Islamic references from the Masnavi. What we in the Muslim world call ‘The Persian Quran’, Barks began to rephrase into pop-Sufism for dummies. The Masnavi in its essence teaches its readers on how to reach their goal of being truly in love with Allah. Instead, Barks has delivered the world a corrupt interpretation that has replaced the love of God with the love of a human lover, the anticipation and meeting with God, with sexual encounters, the pain of separation and ecstasy that comes with loving God with jealousy, grief and intoxication found in drunkenness. For Barks, who understands nothing of Persian or the richness of Islamic poetry, forget nuance, even the basic elements of metaphors escape.

Let’s revisit some interpretations by Barks.

Original:

“Whoever asks you about the Houris, show (your) face (and say) ‘Like this.’”

Barks Interpretation:

“If anyone asks you how the perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting will look, lift your face and say, Like this.”

Original:

“You say, ‘With the body, I am far and with the heart, with the Beloved’”

Barks Interpretation:

“You say you have no sexual longing anymore. You’re one with the one you love.”

Original:

An accurate translation: “If you have no beloved, why do you not seek one. And if you have attained the Beloved, why do you not rejoice?”

Barks Interpretation:

“If you don’t have a woman that lives with you, why aren’t you looking? If you have one, why aren’t you satisfied?”

Ok sure there are issues with translations, true, but Barks essentially gave the non-Persian world Rumi. Without him, none of us would be reading Rumi. Right? Including Muslims!

Rumi, although highly popular in the English language, is vastly more popular and present in the rest of the non-English speaking world. A reader of only English may view Rumi and other ‘Sufi’ poets as essentially ‘dead’, and argue that the average Muslim does not understand or appreciate the mastery of Rumi or other poets. This view is limited, as the analysis and conclusion would be drawn from an English world view. The richness and depth of Islam felt is vastly different if one sits by a pulpit in Old Cairo, Delhi, Isfahan to London, Montreal or San Francisco. If one wants to hear the words of Mawlana Mohammed Jalaluddin Rumi or Hafez, or Mohammad Iqbal, in a Mosque, Madrassa or Café, they will have to visit the East where these poets are often memorised by heart by the old and young and recited in debate, poetry recitals and even in political discourses.

Anecdote, my first introduction to Rumi and his message came whilst sipping tea in a rundown café in Shiraz. The reciter, a young man, trembled with excitement and love as they pulled a mini copy of the Masnavi out of their bag to read a few verses that they felt suited the conversations we were having. After the recitation was over, I replied “do you know what they say about Rumi in the West? they say he wrote these lines for his lovers in a state of intoxication”. In disbelief and shock, the young man refused to accept what I had just said. He responded “Mawlana is talking about Allah, this book in my hand is a guide to the Quran”.

I nodded and we left it there.

Whilst there are many reasons to mourn the loss and lack of appreciation of saints, scholars, poets and philosophers in the Muslim world (the Golden-age is long over), it is foolish to think the experience of Islam in the West is parallel to Islam in the East.

Rumi is alive.

Rumi has inspired poets and scholars for over 800 years

Rumi claimed he was inspired by Al-Ghazali, Attar, Baha-ud-din Zakariya, Bayazid Bistami, and of course Shams Tabrizi. The list of people he inspired is even longer. Including, Jami, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Abdolhossein Zarrinkoob, Abdolkarim Soroush, Hossein Elahi Ghomshei, Muhammad Iqbal, Hossein Nasr, Yunus Emre….and Coleman Barks.

So, what does Rumi or other poets owe the West?

While some of Barks verses and interpretations are admirable for their poetic beauty, he is a poet and deserves some accolade. We must also remember the light of the Truth, of the sacredness that leaks (even if in fractions) into interpretations, translations, no matter how corrupt they are.

Knowledge and its pursuit are a noble cause. No book is more important than the glorious Quran, and then the teachings of the beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) for us understanding our faith. The Masnavi was written as a revealer of the Quran. The Masnavi attempts to explain the universals and the particulars. It was Rumi’s attempt to bring us closer to God, the One God, Allah swt.

Rumi in the West Today

Any ‘translations’ of Rumi by non-Persian speakers often rely on others translations. Unfortunately, not knowing the original language, the ‘translators’ “poetic inspiration” often leads them further away from the original meaning and spirit of the work- instead of closer, as one might hope. If the most popular translations (or interpretations) read today are by authors who have changed the message of the Masnavi (intentionally or unintentionally), what message is the Masnavi sending and how is it being received?

Do we as Muslims, need to wait for the European to discover our rich history, only to re-tell it to us in his own way in English or any other European language? How many young Muslims, unaware, have let interpreters like Barks introduce Rumi to them? Or shall we stop trying to keep the sacredness of Rumi alive in any and all translations?

To a non-Persian speaker, it is difficult, if not an impossible task, to separate a verse closer to the original to one that is entirely different. How can we tell from Barks translations which verse is accurate and which is not? How does the reader know? Does the Masnavi still act as the revealer of the glorious Quran? Or are we now entering a realm of spirituality and mysticism where the Islam of Rumi is less important, but the ‘feel good’ sensations from verses are the goal? Does integrity matter in translations and interpretations? Or are rhymes and pop-Sufi couplets that act as transient forces between the Islamic east and rationalistic West more critical?

If some western readers find Islam through interpretations (no matter how accurate), should we accept a western reading of Rumi that has no clear religion? No Allah, no Messenger, No Jibreel, no Quran? The glorious Quran was first translated into English in the 17^th century. The intended purpose was twofold – one, to provide a scholarly text for Christian scholars to study and refute, and secondly, to feed mistranslations into the European world to reveal the “true darkness” of this desert religion. Should we celebrate and applaud the early European translators of the Quran? Should Islam, in its true beauty, remain in the works of Rumi and other Islamic poets? If the West needs to learn and ‘build bridges’ between the ‘Secular’ West and Islamic East, should not Islam in all its oddities remain in work of Rumi?

Unlike before, we now have excellent translations of Rumi. Barks has had his time; we must now reject every and all translations and interpretations that remove the sacred Truth of Islam out of the works of Rumi and other very Islamic poets. Jawid Mojaddedi, a native Persian speaker has released the best to date English translations of the Masnavi.

I am the servant of the Qur’an as long as I have life.

I am the dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen one.

If anyone quotes anything except this from my sayings,

I am quit of him and outraged by these words.

– Mawlana Rumi

The post Reading Rumi in the West: The burden of Coleman Barks appeared first on Zirrar.

Join me and Mokhtar Alkhanshali (historian, community historian and coffee innovator) as we follow the roots of Coffee from Ethiopia, Yemen to Makkah and then Istanbul and Europe. Mokhtar shares the intimate history of Coffee in Islam and its uses for the praise of God, its near ban and then its spread into Europe and Asia.

Podcast Notes:

Mokhtar mentions the book “The Merchant Houses of Mocha” by Nancy Umm

The Muhammadan Bean A BBC podcast on the history of coffee by Abdul-Rehman Malik

The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers

The post Podcast: Coffee – The “Wine of Islam” appeared first on Zirrar.

Every time you sip a cup of coffee in London, you are participating in a ritual that stretches back 365 years to a muddy churchyard in the heart of the City of London. But coffee goes way back to the 15^th century Yemen where it was found in Sufi shrines. By the 16th century, the drink had reached Persia, Turkey, and North Africa. From there, it spread to Europe and the rest of the world.

The word coffee is derived from the Arabic verb qahyia, “to lack hunger” (reference to the drinks reputation as a appetite suppressant. 

Qahwah is the Arabic word for coffee. Every language has merged “Qahwah” into their vocabulary to describe this drink.

Most spoken languages today use the root word ‘Qahwah’ to describe coffee in their local tongue.

The entry of coffee into Europe began soon after the failed Ottoman conquest of Vienna. Its said that a retreating Ottoman army left behind sacks of coffee beans, which the curious Europeans took for camel droppings and then proceeded to burn them. Coffee was discovered and then soon taken into Vienna, and then it made its route into all the European capitals, and eventually landed in Paris and London where it became an instant hit.

London’s coffee craze began in 1652 when Pasqua Rosée, the Greek servant of a coffee-loving British Levant merchant, opened London’s first coffeehouse (or rather, coffee shack) against the stone wall of St Michael’s churchyard in a labyrinth of alleys off Cornhill. Coffee was a smash hit; within a couple of years, Pasqua was selling over 600 dishes of coffee a day to the horror of the local tavern keepers. For anyone who’s ever tried seventeenth-century style coffee, this can come as something of a shock — unless, that is, you like your brew “black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love”, as an old Turkish proverb recommends, and shot through with grit.

In early 18^th century London boasted more coffee houses than any other city in the western world, except Istanbul.

If you like your flat whites or lattes, you would have struggled with this early form of coffee.

Some described this early Turkish coffee as:

“bitter Mohammedan gruel”

“syrup of soot and the essence of old shoes” while others were reminded of oil, ink, soot, mud, damp and shit.”

But yet, people loved the “bitter Mohammedan gruel”, as it sparked ideas, debate and finally made London sober. Pasqua commented on this social changed and said it “made one fit for business”. Pasqua’s coffee stall a stone throw away from the Royal Exchange, heart of finance in London.

A handbill published in 1652 to promote the launch of Pasqua Rosée’s coffeehouse telling people how to drink coffee and hailing it as the miracle cure for just about every ailment under the sun including dropsy, scurvy, gout, scrofula and even “mis-carryings in childbearing women”

“The Turks drink at meals and other times,…it is good for digestion and therefore of great use to be hour 3 or 4 a Clock afternoon, as well as morning.”

During the mid-17^th century, most people in England were slightly or very drunk all the time, mostly due to the fact that London’s water supply was horrid and would make one sick. People then drank watered-down ale, or beer.

The arrival of coffee, then, triggered a dawn of sobriety that laid the foundations for truly spectacular economic growth in the decades that followed as people thought clearly for the first time. The stock exchange, insurance industry, and auctioneering: all burst into life in 17th-century coffeehouses — in Jonathan’s, Lloyd’s, and Garraway’s — spawning the credit, security, and markets that facilitated the dramatic expansion of Britain’s network of global trade in Asia, Africa and America.

Our hero Pasqua was highly successful. By 1656, a second coffee house was opened on Fleet Street, by 1663, 82 had opened up inside the old roman walled city of London.

The term ‘coffee-house politician’ referred to someone who spent all day cultivating pious opinions about matters of high state and sharing them with anyone who’d listen.

However, no respectable women would be found in coffee houses. It wasn’t London before wives became frustrated at the amount of time their husbands spent in the ‘Mohammden Coffee Houses’. In 1674 this frustration erupted into what came to be known as ‘Womens Petition Against Coffee’.

Then came real trouble.

“Charles II, a long-time critic of coffee tried to ban coffee houses all together. Traditionally, informed political debate had been the preserve of the social elite. But in the coffeehouse, it was anyone’s business — that is, anyone who could afford the measly one-penny entrance fee. For the poor and those living on low wages, they were out of reach. But they were affordable for anyone with surplus wealth — the 35 to 40 per cent of London’s 287,500-strong male population who qualified as ‘middle class’ in 1700 — and sometimes reckless or extravagant spenders further down the social pyramid. Charles suspected the coffeehouses were hotbeds of sedition and scandal but in the face of widespread opposition — articulated most forcefully in the coffeehouses themselves — the King was forced to cave in and recognise that as much as he disliked them, coffeehouses were now an intrinsic feature of urban life.”

Pope Clement VIII was asked by his advisers to ban coffee as it was rising in popularity. However, upon tasting coffee, the Pope declared that, “This Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.” Clement allegedly blessed the bean making it ‘suitable’ for Christians.

Coffee though did not take off right away in Muslim lands either. It faced ban and suspicion in Istanbul, where Sultan Suleiman for apparently two reasons:

1. It was believed to be toxic as per the Qur’anic ban on khamr w’al maysiru (forbidden substance as prohibited in the Qu’ran)

2. The first coffeehouse in Istanbul was in Eminonu (spice bazaar) and it attracted young men especially but also prostitution appeared as a result

Later, after Hurrem Sultan tried the coffee and loved it, and the Sultan had to issue fatwa to allow it. It also had a ban in Makkah around the same time, where some Orthodox Muslims felt it too similarly resembled hashish and wine, and should be banned. Mecca’s chief of police, Kha’ir Beg, decided to go as far as banning the drink, closing down coffeehouses and confiscating and burning coffee. “Coffee drinking continued surreptitiously,” until Beg’s boss, the sultan of Cairo, got wind of the ban and immediately overturned it. It’s said Coffee actually arrived in Istanbul by two Syrian brothers on their adventures.

Anyway back to London, it’s said that “By the dawn of the eighteenth century, contemporaries were counting between 1,000 and 8,000 coffeehouses in the capital even if a street survey conducted in 1734 (which excluded unlicensed premises) counted only 551. Even so, Europe had never seen anything like it. Protestant Amsterdam, a rival hub of international trade, could only muster 32 coffeehouses by 1700 and the cluster of coffeehouses in St Mark’s Square in Venice were forbidden from seating more than five customers (presumably to stifle the coalescence of public opinion) whereas North’s, in Cheapside, could happily seat 90 people.”

At their height, Coffeehouses outnumbered pubs in London.

So, what happened inside the coffeehouses?

Nothing happened that would not make its way into conversations in coffeehouses. Unlike today, where strangers would not be caught talking to each other, people loved exchanging conversations:

There’s nothing done in all the world
From Monarch to the Mouse,
But every day or night ‘tis hurled
Into the Coffee-House

As each new customer went in, they’d be assailed by cries of “What news have you?” or more formally, “Your servant, sir, what news from Tripoli?” or, if you were in the Latin Coffeehouse, “Quid Novi!” That coffeehouses functioned as post-boxes for many customers reinforced this news-gathering function.

Based on what was published at the time, coffeehouses were social spaces with no borders where lords sat by fishmongers and where butchers trumped baronets in philosophical debates.

John Macky’s describes a time where noblemen and “private gentlemen” mingling together in the Covent Garden coffeehouses “and talking with the same Freedom, as if they had left their Quality and Degrees of Distance at Home.”

But the coffeehouse’s formula of maximised sociability, critical judgement, and relative sobriety proved a catalyst for creativity and innovation. Coffeehouses encouraged political debate, which paved the way for the expansion of the electorate in the 19th century. The City coffeehouses spawned capitalist innovations that shaped the modern world. Other coffeehouses sparked journalistic innovation.

One of the oldest coffee houses was in Covent Garden, named “Button’s Coffeehouse”, today if you try to locate this you will find in its place a Starbucks. Although coffee has made a comeback, the vanishing opportunities for intellectual engagement and spirited debate with strangers have been quite a trade-off. Today we sit, plugged into our laptops and phones, and find solace in the isolation from the outside world.

As the world becomes even more divided between ‘us’ and ‘them’, i’m increasingly included to remind myself and the world of mutual debt between that the East and the West. The spread of coffee into Europe heralded an era of incredible original thought and inquiry, some academic even argue it was the catalyst for the European Renaissance. It was in coffee houses that intellectuals and the scientist met, that philosophy, itself a byproduct of Greek and Arabic works, was dissected and created the Europe that we have today.

The post The Story of Coffee in Europe appeared first on Zirrar.

Join me and @persianpoetics as we discuss the beautiful ‘Ghazal’, from its conception in Arabia to modern day America. Some mistake it as a sonnet, but no other language can match the depth and beauty of the Arabian and now Persian Ghazal.

Notes from the podcast:

The website mentioned for finding poetry is Ganjoor

The following poets were mentioned in the podcast: Ferdowsi, Attar, Mawlana Rumi, Khayyam, Saadi, Hafez, Muhammad Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib and Aga Shahid Ali.

Aga Shahid Ali is credited for creating the Ghazal in English, and his books are available on Amazon. He has also done a brilliant job of translation Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

The post Podcast: History Of The Ghazal feat. @persianpoetics appeared first on Zirrar.

What makes something Islamic?

Is it the architect or artist who creates the form, or is it the bricklayer who places the bricks in a certain fashion or is it the land or time in which it is created? Or can such a rich and diverse art form be attributed (in its multiplicity) to the One God (the Singular)?

Some would argue that there is no such thing as ‘Islamic Art’, that no faith can attribute to itself the credit for the achievements of its people, especially those that are outwardly physical in the world of art, architecture, music or literature. That the Taj Mahal cannot be considered ‘Islamic’, nor the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan, nor the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus. It can be argued and asked, “how can a creed, a philosophy, a set of beliefs that dictate human ethics and behaviour become present and own the way a stone is carved, or how a page of calligraphy is illuminated, or how the harmoniously a space is designed?”. In Christianity for example, the label of ‘Christian Art’ strictly means ‘sacred art with themes and imagery from Christianity’, the rich architecture of the Vatican, Rome or Florence in Italy is not considered ‘Christian’, the sacred text within the old or new testaments are not able to claim credit for what was constructed.

Conversely, an argument can be made that certain human creations could not have come to existence without the love drawn from the conviction of no god but that one God, the same God that inspires, the God that comes to be manifested in our creations, the God that is found in the halls and courts of the palace in Granada, the God that emits His light through crystal lamps found in Mamluk architecture in Cairo, the God that is buried deeply and on the surface of Iznik tiles in Ottoman architecture, the very same God that is plastered over the domes of Safavid mosques in Iran. It can be argued, and this is the position I take, that the Truth of God is what Muslims have etched, chiselled, stained, carved, painted, glazed and then raised in their creations in this world. That what the hands of one man did in Istanbul have not be repeated by a hundred thousand others who deny the Truth of God.

So, what do we mean by ‘Islamic Art’?

If the term ‘Islamic Art’ can only be applied to art that has elements of sacred text, such as illuminated manuscripts with Arabic calligraphy or beautifully decorated versions of the Quran, then we are doing Islam and its impact on the creative world a great disservice.

The creation of art that is rooted in the remembrance, glorification and demonstration of our love for the one God, Allah swt, or his beloved messenger, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and the sacred words within the Quran should qualify all and any art to be undoubtably ‘Islamic’. Inspiration from and adherence to the message of God is obedience, it is submission, it is demonstrable practise of Islam.

The resultant art form can take many forms, whether it is written, recited, carved, or constructed. The decision of the artist to use a particular style, or to limit oneself (for example Islam prohibits aniconism, the representation of the human form in art), has created art that would otherwise have never been developed.

“Aniconism unleashed the passionate Arabic genius for abstraction in symmetrical, meditative geometry. This geometry organized the foundations of their architecture and ornament. Abstract pattern also expresses a basic tenet of Islam: “Instead of ensnaring the mind and leading it into some imaginary world it dissolved mental fixations and detached consciousness from its inward idols.”

Al-Tahwid, the doctrine of unity, also gave birth to the art of Islamic pattern, expressed through symmetry that appears to be infinite.

The rise and rapid expansion of Islam delivered revelation to the world that was heavily soaked in the concepts of beauty and love. Unlike other organised religions or philosophies, Islam was multi-dimensional in what it asked of man and what it offered. To a reductionist, Islam is nothing more than a creed that demands obedience and submission, and perhaps many Muslims may see their own faith as this. To the artists who submit their heart to Allah, there is a question that is often asked, the beauty that I find in my God, in my beloved Prophet, in my sacred Quran, in this beautiful world – what is the purpose behind it all? And what inspires man to express his love for Him through art, when all that is required is plain submission and obedience?

“God is beautiful, and He loves beauty” – Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)

My submission to accepting the truth and oneness of God came not from the glorious Quran, though it did instil in me a fear and respect for our Creator, instead it was found under the decked ceilings of the mosques and palaces in Spain, Turkey and then Iran, where the gold and turquoise, the stone and stucco, the marble and wood, the carved and the polished, the calligraphic and the arabesque spoke to me and invited me to submit. These creations did not wow me as they do to many, they made me inquisitive and so I obliged and enquired, who created this and why? As a child of the European sun, I was raised on rationalism with no exception, what is comprehensible is what we perceive, and what we perceive is all that is existent. If we study Van Gogh and analyse his inspiration, if we gaze at Monet and ask why, and if Romanticism, Idealism and Realism all have within them a cause and movement, must not the work of Islamic art be the same? Where would Islamic geometric patterns, motifs of plants and calligraphy fit in? what movement or ideology did they represent, and where does the work of Muslim artists sit in retrospect?

Renaissance artists such as Raphael, Caravaggio, Da Vinci, Botticelli and many more have created some of the greatest Christian Art Europe has ever seen (and I argue will ever see), yet almost all of these artists today are celebrated not because of their Christian heritage, but in spite of. If Europe has divorced its own cultural heritage from its religious roots, why must not the same practise be applied to the easterly Islamic world the modern mind is asked? This I fear, is the less known force driving the narrative that there is no such thing as ‘Islamic’ art.

I recall entering the Alhambra Palace (Cordoba) in the year 2013 in a very unprepared state. As a Muslim I entered the grounds with a sense of pride, not knowing why or from where this presumptuous pride should arise, but it rose and I wore it nonetheless. Moorish poets described Alhambra as a “pearl set in emeralds”, an allusion to the colour of its stone and the woods around it. The parks within Alhambra is home to nightingales, and filled with the sound of waterfalls, and each segment of this palace was designed with the theme of paradise on earth. What paradise and who’s paradise? In Islamic religious literature, Paradise, or Jannah, encompasses rivers and springs, large trees for shade.

“One day in paradise is considered equal to a thousand years on earth. Palaces are made from bricks of gold, silver, pearls, among other things. Traditions also note the presence of horses and camels of “dazzling whiteness”, along with other creatures. Large trees whose shades are ever deepening, mountains made of musk, between which rivers flow in valleys of pearl and ruby.”

There is nothing ordinary about Granada, or any of the other Muslim cities in Spain. The 800-year rule of Muslims in Spain and Portugal left a flower planted so heavy in its scent of God, and of God’s beauty that 800 years later it has not wilted despite the attempts of man and time. I recall standing in the ‘Court of the Lions’ and feeling a sense of shame and confusion, here I am self-proclaiming to be a heir and descendent of the architects that created this space, and yet, I myself did not understand how or why this place existed. While many saw this court and its lions with plain curiosity and awe, I felt a harmonious and sacred design language speaking to me. I have been to countless cathedrals and European palaces, yet none designated this unique design language that I realised I would have to decipher, because whatever entity, group or human or sacred philosophy produced this was not merely inspired by his own imagination, Alhambra was an attempt to capture God in one place, His attributes, His mercy and His beauty. As a non-practising Muslim at this point, I felt myself tremble that I had found God in one of his forms, and who would now deny me the truth that this architecture was most certainly Islamic. How could it not be?

The Alhambra tiles are also remarkable in that they contain nearly all, if not all, of the seventeen mathematically possible wallpaper groups. A wallpaper group is a mathematical classification of a two-dimensional repetitive pattern, based on the symmetries in the pattern. Islamic art generally, exploits symmetries in many of its art forms.

Why do we create?

The Qur’anic term iĥsān. The classic definition of iĥsān comes from the hadith of Gabriel, wherein the Prophet ﷺ describes it as “to worship God as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, He sees you.” Most simply, the Islamic arts cultivate iĥsān because the patterns on traditional prayer carpets; the geometric designs and calligraphy ornamenting mosques and Islamic homes; as well as the architecture of these homes, mosques, and madrasas help us to worship God as if we “see Him” through these displays of beauty, for “God is Beautiful and loves beauty.” – Oludamini Ogunnaike

Are our attempts to create art and architecture our way to recognise and worship our God? I would position myself and yes absolutely. Are God’s attributes beyond our rational logical understanding? Would this argument then explain why Islamic architecture embeds itself geometrical and symmetrical designs that allude in Sufism to the eternal properties of God? If the ‘nukta’ (dot) is the centre of our creation, is He the nukta? The compass rests its needle in a single space and from it creates a framework, an orbit from which the rest of art, the rest of us are created. What is this ornate world if not inspired from revelation?

The Qur’an repeatedly says “God loves the beautiful-doers (muĥsinīn)”

Do we create to please our God? Or is to please our own egos? did the Timurids raise Samarkand as a hub of power and might, or did they raise their eyes at the constellations dotted in revelation and paint what entered their heart? For what else can explain Bukhara or Nishapur, Isfahan or Baghdad?

The Sacred Walls

If Timur was a brute, and if the Ilkhante (the Mongols who became Muslim) were barbarians, if the Safavids were religious zealots, and the Ottomans an imperial menace, how did the sacred Truth instil itself in their creation the way it did not in their European equivalents? Because power and fear cannot force beauty with sacredness and the truth, no grandness can replace the single Truth. The Pharaohs, Romans, Sasanians and even pre- and post-modern European powers have not been able to replicate or create a uniform, yet separate style and forms of art and architecture, that span from one end of the world (Morocco) to the other (Indonesia) that inspire and creative awe at the majesty of God and His word.  

For if fear and slavery created Samarkand and Cairo, and one can argue, as was the case with Romans and their adoption of Christianity, what raised the height of beauty and imagination that no Byzantine or Roman, no Italian or Prussian could compete? I would argue, and I welcome the challenge, that any other empire or dynasty in history of mankind has produced, consistently, art and architecture that on a purely artistic level stand side by side with what the Safavids achieved in Persia or what the Mamluks did in Egypt.

The pivotal difference, and this is critical, that in the European experiment with religion, man came close to plastering God on his cathedrals but was not able to pull in his fellow brother to prostrate his head freely once the emperor or monarchy was beheaded. What the Europe ruler created delivered awe and submission to the ruler, not to God. What Islam delivered, and continues to, is beyond the physical and is a portal to the metaphysical. On this we must expand.

To a spectator who visits Iran or modern Turkey, or the city of Old Cairo or the sacred Fes, must first observe the outward beauty of what the Muslim has created, but then he must observe the fervour in the hearts of the worshipper and pilgrim, wealthy or poor. For God is not glued to the ornaments of the walls or ceilings, nor does He sit on the minaret or atop the dome, He is ever present in the brick and the layer of plaster that hang low and high in the Muqarnas. For what was created with the beauty of revelation does not lose its sacredness. If you have ever visited an old and derelict mosque, no matter the physical negligence, the overwhelming feeling of the presence of God can overtake you.

The Vocabulary of Islamic Art

Islam does not prescribe any particular forms of art. It merely restricts the field of expression. Ideology of Islam depends on the fixed and variable principles. Fixed indicate to the main principles of Islam that could not be changed in place and time including the oneness of God, while the variable depends on human vision in different places through time. It’s called the intellectual vision inherited in Islamic art. – Jeanan Shafiq

Islamic belief in Aniconism (the avoidance of images of people and other beings) and the doctrine of unity (al-twahid) has always demanded a rich vocabulary of abstract and geometric forms that translated into the architecture of mosques. Muslims artists have traditionally reiterated these forms in complex decoration that cover the surface of every work of art from large buildings, to rugs, paintings and small sacred objects. This vocabulary of art (with its restrictions placed on Muslim artists) has given the world a style and form in the array of carpets, ceramics, furniture and textiles that has made its presence feel all over the world.

The absence of icons in Islam has not merely a negative but a positive role. By excluding all anthropomorphic images, at least within the religious realm, Islamic art aids man to be entirely himself. Instead of projecting his soul outside himself, he can remain in his ontological centre where he is both the viceregent (khalîfa) and slave (‘abd) of God. Islamic art as a whole aims at creating an ambience which helps man to realize his primordial dignity; it therefore avoids everything that could be an ‘idol’, even in a relative and provisional manner. Nothing must stand between man and the invisible presence of God. Thus, Islamic art creates a void; it eliminates in fact all the turmoil and passionate suggestions of the world, and in their stead creates an order that expresses equilibrium, serenity and peace. – Titus Burckhardt 

The Dome

The magnificent dome, the canopy above the earth, the tent that guards the earth and the worshipper, this is a symbol of the heavens, the celestial presentation of the heavenly constellations upon which the glory of Allah is cast. Alongside the minaret, the dome has come to represent Mosques throughout the world. The dome was not a Muslim invention, but it was certainly popularised and spread by the expansion of Islam. The origin of the dome is not clear, but in some estimations the oldest example traces back to Pre-Islamic Persia. Muqarnas too are attributed to Persians, and in some opinions to the Egyptian Mamluk, in any case the spread of Islam saw the development and sharing of design languages to the wider Muslim world. Today one enters a mosque and the instinct is immediately to bend ones neck to gaze up at the inside of the dome, for this is where the sum of the whole meets, this is where the raised hands lead to, for this is where we look to find our Creator, sitting, in the calligraphy, between the lines, infused in the gold and the blacks, in the work and craft of the labourer, the lover, that artist, and that architect who raised this dome as a physical attribute to represent the beauty of our Creator.

The magnificent domes of magnificent mosques are part of this Islamic architecture. It represents the oneness of God, the circle dome sitting on the square base structure of the mosque, representing the unity in multiplicity. It represents the mathematical fusion of a circle and square, because the “celestial” sphere or circle joins with the “earthly crystal of the lower octagon”.

The Selimiye mosque in Edirne was constructed on the orders of the Ottoman Sultan Selim II, who claimed the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) came to him in a dream and asked him to build it there. The architect was Mimar Sinan, who after the completion called it his masterpiece. The Selimiye mosque embodies the spiritual symbols of Islam.

“As soon as you enter Selimiye, you encounter a dome that surrounds you. This huge dome speaks of the oneness of Allah. The five-step windows represent the five pillars of Islam. The giant dome, 32 meters in diameter, marks the 32 “fards” [obligations] of Islam. The platforms of the four muzzins indicate four sects. The six paths of the rear minarets depict the six pillars of faith, while 12 marble columns are interpreted as the 12 fards of prayers” – Ahmet Hacıoğlu

In the year 1550, under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, Sinan was ordered to build a great mosque, the Süleymaniye. This mosque would become iconic in Istanbul and today is considered one of the marvels of Islamic architecture. This mosque however had other elements within its complex, including four colleges, a soup kitchen for the poor, hospital, asylum, bath,  caravanserai and a hospice for travellers. The mosque here is more than a place to worship the one God, it is a sanctuary for the needy, it is place to educate the young, a refuge for the traveller and a relief for the sick. All elements of charity central to Islam.

In the design of the Süleymaniye, Sinan tried to achieve the largest possible volume under a single central dome, believing that this structure, based on the circle, is the perfect geometrical figure, representing the perfection of God.

The Minaret

In the thousand cities of Islam stand tall ten thousand minarets. Travellers throughout history have recalled and marvelled at these towers that symbolise mans reach into the heavens as a sign of the glory of Islam. If you have visited Cairo or Istanbul, stand in the old medina and count, or attempt to, the horizon of minarets, the lowest level of paradise on earth. The Selimiye Mosque in Edirne has four pencil shaped minarets, each 83m high, the tallest in the world. These pierce the heavens and represent man’s reach to the heavenly constellations.

The muezzin climbs these minarets to announce and then invite all followers of Islam to come pray to the One true God. What stirs in the heart when a voice from above invites you? Would the minaret have existed if there was no muezzin, no call to prayers?

The Mihrab

The messenger of Allah, Prophet Muhammad pbuh would pray and guide the Ummah from a spot in his mosque in Medina. Omar Ibn Abdil Aziz, in the year 88 Hijria, made it hollow and turned it into what we now call ‘Mihrab’. One can view it as an empty arch that points to the sacred city of Makkah serving an operational function but it can be seen as the symbol of The Divine in the context of the mosque. These mihrabs are associated with sacred focal point of the faith and hence the act of submission in prayer.

Often Mihrabs would incorporate depictions of lamps, flanked by candles and framed within Quranic inscriptions. The lamps that are represented on them are assumed to be mosque lamps, implying connection with prayer. References to the mysticism of Ghazali’s Mishkat al-Anwar (The Niche of Lights) and to the Ayat al-nur (the Light Verse, Quran 24: 35) project a symbolic relationship between these compositions and the Light of God in the mosque. This relationship is based on the occurrence of the Light Verse on numerous actual lamps and on the supposition that flat mihrabs are representations of niche mihrabs in which such lamps are hung.

Islamic Geometric Patterns

Keith Critchlow argue that Islamic patterns are created to lead the viewer to an understanding of the underlying reality, rather than being mere decoration, as writers interested only in pattern sometimes imply. The patterns are believed to be the bridge to the spiritual realm, the instrument to purify the mind and the soul.

Principle of Unity

Islamic art is fundamentally derived from tawhīd that is from an assent to or contemplation of divine unity. The essence of al-tawhīd is beyond words; it reveals itself in the Koran by sudden and discontinuous flashes. Striking the plane of visual imagination, these flashes congeal into crystalline forms, and it is these forms in their turn which constitute the essence of Islamic art (Burckhardt, 1967).

Unity is the heart of the Muslim revelation. Just as all genuine Islamic art, whether it’s in Alhambra or Paris Mosque provides the forms through which one can contemplate The Divine.

Unity manifests itself in multiplicity. All the sciences that can properly be called Islamic reveal the unity of nature. One might say that the aim of all the Islamic sciences and, more generally speaking, of all the medieval and ancient cosmological sciences is to show the unity and interrelatedness of all that exists, so that, in contemplating the unity of the cosmos, man may be led to the unity of the divine principle, of which the unity of nature is the image (Hossein 1968).

Unity in Multiplicity

There are two typical forms of the arabesque; one of them is geometrical interlacing made up of a multitude of geometrical stars, the rays of which join into an intricate and endless pattern. It is a most striking symbol of that contemplative state of mind which conceives “unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity”

Principle of Eternity

God is eternal. It is an indefinite existence without a start or finish. Islamic ornament is an arrangement in line with the principle of eternity in decoration can be seen here. The stars and hexagon were decorated with vegetal motifs which were placed as if they are continuing in four directions from the centre: upwards, downwards, to the right and to the left.

Principle of Abstraction

According to the essence of this principle, which is also described as “escape from realism”, objects in a work of art are not depicted as they actually look, but they are represented differently after being stylized. The goal of making such a change is not to distort objects and depart from the truth but to apply a different interpretation.

Unity itself alone deserves representation; since it is not to be represented directly, however, it can only be symbolized and at that, only by hints. There is no concrete symbol to stand for unity, however; its true expression is negation, not this, not that. It remains abstract from the point of view of man, who lives in multiplicity.

Principle of Recurrence and Rhythm

Ornament involves many regular shapes placed inside circular forms that are not marked with definite contours but can be recognized when looked at them; these shapes inside the circles then fluently turn into star shaped polygons. As circles decorate the work of art with a rhythmical repetition, different arrangements formed at the connection points also create motifs with more circles and polygons.

Islamic art concentration on geometric patterns draws attention away from the representational world to one of pure forms. The significance from the Islamic standpoint is that, in the effort to trace origins in creation, the direction is not backwards but inwards.

The intuitive mind, or the soul, of an individual seeks sources and reasons for its existence it is led inward and away from the three-dimensional world towards fewer and more comprehensive ideas and principles (Keith Critchlow, 1976).

Islamic Calligraphy

“Read in the name of your Lord Who created; created man from a clinging substance. Read, and your Lord is the most Generous Who taught by the pen; taught man that which he knew not” (al-‘Alaq, 1-5)

Islam arrived in Arabia when reading and writing was a privilege granted to a very few. Our beloved Prophet (upon him be peace and blessings) was an illiterate, as was much of the community around him. Islam changed this all. In the next few decades the Quran was penned to bone, leaf and parchment. In the next few centuries the Islamic world created the first global literary movement, where monasteries and churches in Europe were lucky to have a few copies of the Bible, Baghdad and Damascus, Fes and Granada had streets full of booksellers. The written word was the quintessential mode of preserving tradition, the word of God and the laws of the caliph across the vast Muslim lands. Calligraphy, like other forms of Islamic inspired art and architecture, took paper to recognise, celebrate and share the Truth about God. This movement to put pen to paper to create art was entirely ‘Islamic’. Revelation was directly recorded to paper and beautified, what began as a necessary and practical step in preserving the integrity of Islamic creed, became an art form that left paper and scrolls and leapt onto the walls and ceilings of mosques. What was once written with the minerals of the earth was now carved into the wood and stone in domes, minarets, columns, arches and walls of mosques all over the world (from Morocco to China).

“Arabic calligraphy also provided a basis for decorative forms. Sacred Qu’ranic writing evolved into abstract pattern, enhancing Islamic ornamentation with both visual and spiritual symbolism.”

Today an unaware observer might gaze up at the beautiful Arabic, Persian or Ottoman script in mosques and quickly dismiss the incredible form and styling of words and verses that left the tongue of illiterate Arabs and became, what is in my opinion, the most advanced and sophisticated form of lettering, type and art in any culture and civilisation and history.

The ban or restriction of imagery in Islamic art also touched the development of Islamic calligraphy. Forms of Islamic calligraphy evolved, especially in the Ottoman period, to fulfil a function similar to that of representative art by means of calligraphic representation, when on paper usually with elaborate frames of Ottoman illumination. These include the name of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the hilya, or description of his physical appearance, similar treatments of one or more of the names of God in Islam, and the tughra, a calligraphic version of the name of an Ottoman sultan. If you cannot depict the Prophet, you attempt to beautify his name in any form you can.

The Quran

"the decorated pages of
a Qur’an can become windows onto the infinite."

The special language and structure of the Quran makes it relatively easy to memorise. The language carries the reciter from word to word, the structure guides from verse to verse, propelled by imagery and picturesque style. The recitation of the Quran is a highly developed art form. It has two generally accepted techniques: a musically beautiful reading, tajwid; and a slow, deliberately simple chant.

Music

Muslims classified music as a mathematical science, and numerous mathematicians, philosophers and mystics wrote treatises on music. But the most famous work on the theory of music is by Safi al-Din (1294). The ‘classical’ system of music was championed by al-Mawsili (d.850). His student, the master musician Ziryab, introduced this system to Spain in 822. The most outstanding contribution of the Muslim theorists was the development of mensural music, introduced to Europe in the 12^th century, before which measured songs was unknown to the west. Equally important was the concept of gloss or adornment of a melody. It was a type of gloss known as tarkib, the striking of a note simultaneously with its fourth or fifth octave, that gave Europe the idea of harmony.

Hilya

Hilya, Arabic for “ornament,” refers to a genre of Ottoman Turkish literature associated with the physical description of Prophet Muhammad pbuh. The concept originated from the shamayil, the study of the Prophets pbuh appearance and character. According to Ottoman belief, reading or possessing an account of Muhammad’s attributes protects one from danger, harm, evil, and sickness. It became customary to carry a hilya in the form of a scroll, calligraphic study, or an amulet. In the seventeenth century, hilyas developed into an art form with a standardised layout.

Conclusion

Islamic art can be recognised and identified outwardly by its tell-tale signs of how the manifestation of symmetry takes place, or the harmony in size and composition of a structure. For example, what distinguishes the architecture of Muslim Spain from its immediate successors, the Christian Spanish, who enslaved Muslim architects and artisans to re-create the majesty the Muslims had delivered upon Europe. It takes a keen observer seconds to distinguish the sacred inspired and the non-sacred, the harmony of the multiplicity and the one, and the disharmony of imitation. Although many aspects of Islamic architecture remained in use in Spain and then northern Europe (including the rich geometric elements and the famous horse shoe arch), the European imitations of Muslim architecture feel imbalanced and a weaker replica of what the Muslims achieved. The beauty, the imitators failed to understand, was not in the chisel or just the hands of the labourer, but in the Truth that was deeply accepted by the artist, the designer, and then engineer, engraver and painter.

Many European artists entered the lands of Islam between the late 16^th and 19^th century to understand, analyse, and then copy the art found in Persia and India, but none were able to insert the harmony that came from revelation, none were able to tie together the disparate into the singular.

When Sinan designed mosques, he had a habit to fill the central space of the mosque with light. The light would flood in from the many windows, and the mosque would be incorporated into the complex, making the mosques more than simply monuments to God’s glory but also serving the needs of the community as academies, community centres, hospitals, inns, and charitable institutions. The term ‘Islamic Architecture’ carries with it the beautiful burden of the teachings and values of Islam as declared in the glorious Quran. If the term ‘Islamic’ can only be applied to topics of Sharia, to the practise of religion, of Islamic law and social etiquette, and the Quran certainly does not lay out the blueprints for architectural design, carpets and illuminated manuscripts, then should art and architecture be given the title ‘Islamic’? I will argue yes. The Quran does however have within it the blueprints for Islam, and these designs play out in our world through the creations of spaces that capture and veil the beauty of God, that represent through direct and subtle references to the glory of God, that are inspired by His beauty to show His beauty, that then pull out of the Quran and Hadith, practises of love and charity and turn these into material reality. It is the direct and indirect instructions that have vocalised a design language born out of the sacred truth. It is Islam that inserted curiosity and the seeking of knowledge into the chest of its believers, a religious duty that developed the sciences, caused art, literature and poetry to flourish.

Islamic art derives its beauty from wisdom. Not coincidence.

References

Islam, a graphic guide

The Silent Theology of Islamic Art by Oludamini Ogunnaike

Architectural Elements in Islamic Ornamentation: New Vision in Contemporary Islamic Art by Jeanan Shafiq

Art of Islam: Language and Meaning, a book by Titus Burckhardt

The post What is Islamic Art? appeared first on Zirrar.

Who was Muhammad Rumi? A Poet, a Faqih (Jurist), an Islamic Scholar, a Theologian and Sufi Mystic and above all a lover of our beloved Muhammad ﷺ.

Born in greater Khorasan, Balkh (now Afghanistan), Mawlana Rumi today is arguably the most popular and most read poet in the world. His name and the English translations of his poems are on the tongue of all new age spiritualists who have tapped into the sacred light that emits from the words of Rumi, and who have then kept Islam out of any understanding they might absorb incidentally. Rumi then is a meme poet, one who deserves no more space than a twitter word limit or the place below an Instagram photo.

The name Rumi comes from the Arabic word for ‘Roman’. Rumi lived most of his life in Anatolia (modern day Turkey), a land that had been only relatively recently been conquered by the Muslims from the hands of the Romans when Rumi was born, his title then was his incidental connection to this land. But for clarity, there is nothing roman about Rumi, his roots and his faith all point to Khorosan, and unlike the near eastern Romans, Rumi was an migrant to what is now known as Turkey.

Why is Rumi so popular?

Poetry is dead, at least in the West. The Poetry genre barely moves any books each year but one man is an exception – Rumi. Mawlana Rumi has been popularised in the west mostly due to the efforts of a single man, Coleman Barks, an American who with the help of other Persian speakers translated the works into English. Barks himself speaks no Persian, has had no regular or reliable access to Persian translations, but has worked to re-interpret Rumi into a language, style that appeals to his world view without being true to the original author – Rumi. The view Barks presents is one absent of God, the Muslim God, of Islam, of the beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, of any orthodox Islam that is part of Sufism. Rumi then is identified as a ‘mystic’, ‘saint’ or enlightened man but never as a Muslim from reading any of Barks works.

“Of course, as I work on these poems, I don’t have the Persian to consult. I literally have nothing to be faithful to, except what the scholars give.” – Coleman Barks

The modern spiritual cauldron that non-Muslims grasp onto has defined the image of Muhammad Rumi. The problem transcends unfortunately into the Muslim readership, notably the non-Persian speakers who rely heavily on popular translations provided to them for digesting the works of a saint and in turn read and understand a body of work entirely different to how the author had intended.

As mentioned, the largest culprit is Coleman Barks. His translations or versions of Rumi have sold over 500,000 copies worldwide. In a world where poetry rarely sells, this is a master achievement.

Let’s examine some examples of the mis-translations or interpretations.

Poor and Accurate Translations

Example One

Consider the famous poem “Like This.”

“Whoever asks you about the Houris, show (your) face (and say) ‘Like this.’”

Houris are virgins promised in Paradise in Islam. Barks avoids even the literal translation of that word; in his version, the line becomes, “If anyone asks you how the perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting will look, lift your face and say, Like this.”

The religious context is gone. And yet, elsewhere in the same poem, Barks keeps references to Jesus and Joseph. When he was asked him about this, he said he couldn’t recall if he had made a deliberate choice to remove Islamic references. “I was brought up Presbyterian,” he said. “I used to memorize Bible verses, and I know the New Testament more than I know the Koran.” He added, “The Koran is hard to read.”

Other interpretations that need an honorary mention, for they too are guilty are those by Shahram Shiva, John Moyne, Andrew Harvey and Deepak Chopra. These authors have all made a name for themselves as modern spiritualists, and have had a degree of commercial success in profiting from Muhammad Rumi.

Example Two

“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system.”

This is not an authentic Rumi poem. This version was based on Nicholson’s translation: “What is to be done, O Moslems? for I do not recognise myself. I am neither Christian nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.”

Example Three

“You say you have no sexual longing any more. You’re one with the one you love.”

An accurate translation: “You say, ‘With the body, I am far and with the heart, with the Beloved'”

Example Four

“Love puts away the instruments and takes off the silk robes. Our nakedness together changes me completely”

Accurate translation: “He put harp and (strings of) silk on (his) lap, (and) kept playing this song: ‘I am happy and ecstatic'”

Example Five

“They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual? They wonder about Solomon and all his wives”

An accurate Translation: “O Love, you are known by the fairies and humans. You are more known than the seal-ring of Solomon”

Example Six

“This night . . . is not a night but a marriage, a couple whispering in bed in unison the same words. Darkness simply lets down a curtain for that”

An accurate translation: “Tonight . . . is not a ‘night,’ Rather, it is a wedding (festival) for those who seek God. It is an elegant companion for those who testify to (God’s) Unity. Tonight is a lovely veil of happiness for those with beautiful faces”.

Example Seven

“If you don’t have a woman that lives with you, why aren’t you looking? If you have one, why aren’t you satisfied?” 

An accurate translation: “If you have no beloved, why do you not seek one. And if you have attained the Beloved, why do you not rejoice?”

There are hundreds of examples, perhaps thousands where Rumi’s words have been mis-translated and changed entirely. To either suit a particular ‘spiritual path’ or journey the author wanted, or to purposely steer the reader away from the true message behind the words of a very Muslim scholar and saint. Coleman Barks, who continues to take focus in this study, even includes entirely new words and phrases that Rumi never uses. In one example Rumi is quoted to have used the word Hindu, Buddhist and Zen in one of his poems but these are all false. There is no evidence at all that Rumi was familiar with these religions other than what was mentioned in the Quran. But for the purpose of mass appeal Barks has applied a false translation to say ‘look Rumi wasn’t a Muslim, if you’re a Hindu or Buddhist, he is equally relevant to your spiritual path’.

The criminality behind modern interpretations

The most troubling aspect of the translations is how some words, phrases and then the intended message behind the words are changed so much that Rumi himself is misunderstood entirely from being a very pious Muslim to a highly charged ‘modern sexually liberated’ man. 

When Barks was asked why his interpretations of Rumi are so popular, Barks is quoted as claiming his work is closer to the true ‘essence’ of Rumi. One has to perform incredible mental gymnastics to understand how a white man that speaks absolutely no Persian, nor understands even basic principles of Islam can make such a big claim.

Barks translations are guilty of many things, while some claim that certain Persian words have double meanings or there is ambiguity, there are far greater cases where the essence of a poem has been slanted towards a very sexual direction. In these cases it is hard to believe this an innocent mistake, but rather a purposeful direction taken by the interpreter Barks.

Rumi was a mystic; he remained a pious devout Muslim inclined towards ascetism. Adultery, participating in orgies, and full nudity – all indicated in these translations are forbidden in Islam and appear nowhere in original Rumi works.

Rumi in meme culture

With the mass adoption of social media and the rise of the meme culture surrounding us, we must absolutely disassociate ourselves from placing the sacred text of our scholars and saints on these platforms. While the temptation is high, lets accept that Rumi is not a new age pop psychologist who can address our specific or general issues of love, self-identity and low self-esteem. For Rumi the Qur’an was his blueprint, the Prophet ﷺ was his beloved, and God was his final union.

The spiritual gap or hunger that is present in the west is where the appetite for these interpretations arise. As the western obsession with selective eastern religions and traditions grows, we must be prepared for our literature, music, and wider culture to be adopted in selective terms, where what the west considers ‘acceptable’ or interesting is picked with the ‘Islamic’ or ‘Muslim’ part discarded. We must be aware of our own education and how we digest what is presented to us.

Example Eight

“Listen and obey the hushed language. Go naked”

An accurate translation: “So runs his whispered tale, ‘Go not without the veil’”

When Coleman Barks was asked to explain his method of translation, he said: ‘Yeah, the fundamentalists or people who think there is one particular revelation scold me for this.'” 

Example Nine

“All my mysteries are images of you — Night, be long! He and I are lost in Love.”

The translation is over-sexualised. The intended meaning of the lines suggests for one to stay awake and long for the beloved, for more worshipping is required. Again, there is no way for one to know this line is about God.

Example Ten

In other places the spiritual elevation placed in the words of Rumi has been reduced to pop-psychology.

“All my life I tried to please others, Pleasing myself he is wishing me.”

The original meaning has to do with the tendency of the spiritual seeker to become attached to “spiritual stations” (maqamat), or levels of spiritual attainment- which can be a barrier to seeking God directly. 

The Masnavi, the masterpiece produced by Rumi over 13 years has been termed as the ‘Persian Quran’.  Rumi himself described the “Masnavi” as “the roots of the roots of the roots of religion”—meaning Islam—“and the explainer of the Koran.” And yet little traces of religion remain his translations.

Translators and theologians of our time have had to reconcile with widely accepted Islamophobia of our time with the mass appeal of certain Islamic cultures. Including poetry (Hafez, Saadi, Omar Khayyum) and Islamic Art and Architecture (almost all major museums in the west include exhibitions on Islam), so what is the result? How do you balance an appreciation for one aspect of a medieval religion and then at the same time promote the flowers that blossomed in its bosom?

You do it like this:

• Mistranslate and interpret the literary works to such a degree that even Muslims use your sources for referencing their culture. If Islam is taken out, who can claim and who can reinstate? With Rumi now so popular globally, it is too late for new translations to become the standard when Rumi is already a meme poet.
• You exhibit the richness of a culture as a by-product of a civilisation, not of its faith. Persian Art, Indian art, Moor and Mamluk architecture – there is no Islam necessary.
• When all fails and it is not possible to de-tangle Islam from the poets or scholars, you recognise the connection but ensure its either seen as a one-off period in an other-wise dark period of backwardness and intolerance. Finally, you ensure that no Muslim today can claim heritage to the rich civilisations of their ancestors. The exhibitions in the British Museum or Louvre that present for all to see the marvel of Islam art are narrated as one that belonged to a period that is long over. The native today is a dumb, stupid and weak by-product of a wealthy ancestry.

Religion for many western translators of Rumi, or Hafez or Avicenna, or Ibn Rush is purely an obstacle. The view is that these people are mystical, geniuses and achieved not because of Islam but in spite of it.

Was Rumi really a pious Muslim?

Rumi writes:

“The Light of Muhammad has become a thousand branches (of knowledge), a thousand, so that both this world and the next have been seized from end to end. If Muhammad rips the veil open from a single such branch, thousands of monks and priests will tear the string of false belief from around their waists.”

and

“I am the servant of the Qur’an as long as I have life.
I am the dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen one.
If anyone quotes anything except this from my sayings,
I am quit of him and outraged by these words. “

Why has this happened?

[ the following are extracts from an article by the New Yorker linked at the end]

“Discussing these New Age “translations,” Omid Safi said, “I see a type of ‘spiritual colonialism’ at work here: bypassing, erasing, and occupying a spiritual landscape that has been lived and breathed and internalized by Muslims from Bosnia and Istanbul to Konya and Iran to Central and South Asia.” Extracting the spiritual from the religious context has deep reverberations. Islam is regularly diagnosed as a “cancer,” including by General Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national-security adviser, and, even today, policymakers suggest that non-Western and nonwhite groups have not contributed to civilization.”

“For his part, Barks sees religion as secondary to the essence of Rumi. “Religion is such a point of contention for the world,” he told me. “I got my truth and you got your truth—this is just absurd. We’re all in this together and I’m trying to open my heart, and Rumi’s poetry helps with that.” One might detect in this philosophy something of Rumi’s own approach to poetry: Rumi often amended texts from the Koran so that they would fit the lyrical rhyme and meter of the Persian verse. But while Rumi’s Persian readers would recognize the tactic, most American readers are unaware of the Islamic blueprint. Safi has compared reading Rumi without the Koran to reading Milton without the Bible: even if Rumi was heterodox, it’s important to recognize that he was heterodox in a Muslim context—and that Islamic culture, centuries ago, had room for such heterodoxy. Rumi’s works are not just layered with religion; they represent the historical dynamism within Islamic scholarship.”

“Rumi used the Koran, Hadiths, and religion in an explorative way, often challenging conventional readings. One of Barks’s popular renditions goes like this: “Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet you there.” The original version makes no mention of “rightdoing” or “wrongdoing.” The words Rumi wrote were iman (“religion”) and kufr (“infidelity”). Imagine, then, a Muslim scholar saying that the basis of faith lies not in religious code but in an elevated space of compassion and love. What we, and perhaps many Muslim clerics, might consider radical today is an interpretation that Rumi put forward more than seven hundred years ago.”

Where do we go from here?

There is a clear shortage of criticisms of popular Rumi translations (or as we have been saying, interpretations), so this must continue. We must place literature boycotts on these loose interpretations, on these or any texts that claim to represent the sacredness of entirely Muslim authors. The colonisation of our literature might grow in the west, but as Muslims or people of the east, we must recognise the dangers that we face when we make non-Muslims our teachers, especially those that actively work to remove Islam from inextricable.  

What translations to avoid?

• Anything by Coleman Barks
• Other interpretations that need an honorary mention, for they too are guilty are those by Shahram Shiva, John Moyne, Andrew Harvey and Deepak Chopra. These authors have all made a name for themselves as modern spiritualists, and have had a degree of commercial success in profiting from Muhammad Rumi.

Recommended Accurate Translations

Jawid Mojaddedi, who has aspired to translate all six books of the Masnavi into English. Four of them are completed and available on Amazon.

References and further reading:

http://www.dar-al-masnavi.org/

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-erasure-of-islam-from-the-poetry-of-rumi

https://ajammc.com/2015/03/09/rumi-for-the-new-age-soul/

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