zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — the role of iconography vs idolatry within Islam and Christianity ]
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Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace tweeted an image of Muhammad today:

Images of the prophet Mohammed weren't always taboo. This 16th century Persian miniature depicts his ascent to heaven pic.twitter.com/HdSmAwh8cb

— Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) January 9, 2015

This image, according to Wikipedia, is not merely Persian but specifically Shiite, “reflecting the new, Safavid convention of depicting Muhammad veiled”. It is also non-satirical.

As such, it is neither offensive in the sense of insulting the person of the Prophet, nor does it in fact show the features of his face, nor is it the product of the Sunni “mainstream” branch of Islam.

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In considering the revulsion that many Muslims feel at the images of their Prophet in Charlie Hebdo, it may be helpful to understand the respect in which the Prophet is held within their faith.

The Qur’an says of the Prophet:

And We have not sent you but as a mercy to the worlds.

Muhammad is sent “as a mercy”, and thus whatever representation of the Prophet, his words and deeds serves to carry human thought towards the divine participates in that divine mercy, whereas whatever representation scorns that mercy or merely distracts us from it is to be avoided.

The normative manner in which the Prophet is represented within Islam, then, is abstract and calligraphic, with the artist showing devotion and respect for the Prophet through the care with which the work itself is endowed with beauty:

Simpler, and in its own way no less beautiful, is this calligraphic representation of the Prophet’s name in tile from Samarkand:

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Icon or idol?

One facet of the controversy over Charlie Hebdo has to do, then, with a deep issue in representation, which crops up elsewhere in the jihadists’ relish in destroying “idols” — the Bamiyan Buddhas, yes, but also the tombs of Muslim prophets and saints; there has even been discussion within Saudi circles of the destruction on the Prophet’s tomb and relocation of his remains to an anonymous grave.

Within Christianity, there have been those who encouraged the painting of icons, believing that they carry the minds and hearts of believers deep into the mysteries of faith — and those who would tear them down, holding them to be “graven images” (via Judaism, Exodus 20.4) that give mind and heart a resting place far short of those same mysteries: iconodules and iconoclasts.

Wars have been fought in Christendom too over such questions [in both East and West].

The great Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev‘s most celebrated icon is often referred to as The Trinity — though literally (or should I say, figuratively) speaking, it portrays the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre (Genesis 18. 1-15):

It is significant for our context that Rublev has not in fact attempted to portray the Trinity, a mystery deemed beyond human comprehension — the Athanasian Creed, speaking of the Three Persons in one God says explicitly “there are not three incomprehensibles .. but one incomprehensible” — but these three angels, considered as “types” or foreshadowings of the Trinity, which can therefore both veil and represent it.

[ by Charles Cameron — puzzled, amused, and a little pained by these goings on ]
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There’s a new-ish monument of the Ten Commandments at the Oklahoma state capitol, and now some Satanists want to erect a statue of their deity, and Oklahoman Hindus are chiming in with their own proposal…

Okay, as far as I’m personally concerned, Satan (above, upper panel) can get behind me — far behind, not right behind, preferably — while I’m happy to have a small statue of a Hindu deity above my desk — although in my case it’s Ganesh rather than Hanuman (above, lower panel), since Ganesh is the patron of writers. But that’s my personal take.

Oklahoma, however…

Let me put it this way. I suspect the Satanists are mostly drawn by the thrill of doing something the French have a handy phrase for: épater le bourgeois — literally shock the bourgeois, or more colloquially, blow their tiny minds…

To be honest with you, I think that’s not a bad motto for poets and artists in their teens and twenties, Rimbaud, even Baudelaire… but being shocking at my age, even if you’re a poet, gets frankly tedious, and trying to build or conserve a civiliation on that basis — more than a little ridiculous.

Those who have a devotion to Hanuman, on the other hand, are simply members of one world culture among many in this grand American experiment.

So let me put it this way: putting up a monument that proclaims “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me” — in a nation proudly founded on the principle of freedom of religion — really does offer the épateurs a hyper-juicy opportunity to do some blowing of minds — though just whose minds are “tiny” here is not a discussion I choose to enter.

And Hanuman, Lord Rama‘s friend? Well, if there’s a freedom of religion issue, all parties have a right to their beliefs…

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One of the reasons some religions ban religious imagery is because so many of us mistake the image for the deity it’s supposed to represent. And contrariwise, one of the reasons some religions treasure their religious imagery is because so many of us are reminded of the deity it represents. So you’ll often find both iconoclasts and iconodules, puritans and poets, the via negativa and the via positiva — the great cathedrals and the dissolution of the monasteries, the Bamiyan Buddhas and the Taliban.

Laws have a difficult time coming to terms with paradoxes of this nature.

What’s needed is greater human understanding and consideration. As in the Two Commandment (abridged) version found in Matthew 22. 27-29.

But please don’t make a monument out of that…

[ by Charles Cameron — the second holiest site in Islam disrespected by the editors of Azan? ]
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I’ve taken out the surrounding matter, but here’s the section on “decorated mosques” as a sign of the time of the Dajjal or Islamic antichrist, from Maulana Asim Umar‘s Third World War and Dajjal in the second issue of Azan:
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There’s no doubt that the photo that has been dropped in there is of the interior of the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina — compare, for instance here and specifically the larger image here — and the accompanying hadith are less than flattering of “decorated” mosques — suggesting they signal the time of the Dajjal:

Anas ibn Malik narrates that the Prophet of Allah said that the Hour would not arrive until the people show off to each other in (the construction and going to) of mosques. [Saheeh Ibn Khuzaima Vol. 2 Pg. 282, Saheeh Ibn Hibban Vol. 4 Pg. 493]

Abu Darda said that when you start decorating your mosques and beautifying your Mushaf (i.e. The Quran – adorning it with jewellery etc.), then upon you will be destruction. [Kashf-ul-Khifa’ Vol. 1 Pg. 95]

Abdullah ibn Abbas narrated that the Prophet said that when the sins of a nation increase, then their mosques become greatly decorated. And decorated mosques will only be constructed at the time of the emergence of the Dajjal. [Al Sunnan Al-Waridah Fil Fitn: Vol. 4 Pg. 819]

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What exactly do the Pakistani brothers intend to signal to their readers with this juxtaposition? As Mr Orange has reminded me, they are Deobandis, and consider devotions at the tombs of saints to be a form of shirk — but would they bring bulldozers to the Prophet’s mosque on that account, as their Wahhabi brothers in jihad did to a small shrine commemorating Abraham in Ayn al-Arous, Syria, recently?

I’d like to get a better sense of whether the juxtaposition is as unexpected in Pakistani context as it was to me, thousands of miles away, and would appreciate further clarification…