{[Islamic] Aniconism}[11th April 1991]

[Redbook9:73-74][19910411:0935l]{[Islamic] Aniconism}[11th April 1991]

19910411.0935

[continued]

‘The most important principle governing [Muslim]* art was aniconism; i.e., the religious prohibition of figurisation and representation of living creatures. Underlying this prohibition is the assumption that God is the sole author of life and that a person who produces a likeness of a living being seeks to rival God. The tradition ascribed to the Prophet that a person who makes a picture of a living thing will be asked on the Day of Judgement to infuse life into it, whether historically genuine or not, doubtless represents the original attitude of Islām. In the Qur’ān (3:49, 5:113), reflecting an account in a New Testament apocryphal work, it is counted among the miracles of Jesus that he made likenesses of birds from clay **|“by God’s order”, and, when he breathed into them, they became real birds, again, “by God’s order”.|**

‘Hence, in Islamic aniconism two considerations are fused together: (1) rejection of such images that might become idols (these may be images of anything) *** and (2) rejection of figures of living things. Plato and Plotinus, Greek philosophers, had also dismissed representative art as an “imitation of nature”; ie, as something removed from reality. The Islamic attitude is more or less the same, with the added element of attributing to the artist a violation of the sanctity of the principle of life. The same explanation holds for the Qur’ānic criticism of a certain kind of poetry, namely, free indulgence in extravagant image-mongering: “They [poets]* recklessly wander in every valley.” (26:225).’

****

*[square brackets per ms, indicating insertion in ms]

**|{NB}|**

***cf G[e]n[esis]

([The] 10 Commandments)

[Prohibition of graven images; actually Exodus, Deuteronomy]

****– ibid. [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 38

(which goes on to state that pictures were tolerated in in some private apartments and harems of palaces, particularly with the Shī’ah; combined with other ornamental designs; or, in the case of plastic art, in low relief.)

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