As enraged Muslims take to the streets to protest cartoons
depicting the Prophet Muhammad, few seem to be
aware that representations of Islam’s last messenger have existed
throughout history without causing alarm.
"There is nothing in the Koran that forbids imagery the
way it is condemned in the Hebrew Bible," said John L. Esposito,
university professor of religion and international studies at Georgetown
University.
Although rare in the 1,400 years of Islamic art, visual
representations of Muhammad were acceptable in certain periods. Today, his
likenesses grace collections around the world, at New York’s Metropolitan
Museum of Art, the Edinburgh University Library, the British Museum and
the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.
"To say that Islam is anti-imagery is to have a very
limited understanding of the religion," said Linda Komaroff, curator of
Islamic art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Islam isn’t just one
flavour or one interpretation."
The museum has an unusual depiction of him – a verbal
portrait. Called a hilyeler, meaning adornment, the verbal portrait
was common during the Ottoman period and often could be found hanging in
Muslim homes.
"They were the equivalent of the paintings of Jesus Christ
or Virgin Mary one finds in Christian homes today," Komaroff said.
The hilyeler in Los Angeles is a description of
Muhammad by his son-in-law, Ali. It has been translated as follows: "He
was not too tall or too short. He was medium-size. His hair was not short
and curly, nor was it lank, but in between. His face was not narrow, nor
was it fully round, but there was a roundness to it. ...Between his
shoulders was the seal of prophecy, the sign that he was the last of the
prophets".
Esposito said the current belief by many Muslims that
images of the prophet are sacrilegious probably stems from the Koran’s
strong denunciation of idolatry. "Worshipping an idol is the greatest sin
in Islam," he said. "There is great emphasis in the Koran on not
associating anything with god."
One of the most repeated stories about Muhammad in Islamic
history narrates an incident in which he entered the holy Kaaba, a Muslim
shrine, and destroyed all the idols standing inside.
But Ingrid Mattson, professor of Islamic studies at
Hartford Seminary, said Muslims aren’t upset just because the Danish
cartoons disregard their religious beliefs. "These are racist depictions,"
she said. "They are along the lines of anti-Semitic depictions once seen
in Europe. They are deliberately offensive and aimed at a minority which
is already feeling marginalised."
Other Muslim activists said the images misrepresented the
prophet by showing him as a terrorist whereas he was a peace-loving man.
The modern-day blanket prohibition of portraying Islam’s
sixth century messenger can probably be credited to the strict teachings
of Wahhabi Islam, said Jonathan Bloom, an Islamic art historian at Boston
University. Wahhabi is the Saudi Islamic sect founded in the 18th century
that is the official ideology of Saudi Arabia and supposedly practised by
Osama bin Laden.
"There were definitely times, especially in Iran in the
14th century and during the Ottoman Empire, when manuscripts contained
illustrations of him," Bloom said.
Probably the most well known illustration of the prophet
is contained in the Book of the Assumption of Muhammad, dated
around 1425 and thought to be painted in Herat, Afghanistan. Called the
Meraj-nama, it shows Muhammad mounted on a horse and being guided on a
tour of Paradise. The original can be found at the National Library in
Paris.
Renowned western artists such as Salvador Dali, Auguste
Rodin, William Blake and Gustave Doré have made paintings of Muhammad in
their illustrations of the Inferno chapter of Dante’s trilogy, The
Divine Comedy.
Muslim activists in the United States say examining the
violent response to the Danish cartoons in isolation is a mistake.
"None of this can be explained as a response to one
offensive cartoon," said Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Council on
American-Islamic Relations in Washington. "In the last few years, rhetoric
of western politicians and the war on terror have both fed into suspicions
of Muslims that the West harbours hostility toward them and mocks their
values. These cartoons added to the insult."
Ahmed said previous disrespectful representations of the
prophet did not provoke such a response, which is why attributing Muslim
outrage solely to the Danish cartoon would be erroneous.
In 2001, the television cartoon South Park aired an
episode in which Muhammad teams up for superhero action and, a year later,
the French publication Charlie Hebdo ran a cartoon showing the
prophet drinking and smoking.
A comic book titled Mohammed’s Believe It or Else!
contains hundreds of satirical cartoons. The book’s web site says it is
being translated into six languages, including Arabic and Dutch.
Although each of these depictions provoked anger from
Muslims – the comic’s web site claims to have received 14,000 death
threats – none of them culminated in a global protest.
In the past century, the prohibition against showing
Muhammad’s face has hardened due to teachings of conservative Muslim
leaders.
"In contemporary times, Prophet Muhammad has become the
most visible symbol of integrity of Islam," said John Voll, author of
Islam, Continuity and Change in the Modern World. "Muslims have become
extremely sensitive to any attack on the prophet’s person."
This is particularly so of the Sunni sect of Islam, in
which imagery is frowned upon. Shiite Muslims indulge heavily in visual
representations and in Iran depictions of the prophet’s son-in-law are
common.
Voll believes that had the cartoons attacked any Islamic
figure other than Muhammad, the response might have been different.
"I don’t think the reaction would have been this strong at
all," he said. "Even in The Satanic Verses, Muslims were upset at
the defaming of Muhammad and few seemed bothered that Muhammad’s
companions were also defamed in the book."
The problem with the Danish cartoon seems to be that it
insults Islam’s most revered figure at a time when Muslims are
particularly sensitive to western perceptions.
"Muslims love the Prophet Muhammad," said Mattson. "An
attack on him is perceived as an attack on Islam."
(Courtesy: San Francisco Chronicle; February 11,
2006.)
http://www.sfgate.com