Table Of ContentIslamic Aesthetics
Islamic Aesthetics
An introduction
OLIVER LEAMAN
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA
© Oliver Leaman, 2004
Published in North America by
the University of Notre Dame Press, 2004
First published 2004 by Edinburgh University Press
University of Notre Dame Press
310 Flanner Hall
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
Typeset in Goudy by
Koinonia, Manchester, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall, UK
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leaman, Oliver, 1950—
Islamic aesthetics : an introduction / Oliver Leaman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-268-03369-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-268-03370-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Arts, Islamic. 2. Islam and art. 3. Aesthetics, Arab.
I. Tide.
NX688.A4L43 2004
701'.17'091767—dc22
2004005658
Contents
Foreword vii
Introduction 1
1. Eleven common mistakes about Islamic art 4
2. God as creator, calligraphy and symbolism 45
3. Religion, style and art 57
4. Literature 79
5. Music 105
6. Home and garden 121
7. The miraculousness of the Qur’an 141
8. Philosophy and ways of seeing 165
9. Interpreting art, interpreting Islam, interpreting philosophy 179
Notes 188
Bibliography 190
Further reading 196
Glossary 199
Index of Qur’an ic passages 203
Index 204
Foreword
I wrote this book out of a profound sense of disappointment about the sorts of
things which are often said about Islamic art. There are many marvellous books
on Islamic art, and the scholarship and connoisseurship which they involve
are very impressive. The discussions that can be found in those books on
aesthetics are often much weaker, or even absent entirely, and I have spent a
lot of time reading material about the aesthetic properties of objects which
are just wrong. This book is a modest attempt to put the record straight, and
establish a solid foundation for the aesthetics of Islamic art.
People who write books are often in the fortunate position of being able
to let off steam in public, which most people are not able to do. I have often
been obliged to sit and smile politely while an authority in the field of Islamic
art has made some comments which are, in my view, thoroughly misplaced.
One might expect that those skilled at writing about art would be the right
people to talk about the principles of beauty and sublimity which repose in
that art, but this would be naive. In fact an entirely different category of
intellectual skills may be required to talk about the aesthetic properties of an
object as compared with its composition, historical context, role of the artist
and his audience, its provenance and so on. There is a tendency to regard
Islamic art as part of Islamic studies, which is perhaps a shame, since the
rather historicist methodology of area studies then comes into play, and tends
to exclude alternative explanations and approaches.
While I was writing this book I became aware that it was an extended
part of a discussion which I had had with my father for many years. We both
enjoyed visiting religious buildings such as churches and chapels, and listen'
ing to the music of Bach. He would often say that wonderful as he found such
buildings and music, had he been a Christian he would have found them
even more wonderful, and would have understood things about them which
he missed as a non-Christian. I tended to argue the reverse, that the aesthetic
features of the buildings and the music are really abstractable from their main
religious purpose, and indeed being in tune with the latter would be a
distraction not an aid to aesthetic appreciation and understanding. I still
viii Foreword
have this view, and have developed it in this book, but as I wrote it I often
had the sensation of my father looking over my shoulder and shaking his
head vigorously. It is with no lack of respect to him or to the many others
who share his view that I present the arguments in this book.
I am very grateful for the help of a number of people, in particular the
copy--editor James Croft, the desk editor at EUP Eddie Clark and an
anonymous reader. They all saved me from some egregious errors, and those
that remain are alas entirely my fault.
Lexington, Kentucky
May 2003
Introduction
Imagine you are standing in a gallery in Dublin, Ireland, where you have come
to examine some Arabic manuscripts. While you are waiting for them to be
delivered, you wander around the main display area, which has a small but
impressive collection of Qur’ans. These are open so that the different styles of
calligraphy may be seen. There are also some books with paintings in them,
small but vivid. Suddenly the room, which previously had been deadly silent,
explodes with noise as a group of large teenage schoolboys comes in with their
teacher, evidently on an educational trip from their school. They clearly do not
want to be there and grumble as they are told to look at the books and pictures.
Then the room falls very quiet as they gaze at the writing and the colours. They
are not quiet for long since there is not that much to see, and people today have
largely lost the ability to look for a long time at anything. But they are clearly
impressed, and a bit shocked that they are impressed, these are not the kind of
children who tend to go to galleries and museums, not willingly anyway.
Speaking later with their teacher he confirms what I had suspected. They
were from a tough part of North Dublin, of generally low educational ability and
certainly with no knowledge of Islam or Arabic at all. Although now there is a
strong Islamic presence in Dublin, as in most parts of Europe, then it was
restricted to a few immigrant shopkeepers and Embassy officials. Islam was as
alien to those boys as anything could be. They certainly could read nothing in
the texts they looked at, and as far as they were concerned they could have been
written by the Man in the Moon. The pictures that they saw in the books had
no meaning for them either as pictures of anyone they could recognize or as
existing within a cultural context they understood. These were not children
who visited any sort of gallery by themselves, and were unpractised in the rituals
surrounding such visits. Yet they were fascinated, for a bit, by what they saw,
and not quite sophisticated enough to hide that emotion from each other.
I was impressed by this encounter, and yet also saddened. When one looks
at the literature dealing with what has come to be known as Islamic art it makes
little attempt to link up with the ‘ordinary’ viewer, the individual who knows
little or nothing about art and Islam, and yet who would enjoy looking at
