Voices of Islam (177 page)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Voices of Islam / Vincent J. Cornell, general editor.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0–275–98732–9 (set : alk. paper)—ISBN 0–275–98733–7 (vol 1 : alk. paper)—ISBN 0–275–98734–5 (vol 2 : alk. paper)—ISBN 0–275–98735–3 (vol 3 : alk. paper)—ISBN 0– 275–98736–1 (vol 4 : alk. paper)—ISBN 0–275–98737–X (vol 5 : alk. paper) 1. Islam— Appreciation. 2. Islam—Essence, genius, nature. I. Cornell, Vincent J.

BP163.V65 2007

297—dc22 2006031060

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright
©
2007 by Praeger Publishers

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006031060 ISBN: 0–275–98732–9 (set)

0–275–98733–7 (vol. 1)

0–275–98734–5 (vol. 2)

0–275–98735–3 (vol. 3)

0–275–98736–1 (vol. 4)

0–275–98737–X (vol. 5)

First published in 2007

Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

C
ONTENTS

•

Voices of Islam

Vincent J. Cornell

Introduction: Beauty, Culture, and Creativity in
Islam Vincent J. Cornell

1. Islamic
   Art Frithjof Schuon
   

2. The Foundations of Islamic
   Art Titus Burckhardt
   

3. The Common Language of Islamic
   Art Titus Burckhardt
   

4. The Art and Ambience of Islamic
   Dress Frithjof Schuon
   

5. The Question of
   Images Titus Burckhardt
   

6. The Art of Qur’an
   Calligraphy Martin Lings
   

7. The Art of Qur’an
   Illumination Martin Lings
   

8. Art and
   Liturgy Titus Burckhardt
   

9. Music and Spirituality in
   Islam Jean-Louis Michon
   

10. Regaining the Center: Gardens and
    Thresholds Virginia Gray Henry-Blakemore
    

    vii
    xvii 1
    

    5
    

    19
    

    27
    

    29
    

    33
    

    39
    

    49
    

    59
    

    89
    

    vi
    Contents
    

11. The Islamic Garden: History, Symbolism, and the
    Qur’an Emma C. Clark
    

12. The Qur’anic Symbolism of
    Water Martin Lings
    

13. Islamic Literatures: Writing in the Shade of the
    Qur’an Shawkat M. Toorawa
    

14. Moths and Scattered Flames: Some Thoughts on Islam and Poetry
    

    Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore
    

15. Medicine and Healing in Traditional
    Islam Laleh Bakhtiar
    

93

111

121

143

153

Index 177

About the Editor and Contributors 191

V
OICES OF
I
SLAM

•

Vincent J. Cornell

It has long been a truism to say that Islam is the most misunderstood religion in the world. However, the situation expressed by this statement is more than a little ironic because Islam is also one of the most studied religions in the world, after Christianity and Judaism. In the quarter of a century since the 1978–1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, hundreds of books on Islam and the Islamic world have appeared in print, including more than a score of intro- ductions to Islam in various European languages. How is one to understand this paradox? Why is it that most Americans and Europeans are still largely uninformed about Islam after so many books about Islam have been pub- lished? Even more, how can people still claim to know so little about Islam when Muslims now live in virtually every medium-sized and major commu- nity in America and Europe? A visit to a local library or to a national book- store chain in any American city will reveal numerous titles on Islam and the Muslim world, ranging from journalistic potboilers to academic studies, translations of the Qur’an, and works advocating a variety of points of view from apologetics to predictions of the apocalypse.

The answer to this question is complex, and it would take a book itself to discuss it adequately. More than 28 years have passed since Edward Said wrote his classic study
Orientalism,
and it has been nearly as long since Said critiqued journalistic depictions of Islam in
Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World.
When these books first appeared in print, many thought that the ignorance about the Middle East and the Muslim world in the West would finally be dispelled. However, there is little evidence that the public consciousness of Islam and Muslims has been raised to a significant degree in Western countries. Scholars of Islam in American universities still feel the need to humanize Muslims in the eyes of their students. A basic objective of many introductory courses on Islam is to demonstrate that Muslims are rational human beings and that their beliefs are worthy of respect. As Carl W. Ernst observes in the preface to his recent work,
Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the

viii
Voices of Islam

Contemporary World,
‘‘It still amazes me that intelligent people can believe that all Muslims are violent or that all Muslim women are oppressed, when they would never dream of uttering slurs stereotyping much smaller groups such as Jews or blacks. The strength of these negative images of Muslims is remarkable, even though they are not based on personal experience or actual study, but they receive daily reinforcement from the news media and popular culture.’’
1

Such prejudices and misconceptions have only become worse since the ter- rorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq. There still remains a need to portray Muslims in all of their human diversity, whether this diver- sity is based on culture, historical circumstances, economic class, gender, or religious doctrine. Today, Muslims represent nearly one-fourth of the world’s population. Although many Americans are aware that Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country, most are surprised to learn that half of the Muslims in the world live east of Lahore, Pakistan. In this sense, Islam is as much an ‘‘Asian’’ religion as is Hinduism or Buddhism. The new reality of global Islam strongly contradicts the ‘‘Middle Eastern’’ view of Islam held by most Americans. Politically, the United States has been preoccupied with the Middle East for more than half a century. Religiously, however, American Protestantism has been involved in the Middle East for more than 150 years. Thus, it comes as a shock for Americans to learn that only one-fourth of the world’s Muslims live in the Middle East and North Africa and that only one-fi of Muslims are Arabs. Islam is now as much a worldwide religion as Christianity, with somewhere between 4 and 6 million believers in the United States and approximately 10 million believers in Western Europe. Almost 20 million Muslims live within the borders of the Russian Federation, and nearly a million people of Muslim descent live in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, on the Gulf of Finland.

To think of Islam as monolithic under these circumstances is both wrong and dangerous. The idea that all Muslims are fundamentalists or anti- democratic religious zealots can lead to the fear that dangerous aliens are hid- ing within Western countries, a fi column of a civilization that is antithetical to freedom and the liberal way of life. This attitude is often expressed in popular opinion in both the United States and Europe. For example, it can be seen in the ‘‘Letters’’ section of the June 7, 2004, edition of
Time
magazine, where a reader writes: ‘‘Now it is time for Muslim clerics to denounce the terrorists or admit that Islam is fi g a war with us—a religious war.’’
2
For the author of this letter, Muslim ‘‘clerics’’ are not to be trusted, not because they find it hard to believe that pious Muslims would commit outrageous acts of terrorism, but because they secretly hate the West and its values. Clearly, for this reader of
Time,
Islam and the West are at war; however the ‘‘West’’ may be defined and wherever ‘‘Islam’’ or Muslims are to be found.

Voices of Islam
ix

Prejudice against Muslim minorities still exists in many countries. In Rus- sia, Muslim restaurateurs from the Caucasus Mountains must call themselves ‘‘Georgian’’ to stay in business. In China, being Muslim by ethnicity is acceptable, but being a Muslim by conviction might get one convicted for antistate activities. In the Balkans, Muslims in Serbia, Bulgaria, and Macedo- nia are called ‘‘Turks’’ and right-wing nationalist parties deny them full eth- nic legitimacy as citizens of their countries. In India, over a thousand Muslims were killed in communal riots in Gujarat as recently as 2002. As I write these words, Israel and Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shiite political move- ment and militia, are engaged in a bloody conflict that has left hundreds of dead and injured on both sides. Although the number of people who have been killed in Lebanon, most of whom are Shiite civilians, is far greater than the number of those killed in Israel, television news reports in the United States do not treat Lebanese and Israeli casualties the same way. While the casualties that are caused by Hizbollah rockets in Israel are depicted as per- sonal tragedies, Lebanese casualties are seldom personalized in this way. The truth is, of course, that all casualties of war are personal tragedies, whether the victims are Lebanese civilians, Israeli civilians, or American sol- diers killed or maimed by improvised explosive devices in Iraq. In addition, all civilian deaths in war pose a moral problem, whether they are caused as a consequence of aggression or of retaliation. In many ways, depersonalization can have worse effects than actual hatred. An enemy that is hated must at least be confronted; when innocent victims are reduced to pictures without sto- ries, they are all too easily ignored.