Art as an Escape Abstract Islamic art is a narrowly defned feld with a tight canon and limited set of themes for contemporary practitioners. This from Secularity: the article traces the modern framing of this feld in the World of Islam Festival in London 1976, and the Suf Maryamiyya traditionalist paradigm that was constructed there. The Sheikh Maryamiyya Case of the Maryamiyya order and one important inspiration for the contemporary presentation of Islamic art is Seyyed Hossein Klas Grinell Nasr. The traditionalist understanding of art sees it as an expression of a perennial truth that stands in stark opposition to the dividing forces of modernity and secularity.

Rather than trying to politically defy secularity, the Maryamiyya use art as an escape from secularity—itself a very secular move with roots in European Romanticism. Islamic art is seldom presented as the aesthetic expressions of contemporary Muslims, Klas Grinell is Curator of Contemporary Global Issues at the Museum of World Culture, but rather as a timeless refuge from secularity. Gothenburg, and Associate Professor at the Department for Literature, History of Ideas and Religion at Gothenburg University, specialising in Islamic history of ideas and critical heritage studies. He is coordinator and researcher in the Swedish research council funded Besides the presentation of the Maryamiyya paradigm of Islamic project “Museological Framings of Islam in Europe”, from where this article stems. He is art, the article reconnects to discussions on the Islamisation of also a board member of Cultural Heritage without Borders. knowledge and their application to the art feld within the taw- Recent publications include: Imamen, kuppen och tjänarna: Gülenismen och Turkiet hidic paradigm. A decolonial Islamisation of art might open up (2017), Islams filosofihistoria (2016), “The frames of Islamicate art” (forthcoming), a space to address secularity in new ways. Through this discus- “Carpets and ceramics: Misrepresenting Muslim cultural heritage in Europe” (Eurozine. org, 2016), “Challenging normality: Museums in/as public space” (2014), and “Der Islam— sion, the Christocentrism of secularity becomes visible, and new Ein aspekt zeitgenössiger Weltkultur” (2014). prisms of the concept surface.

72 73 Setting the Secular Frame

1 In response to growing Islamophobia in the West many See Berg, Magnus and Grinell, Klas. Musealt leading museums have produced new galleries for the exhibition of islam. Stockholm: Molin & Islamic art. Many of them are funded by patrons from Saudi Arabia Sorgenfrei förlag. Forth- coming. or the Gulf.1 They are all presented by the secular custodians of the museums as contributions to intercultural understanding and social 2 See Grinell, Klas. tolerance. The perceived secularity of art makes it politically conven- “Carpets and ceramics: ient to express tolerance for Islam via such a channel, while public Misrepresenting Muslim cultural heritage in support for mosques, for example, meets strong resistance in most

Europe”. Eurozine.org. Western cities.2 Such is the political frame of this article. The major 2016. http://www.eurozine. com/carpets-and-ceramics/ premises are that we live in a secular age; that art (as it is practised, (Accessed 2017-07-25.) understood and displayed in today’s globality) is a secular institu-

3 tion; that Islam, like Christianity, has had an inherent secularising Taylor. Charles. A Secular logic; and that those who deny or want to escape secularity today, do Age, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. so from within the secular age. 2007. p. 1.

4 The frst premise is a quote taken from the frst sentence in Charles See Ferro, Marc. Coloni- Taylor’s monumental A Secular Age. Taylor qualifes his statement by zation: A global history. London: Taylor & Francis. saying that “I mean the ‘we’ who live in the West, or perhaps North- 1997; Chakrabarty, Dipesh. west, or otherwise put, the North Atlantic world—although secular- Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial thought ity extends also partially, and in diferent ways, beyond this world.”3 and historical difference. Taylor fnds the “judgement of secularity” hard to resist when “our Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2000. civilization” is compared with for example “Islamic countries”. Un- fortunately Taylor here rests on a division between civilisations that hides the long history of “our” civilisation’s colonial and imperial strive for dominance over the rest of the globe.4 Not only does this history question how secularity partially extends across the world, it (and the whole historical trajectory of Islam) also means that Islam

. India, 1750 Hyderabad, painting, Mughal miniature terrace”, the on “Lovers Wikimedia Commons. of Berlin. Courtesy Islamische Kunst, Museum f ür Photograph: is not an outsider to the North Atlantic world. According to the Pew

74 75 Research Center, there were 43 million Muslims in Europe and 3.5 5 10 religiosities. They can in turn be traced back to a Romantic efort See Pew Research Center. Hanegraaf, Wouter J. million in North America in 2010.5 With population growth and mi- The Future of World Reli- “The New age movement to secure a space for the sacred in the post-Enlightenment secular gration there are thus today at least 50 million Muslims living in the gions: Population Growth and Western Esotericism”. age.10 In this time the divide between East and West, that might in Projections, 2010-2050. In Daren Kemp and James Northwest. Setting Islam apart as something outside of the secular 2015. http://www.pewforum. R. Lewis (eds.). Handbook some respect be said to have some precursors in Greek antiquity, was world and age hides this, even if it is hard to say what, if anything, re- org/2015/04/02/religious of New Age. Leiden: Brill. institutionalised and drawn into a chain of equivalences with other -projections-2010-2050/ 2007. pp. 25-50. ally holds all these diferent people categorised as Muslims together. (Accessed 2017-07-25.) Enlightenment dichotomies such as female/male, emotional/ration- 11 al, holy/secular, traditional/developing, barbarian/civilised.11 6 Said, Edward W.. Oriental- In Taylor’s A Secular Age there is an almost total Islamic vacuum. Taylor, op. cit., p. 283. ism: Western conceptions There are only a few passing remarks on Islam in the whole book, like of the Orient; with a new 7 afterword, London: Pen- when he says that “in pre-modern Christendom […] there was an im- See Stallabrass, Julian. guin, 1995. pp. 98-103. portant role for the Christian warrior […] as in much contemporary Contemporary art: A very short introduction, Oxford: 12 What is “Islamic” Art? Islam.”6 In this massive historisation of the contemporary secular age Oxford University Press. See Grabar, Oleg. The For- the sole focus is on “our Christian tradition”. As articulated by the 2006. mation of Islamic Art. New Islamic art is a notoriously difcult label. Most of what goes Haven, CT: Yale University second premise, most discussions on contemporary art are similarly 8 Press. 1973. under this label in Western museums was not necessarily made or closed in by the post-Christian secular paradigm.7 In the close to 800 See Chilvers, Ian and used by Muslims, but simply consists of handicraft objects made un- Glaves-Smith, John. Ox- 13 pages of the Oxford dictionary of modern and contemporary art there is ford dictionary of modern Hodgson, Marshall. The der Muslim rule in Muslim majority cultural milieus.12 This general- an expressed aim to be “more international”, but still, what in line and contemporary art. Venture of Islam: Con- ising use of the label Islam and Islamic makes it easy to misinterpret Oxford: Oxford University science and history in a with Taylor’s vocabulary would be called “Christian countries” and Press. 2009. world civilization. Vol 1.The the relation between belief and non-belief, and between sacred and Christian tradition dominate the entries entirely.8 Classical Age of Islam. Chi- secular, in the very diferent phenomena and discussions that the 9 cago: Chicago University See Sedgwick, Mark. Press. 1974. pp. 31-58. term “Islamic” refers to. This is obvious also in the very brief refer- In order to counter this Christocentrism, I will open a little window Against the Modern World: ences to “Islam” in Taylor’s A Secular Age. Traditionalism and the into how the relation between art and secularity is being discussed secret intellectual history within an Islamic frame. This is of course a vast topic that either calls of the twentieth century. The historian Marshall Hodgson introduced the terms “Islamicate” Oxford: Oxford University for a book of Taylor’s size, or for further distinctions and delimita- Press. 2004. and “Islamdom” to exchange the biases and ambiguities of the term tions. I will mainly look at one contemporary position, which I will Islamic for a terminology that can diferentiate religion from soci- call the traditionalistm or more precisely the Maryamiyya paradigm. ety and culture. Hodgson started by making a distinction between It is a paradigm arguing for the importance of Islamic art as an escape Islamic as a term for religious phenomena and Muslim for cultural from secularity from within the secular age. This snapshot of the role traits common among Muslims. In order to talk about the areas un- of Islamic art for Muslim intellectuals in the secular age, interesting der infuence from Islamic religion he coined the phrase Islamdom. enough as it is in itself, will also reveal new prisms of the concept of In analogy with Christendom, Islamdom is simply the society that secularity. carries a culture/civilisation. Hodgson urges us to talk about “the society of Islamdom and its Islamicate cultural traditions”. This One of the prime articulations of Islamic art as an Islamically sig- would leave Islamic as a term for religious aspects of these cultural nifcant activity is the Maryamiyya sheikh Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s traditions. Like the term Christian art, Islamic art would thus only 1987 book Islamic Art and Spirituality. Nasr’s conception of spiritual- cover artistic expressions of religious ideas and functions.13 But this ity builds on the writings of Ananda Coomaraswamy and Frithjof terminology has unfortunately not been adopted widely. Schoun, who in turn took their departure from the Theosophical Society, going back to Madame Blavatsky.9 The roots of this esoteri- We live in a secular age—and that also applies to those who argue cal understanding of spirituality are common with modern new age for the religious importance of Islamic art. In the wide and difering

76 77 Islamic textual traditions not much is written on the religious sig- 14 24 the Iranian revolution, before the Afghan war—Islam was still largely nifcance of the objects nowadays displayed and discussed as Islamic See Leaman, Oliver. Islamic Aes- See Abdallah, Monia. “World of viewed as a quaint remnant from a traditional way of life deemed to thetics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Islam Festival (Londres 1976): art.14 The question, and the very label “Islamic” for this group of Edinburgh University Press. 2004; Naissance d’un nouveau para- disappear in the ongoing modernisation of the world.23 handicraft objects, architecture and artworks, arose after Western Hamdouni Alami, Mohammed. Art digme pour les arts de l’Islam”. and architecture in the Islamic tradi- RACAR: Revue d’art canadienne. collectors had created a canon and collections of Islamic art, a pro- tion: Aesthetics, politics and desire in Vol. 39. No. 1. 2014. The festival’s presentation of Islamic art created a paradigm focused cess with very little care for the religion of Islam.15 early Islam. London: I.B. Tauris. 2011. on cultural continuity within an Islamic civilisation.24 Art histori- 25 15 Lenssen, Anneka. “Muslims an Anneka Lenssen has similarly argued that the “Islamic Week” On the contrary (even if it is often over-interpreted today) there See Vernoit, Stephen (ed.). Discover- to take over the Institute held at auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s during the 1976 ing Islamic Art. Scholars, Collectors for Contemporary Art: the were critical arguments against the use of art in Islamic traditions. and Collections, 1850-1950. London, 1976 World of Islam Festival”. festival, and that have since become a tradition, was paradigmat- Oliver Leaman highlights three of these: “1. Creative visual rep- New York, NY: I.B. Tauris. 2000; Middle East Studies Association ic in creating a market for contemporary Islamic art of a mystical Gonella, Julia and Kröger, Jens Bulletin. Summer/Winter 2008. resentation will result in reason being overwhelmed.”16 This could (eds.). Wie die islamische Kunst nach pp. 40-47. and formal model centred on abstract unity.25 This paradigm was overthrow the balanced perception that by the critics was seen as a Berlin kam. Der Sammler und Muse- connected to the major part of the World of Islam festival that con- umsdirektor Friedrich Sarre. Berlin: 26 key to understanding creation, and for behaving correctly. “2. Con- Museum für Islamische Kunst. 2015. Grabar, Oleg. “Geometry and sisted of exhibitions of collections of traditional Islamic art in the centrating on the visual obstructs understanding how things really Ideology: The Festival of Islam major museums of London. Much of what was exhibited as Islamic 16 and the Study of Islamic Art”. are.”17 Even if the natural world was often described as a book to be Leaman, op. cit., p. 57. Islamic Art and Beyond. Vol. III. art was collected by English arts and crafts propagators at the turn read and understood, the understanding should seek the patterns Constructing the Study of Islam- of the twentieth century seeking inspiration from its ornamental 17 ic Art. Franham: Ashgate. 2006, and meanings of the phenomena, rather than the visual surface. Leaman, op. cit., p. 59. pp. 47-52. styles. Most of the objects came from what would be considered “3. The Prophet criticized idolatry.”18 There is a huge discussion secular court milieus.26 18 27 as to how to interpret the critique of images that take the critical Leaman, op. cit., p. 60. Salamandra, Christa. “Cultural remarks attributed to the prophet Muhammad as their departure. construction, the Gulf and Arab The World of Islam Festival was “a watershed for the Islamic art 19 London”. In Paul Dresch and Does it really apply to art?19 In one hadith the Prophet is asked by a Leaman, op. cit., pp. 57-61. James Piscatori (eds.). Monar- trade”.27 Its legacy can still be seen in most major exhibitions of man if it is permissible to pray in a direction where there is an image chies and nations: Globalisation contemporary art, as well as in for example the Jameel Prize hosted 20 and identity in the Arab states (tamathil). The Prophet answered that the man should put a piece Naef, Silvia. Bilder und Bilderver- of the Gulf. London: I.B. Tauris. by the Victoria and Albert museum in London: “the Jameel Prize of cloth over the image when he prayed. This means he didn’t say bot im Islam: Vom Koran bis zum 2005. pp. 73-95. is an international award for contemporary art and design inspired Karikaturenstreit. Munich: C.H. Beck. that images were bad as such, just that one shouldn’t pray in front 2007. p. 16. 28 by Islamic tradition. Its aim is to explore the relationship between of one.20 See https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/ Islamic traditions of art, craft and design and contemporary work 21 jameel-prize-4/ (Accessed 2017- See Bloom, Jonathan and Blair, 07-25.) as part of a wider debate about Islamic culture and its role today.”28 Sheila. (eds.). The Grove Encyclope- Even if the prize does not have any religious connotations, it works dia of Islamic Art and Architecture. 29 Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bruckstein Çoruh, Almut within a traditionalist paradigm (a paradigm that is possible and The World of Islam Festival 2009. Sh. and Budde, Hendrik. makes sense only in the secular age). The same narrow understand- “Taswir—Ein Bildatlas zu of 1976 and the Paradigm of 22 Moderne und Islam: zur Genese ing of Islamic tradition could be seen, for example, in the large Ber- Swatos, William H. J.r and Chris- einer Ausstellung”. In Almut Sh. lin exhibition Taswir (meaning “image”) held in 2009, juxtaposing Islamic Art tiano, Kevin J. “Secularization Bruckstein Çoruh and Hendrik theory: the course of a concept”. Budde (eds.). Taswir—Islamische “traditional” (old) and “modern” (new) Islamic art on the classicist Despite the critical remarks and problematic aspects there Sociology of Religion. Vol. 60. No. 3. Bildwelten und Moderne. Berlin: themes of calligraphy, ornament and miniatures.29 In Islamic art, 1999. pp. 209-228. Nicolai. 2009. p. 10. is a well-established feld named “Islamic art”,21 and Monia Abdallah Islam is framed as a separate and past civilisation without direct has highlighted the World of Islam Festival in London in the spring 23 30 contact with lived experiences in Europe today.30 What Abdallah See Inkeles, Alex and Smith, David See Fakatseli, Olga and Sachs, of 1976 as a foundation for its contemporary paradigm. This big fes- H. Becoming Modern: Individual Julia. The Jameel Gallery of the and Lenssen do not mention is how the World of Islam Festival tival was held at a time when the secularisation paradigm enjoyed Change in Six Developing Countries. Islamic Middle East: Summative was deeply formed by a traditionalist Maryamiyya understanding Cambridge, MA: Harvard University evaluation report. London: Vic- its peak.22 It was also a time before the resurgence of Islam, before Press. 1974. toria and Albert Museum. 2008. of sacred and Islamic art.

78 79 33 Against a coming “world covered with concrete from Las Vegas to The Traditionalist World of Islam Keeler, Paul. “Example of Islam attracts West”. The Peking” the festival’s director Paul Keeler posits the world of Islam The traditionalist paradigm of Islamic art was formulated 31 Times, March 20, 1975. as an intact civilisation where “unity and equilibrium has always Sedgwick, Mark. Against by Sheikh Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings and the Modern World: Tradi- 34 been paramount”, and predicts that “Islamic culture and civilization Frithjof Schuon, who were the World of Islam Festival’s most infuen- tionalism and the secret Said, op. cit. will be for the modern world as new and startling a discovery as the intellectual history of the tial curators and writers, as well as core members of the Maryamiyya twentieth century, Oxford: 35 Greco-Roman world was for the Italians.”33 In this he closely mimics Suf order. Not much has been written on this festival, and even less Oxford University Press. Lamborn Wilson, Peter. the Romantic idealisation of the East, as well as the Orientalist way 2004. p. 168. “The World of Islam”. So- on the conceptualisation of Islamic art it promoted and institution- phia Perennis. Vol. 2. No. 2. of approaching the East as a passive source for Western consump- alised. Only a few have noted it. According to historian Mark Sedg- 32 1976. pp. 105-14, p. 108. tion. This also means that there is no prospect for development or Sedgwick, Mark. “Guéno- wick “Traditionalist views of Islam—and Maryamis—predominated nian traditionalism and 36 change in the Islamic world.34 To realise this idealised and self-cen- the festival.”31 The Maryamis, including the leader Nasr, are reticent European Islam”. In Mar- Grabar, op. cit., p. 50. tred representation of the counter-cultural “unity of Islam”, Keeler tin van Bruinessen and to talk publicly about their afliation, and it is thus difcult to trace Stefano Allievi (eds.). Pro- 37 brought in leading Maryami scholars who shared his a-historical and their infuence, which has also led to some conspiratorial thinking as ducing Islamic Knowledge: See Burckhardt, Titus. Art Orientalist focus on Islam’s esoteric cultural essence. Peter Lamborn Transmission and Dissemi- of Islam: Language and to their impact, in part due to the friendship between Prince Charles nation in Western Europe. Meaning. London: World states that “if there could be said to be a single man who stands for, and the UK Maryami leader Martin Lings.32 London. Routledge. 2011. of Islam Festival Publish- and indeed to a large extent inspired the batin [inner meaning] of p. 177; Dickson, W.R. Living ing Company Ltd. 1976. Sufism in North America: the Festival, it is Frithjof Schuon.” Lamborn also calls Schuon’s book Between tradition and 38 Islam and the Perennial Philosophy, published by the Festival Trust, “the transformation. PhD Dis- Dickson, op. cit., p. 216. sertation. Wilfrid Laurier heart of the heart” of the festival. The perspective of the festival ft- University. 2012. p. 146. ted into the context of Western seekers for an Eastern spiritual path who had hitherto developed their ideas mainly in relation to India and the Far East, to Hinduism and Buddhism.35

Islamic art was understood as governed by a few esoteric and time- less principles.36 This concept of a spiritual Islamic art was formed in the secular age, and informed by a traditionalist nostalgia for hier- archical order.37 As William Dickson concludes “Nasr tends to view traditional social formations, including gender diferentiations, as expressing an archetype of human goodness, one not to be compro- mised for modern social movements.”38

The Tradition of Traditionalism The birth of traditionalism is located in nineteenth-century Catholic resistance to secularity and the Theosophical Society’s “The Aleppo room”, painted wood panels 2.6✗35 m, by Halab Chahibn Isa for interest in the esoteric in Eastern traditions. One of the important a Christian merchant’s home, 1600-1603. Photograph: Museum für Islamische theorists of modern traditionalism that fnds its expression in sacred Kunst, Berlin. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Islamic art is Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), who from 1932

80 81 until his death developed what he called the philosophia perennis. In 39 44 Nasr’s method in writing about art might be described as a kind of tel- Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. See Seyyed Hossein Nasr. his private library in Boston, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who was a stu- “An intellectual autobi- Islamic art and spiritual- eological phenomenology that reads meaning into every aspect of the dent at MIT, became acquainted with the traditionalist works of ography.” In Lewis Edwin ity. New York, NY: SUNY objects he has chosen as expressions of tradition and truth. It is not so Hahn, Randall E. Auxier & Press. 1987. p. 181. René Guénon, Schuon and Burckhardt in the early 1950s.39 Together Lucian W. Stone Jr. (eds.) much about interpreting the work of art; it is more of a spiritual medita- with Coomaraswamy, René Guénon (1886-1951) can be said to be the The philosophy of Seyyed 45 tion on beauty and creation. Everything is abundant with meaning, and Hossein Nasr: The library Ibid., p. 69. founder of modern traditionalism. Guénon had already embraced of living philosophers, vol. through contemplating the meaning of art we can reach the “world of Islam in 1912 and in 1930 moved to Egypt where he joined the Shad- XXVIII. Chicago: Open 46 imagination (alam al-mithal)”. Art is thus the gateway to a world “where- Court. 2001. pp. 3-86.; See Sedgwick, Against the iliyya Suf order, of which Maryamiyya is a branch.40 Traditionalism Mark Sedgwick. Against Modern World. in are contained the original forms, colours, smells, and tastes of all that was further codifed by Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998), who became a the Modern World: Tradi- gives joy to man upon earth. The space of the Persian miniature is a tionalism and the secret 47 sheikh (leader) in the Alawiyya Suf order in the 1940s, and in the intellectual history of the Nasr, Sayyed Hossein. recapitulation of this space and its forms and colours are a replica of this late 1960s renamed it Maryamiyya in response to a strong vision of twentieth century. Oxford: Traditional Islam in the world.”44 This is an original, perennial Platonic world of ideas that the Oxford University Press. Modern world. London: the Virgin Mary. The present sheikh of the Maryamiyya is Seyyed 2004. p. 154. Keegan Paul Internation- true connoisseur can enter via his contemplation of sacred art. In this Hossein Nasr, who by Burckhardt is said to “ha[ve] been the frst in al. 1987. p. 14. world everything is balanced according to an original hierarchy. And 40 the West to expound seriously the inner meaning of Islamic art”, ac- Ernst. Carl W. “Tradi- there is no aspect of secularity present there, since secularity can only cording to Nasr.41 tionalism, the perennial mean a destruction of sacred hierarchies. The escape to this imaginal philosophy, and Islamic studies: a review article”. world is the way to a good, true and happy life before and beyond today’s In the book Knowledge and the Sacred, Nasr states that the opposition Middle Eastern Studies secular age. For the Maryamis art, rather than politics, is the route to Association Bulletin 28:2. between tradition and modernism “is total and complete as far as 1994. p. 177. fnd relief from what they see as a degrading and fragmented secularity. principles are concerned”.42 This is an important key to interpret 41 the Maryamiyya traditionalist paradigm of Islamic art. The infuen- Nasr, Seyyed Hossein and This emphasis on the contemplation of meaning also raises a method- tial books written by Burkhardt, Lings and Nasr are all concerned Jahanbegloo, Ramin. In ological difculty, since according to Nasr “one could not understand search of the sacred: A with principles and metaphysical grounds. Their interpretations of conversation with Seyyed […] works of sacred art without penetrating deeply into the religion works of art are always related to a true traditional wisdom, the phi- Hossein Nasr on his life which has produced these works”.45 That might be true. But what we and thought. Oxford: losophia perennis, as an opposite to the destructive intrusion of the Praeger. 2010. p. 236. can still do is trace this particular understanding of sacredness via modern secular West.43 This supposed wisdom is abstract, and there discipleships to Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy and René 42 is very little variation in the descriptions of diferent art works and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Guénon, back to Philippe Encausse and Madame Blavatsky, to see traditions. It is thus easy for the reader to feel insecure and unso- Knowledge and the Sacred. that it has as much to do with Western Romantic Theosophy as it New York, NY: Crossroad. phisticated when trying to grasp the deep and perennial metaphysi- 1981. p. 84. has to do with Islam.46 This should not be understood as a simple cri- cal principles that the Maryami writers distil from the objects under tique. Every tradition is always lived in relation to new surroundings, 43 discussion. Even after having read a considerable part of Nasr’s vo- See Donald R Hill. “Model the Maryamiyya as well as any other. Even if decolonial critics might luminous oeuvre, I still have trouble understanding how his tradi- Engineering: review of want to see more exclusively Islamic sources, this is not my point. I Seyyed Hossein Nasr, tional wisdom could fnd a place in any tangible world, traditional Islamic Science”. Times rather want to contrast this entangled and deeply secular genealogy or secular. Maybe the point is that it can’t. Life is fundamentally es- Literary Supplement, 30 with the idealised concept of it that Nasr produces. oteric for Nasr, and art is important because it is a material manifes- April. 1976. tation that can take us beyond the tangible world and let us escape If traditionalists insist on the complete opposition between tradition its degrading secularity. There is no political programme aimed at and modernism, it is precisely because the very nature of modernism defying secularity, even if Nasr and other traditionalist have tended creates in the religious and metaphysical realms a blurred image to favour monarchic rulers who, like the Shah in Iran, uphold tradi- within which half-truths appear as truth itself and the integrity of all tional hierarchies. that tradition represents is thereby compromised.47

82 83 The view of Islam as one archaic monolith disconnected from contem- 48 53 has had laws and institutions that haven not stemmed from religious Ernst, op. cit., p. 176. See Foltz, Richard C., porary contextualisation is mirrored by present-day Islamophobia, as Denny, Frederick and beliefs or religiously determined rulings. well as by Salafsm. The Maryami perspective has not only been forma- 49 Baharuddin, Azizan (eds.) Lewisohn, Leonard. “Su- Islam and Ecology: A be- tive; the positive Western interest for Sufsm is also very much colour- fism in the thought of S. stowed trust. Cambridge, A somewhat similar dichotomy as church and state is made be- ed by the Maryamis’ selection, translation and presentation. But, as H. Nasr”. In Lewis Edwin MA: Harvard University tween the sacred and the secular. This is a difcult pair for many Hahn, Randall E. Auxier Press. 2014. Carl Ernest has stated, this has been “one of the least well known and Lucian W. Stone Jr. who believe that the world is created by God, and that everything aspects of the rejection of Western modernism”.48 Suf concepts are (eds.) The philosophy of 54 is therefore in some sense holy. This is, for example, an important Seyyed Hossein Nasr: The See http://www.parsejournal. presented with what might be called an esoteric and traditionalist ter- library of living philoso- com/journal/call-for-contribu- starting point for many Islamically grounded environmental activ- minology in English. How this has afected the study of Islamic mys- phers, Vol. XXVIII. Chicago, tions/secularity-in-collabora- ists and thinkers.53 GIBCA and PARSE state that “secularity is based IL: Open Court. 2001. p. tion-with-gibca/ (Accessed tical expressions is still under-researched.49 What we can see is that 671. 2017-07-25.) on the principle of a separation of religious belief (and non-belief) it is quite visible in popular framings of Islamic art as an ahistorical from the state”.54 In Arabic this translates into a separation between 50 and abstracting category, and that it has blended well with the older Leaman, op. cit.; Troelen- iman and mulk. But, as in Christianity, the understandings of both framing of Islamic art objects as masterpieces from a lost civilisation.50 berg, Eva-Maria. Eine Aus- religion and state have developed over time and the spheres to be stellung wird Besichtigt: Die Münchner Ausstel- separated have thus had diferent boundaries at diferent times. They lung von Meisterwerken have also been given diferent names. In the Qur’an no clear concept Muhammedanischer Kunst 1910 in Kultur- und Wis- senschaftsgeschichtlicher Secularity and Islam Perspektive. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 2010. The division between state and church read into Jesus’ answer 51 in Mark 12:14-17 to the question if it is ok to pay taxes to the Emperor Lewis, Bernard. “The roots has no equivalent in the Qur’an or Sunna. Muhammed and his suc- of Muslim rage”. The At- cessors were both religious and political leaders. Many contemporary lantic Monthly no 9, 1990. Muslim intellectuals, as well as Western scholars like Bernard Lewis, 52 an-Naim, Abdullahi have taken this as proof that Islam is incompatible with secularity.51 Ahmed. Islam and the Others, like Abdullahi Ahmed an-Naim, have argued that this percep- secular state: Negotiat- ing the future of shari’a, tion is “really the product of propaganda of Islamist groups based on Cambridge. MA: Harvard the ideological views of Abul A’la Maududi and Sayyid Qutb and not University Press. 2008. on the actual history of Islamic societies.”52 The diference between p. 45. the stances of Faruqi and an-Naim is that the former talks about an Is- lamic theological ideal, while an-Naim talks about Islamic societies as historical realities that have never seen an exclusively religious state.

State and church are categories that have taken shape in European history, and they do not easily translate into non-Christian settings. The church is by defnition a Christian institution with specifc, but also internally diferent, Christian understandings of its functions and limits in the regulations of religious beliefs and its relation to the “Bowl with bloodletting scene”, Iran, 1st half of the 13th century. state. Even if no equal institutions are found in Islamic traditions, Photograph: Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin. Courtesy of it is vital to stress, as an-Naim does, that every actual Muslim state Wikimedia Commons.

84 85 of a state is expressed, and it has therefore been argued that the state 55 59 and a partial beginning in the Latin America subaltern studies group Eickelman, Dale F. and Rodriguez, Ileana (ed.) The is not a divinely sanctioned institution. The concept of a national Piscatori, James. Muslim Latin American Subaltern and the work of social theorists like Anibal Quijano and Walter Islamic state (dawla Islamiyyah) is most often said to be formulated by politics, Princeton, NJ: Studies Reader, Durham: Mignolo.59 As stated in the Decolonial Aesthetics Manifesto: Princeton University Duke University Press. Maulana Maududi in a context of twentieth-century anti-colonial Press. 1996. p. 53; Ayoob, 2001. strugles in British India, while the idea of an Islamic Caliphate func- Mohammed. The many The goal of decolonial thinking and doing is to continue re-inscrib- faces of political Islam: 60 tioning as a state for all Muslims was formulated in the 1950s by Taqi Religion and politics in the Lockwood, Alanna et al. ing, embodying and dignifying those ways of living, thinking and al-Din al-Nabahani, founder of Hizb ut-Tahrir, in stateless Palestine.55 Muslim world. Ann Arbor, “Decolonial Aesthetics sensing that were violently devalued or demonized by colonial, impe- MI: University of Michigan Manifesto”. 2011. https:// Press. 2008. p. 138. transnationaldecolonialinsti- rial and interventionist agendas as well as by postmodern and alter- The Islamic concepts of belief and state are more fuid and histori- tute.wordpress.com/decolo- modern internal critiques.60 56 nial-aesthetics/ (Accessed cally situated than an attempt to ft them into an abstract secularisa- See Salaymeh, Lena. 2017-07-25.) tion theory assumes.56 Secularity translates into Arabic as alamiyyah, Beginnings of Islamic law: For many museums and art institutions, the break with classical ob- Late antique Islamicate le- 61 or dunyawiyyah, or hubbu al-alam. Al-Alam means “the world”, as does gal traditions. Cambridge: SeeTuhiwai Smith, Linda. jectifying, exclusive and practised in reconnections with the episte- dunya, and hubbu al-alam translates as “love of the world”. These Cambridge University Decolonizing Methodolo- mological perspectives of the people(s) from where objects have been Press. 2016. gies: Research and Indige- terms thus denote the worldly, most often in an implicitly negative nous Peoples. London: Zed collected.61 This practice has not gained any currency in the feld of aspect of being caught in a worldly rather than after-worldly (akhira) 57 Books. 1999; Phillips, Ruth Islamic art. In many other art institutions decolonial fragmentation Asad, Talal. Formations B. Museum pieces: Towards perspective. Still, there is no strict dichotomy between din and dunya, of the Secular: Christi- the indigenization of Cana- is seen as a tempting option. The point being that there is no way to and the main strands of Islamic scholarly traditions have been scep- anity, Islam, Modernity. dian museums. Montreal: sum up all the diferences present in a society that is not imperialis- Stanford, CA: Stanford McGill-Queen’s Univer- tical towards ascetic ideals of turning away from the world that have University Press. 2003. pp. sity Press. 2012; Adriana tic, and most historical eforts to display foreign culture and art in been much more prominent in Christian circles.57 206-209. Muñoz. From Curiosa to the West are tainted by colonial frames.62 World Culture: A history 58 of the Latin American Ibid. and Markus, R.A. Collections at the Museum One of the problems is that representations stemming from artworks, Christianity and the of World Culture, Sweden. Secular. Notre Dame, IN: PhD dissertation. Goth- facts and experiences that do not ft in the “Western master narra- Another Escape from Secularity: University of Notre Dame enburg: Gotarc. 2011. pp. tive” tend to look illogical, and risk being written of as exoticism, Islamisation as a Decolonisation Press. 2006. 134-140. lunacy or terrorism. They do not have an understandable beginning 62 or end.63 A decolonial recognition of other world views as organically of Islamic art See Mignolo, Walter. The Darker Side of Western hybrid epistemic resources, paired with a focus on inequality and the It might seem as if I have become totally lost in translation. Modernity: Global Futures, power of global designs, is a topic contemporary art institutions and Decolonial Options. Dur- Maybe. I simply hope to make the point that secularity is a Chris- ham, NC: Duke University museums must address. Even if there is a real danger that such a de- tian conception imbedded in modernity/coloniality, and that it Press. 2011. colonial ethos can foster an orientalist misconception that diferent might therefore be far from unproblematic to impose its concepts 63 peoples are truly diferent. In order to connect these abstract theo- on other traditions, even if secularity has afected all contemporary Said, op. cit., p. 37. retical observations with the discussion on Islamic art and secularity states in one way or another.58 There is no escape from secularity. But I will widen the scope a little, and look at what the Islamisation of for many who want to break with the Western and Christocentric knowledge debate has had to say about art. I will propose a reading of framing of institutions and traditions, a strugle with secularity is the aims of Islamisation as a decolonial practice. inevitable. I bring this up in order to show that there are broader decolonial contexts where Islam and art (could) meet. The Islamisation of knowledge movement was at its strongest in the 1980s, but it still has supporters and interpreters around the As it stands today this does not get recognised because of how Islamic world, for example in its home institution IIIT (International Insti- art is framed. Decolonial studies has a strong base in Latin America, tute for Islamic Thought) in Herndon, Virginia, and its branches

86 87 in twelve diferent countries, as well as in the IIUM (International 64 66 for how to think, rather than a source for truths. A third important Sardar, Ziauddin. “Islam- Stenberg, Leif. The Islam- Islamic University Malaysia). The term Islamisation of knowledge ization of knowledge: A ization of science: four perspective in the broader debate, which did not have that much to was introduced locally by Malaysian philosopher Syed Muhammad state-of-the-art report”. Muslim positions develop- say about art, is represented by Ziauddin Sardar and the Idjmali group. In Ziauddin Sardar (ed.) ing an Islamic modernity. Naquib al-Attas in 1969, in his Preliminary statement on a general theo- An Early Crescent: The PhD Dissertation. Stock- They argued that each civilisation has its own knowledge that is adapt- ry of the Islamization of the Malay-Indian archipelago, and universalised future of knowledge and holm: Almqvist & Wiksell ed to its own needs and ethics. Western academic knowledge is unique the environment in Islam. International. 1996. and popularised by his 1978 book Islam and Secularism. It was taken London: Mansell. 1989. in that it has detached itself from tradition and thus lost its ethical up and formalised into a programme in the US by the infuential pp. 27-56. 67 guidance and holistic perspective. This is why modern, secular knowl- al-Faruqi, Ismail Raji. The American-Palestinian intellectual Ismail Raji al-Faruqi (1921-1986) 65 arts of Islamic civilization. edge is often destructive. This is why knowledge (and art) needs to be of the IIIT in 1982. The programme of Islamisation was put forward Ibid. London/Washington DC: Islamised.66 as an answer to the secularisation of Muslim debates, where many IIIT. 2014 [1986]. p. 2. arguments from the modern West had become key building blocks. 68 According to Faruqi the message to be aesthetically expressed in Mughal, M.J. and Ali, M.M. It was a time when most emancipatory eforts were framed by Marx- “Methodology of Islamiza- an art that can merit the label Islamic art is tawhid, which literally ist praxis and theory. The Islamisers called for an enlarged and in- tion of Human knowledge: means “making one”.67 Implicit in this statement is Faruqi’s under- A comparative appraisal digenous emancipatory decolonisation of Islamic thought via the of proposed approaches”. standing that the oneness of God and creation, which he sees as the (re)creation of knowledge, culture and art built on purely Islamic Arts and Social Sciences heart of the Qur’anic message, is a disqualifcation of any division Journal. Vol. 6, Issue 5. sources. This would be the way to future Muslim self-reliance and 2015. p. 3. between a secular and a sacred sphere. Islam is ever-present and prosperity.64 therefore all human efort should express this presence of God. This 69 See Roel Meijer. Global is sometimes called the tawhidic paradigm, because of its claim that The diferent positions within the Islamisation debates all share the Salafism: Islam’s new reli- the dualism between the religious and the secular “created by the gious movement. 2nd ed. view that the modern world of the secular age is fragmented, and that Oxford: Oxford University West is completely alien to the Muslim world”.68 A similar argument Islam needs to be re-thought in this new environment in order to lift Press. 2013. can also be found among diferent strands of contemporary Salafst

Muslim societies from the sad state that they are in. The problem is 70 interpretations, which are also more inside the secular age than they not with Islam as such; they all think that the problem stems from the Amina Sayyid Mu- want to acknowledge.69 But in contrast to the traditionalists, the hammed. “Islamization of lack of truly Islamic institutions and practices. They are all as vague the visual arts” in Towards call for an Islamisation is clear about its modernity: “Islam is suit- in their use of the term Islamic as the Western scholars are. In order and Islamization of dis- able for all times, and therefore a reinterpretation, or a more fully ciplines, 2nd ed. Riyadh: to correctly understand the modern predicament, Muslims must re- International Islamic developed understanding of it is called for at each phase in man’s connect to their tradition and create institutions and paradigms that publishing house. 1995. history. Precisely because of these changes, the roles of art in the stem from their own grounding. All academic knowledge today is or- p. 487. past cannot simply be adopted wholesale.”70 This idea about adapt- ganised in Western categories that lack Islam’s organic unity.65 ing to the secular age contrasts Islamisation from the traditionalist paradigm, even if it depends quite heavily on Maryami writers when There are of course diferent perspectives within the Islamisation of it comes to art. knowledge debate. The traditionalist perspective of Seyyed Hossein Nasr is one. His view of knowledge is built on conceptual realism, There seems to be some similarities between decolonial curating and meaning that the Islamic concepts are said to carry an essential and the Islamisation of art’s eforts. Still, the Islamisers have not been perennial truth unafected by time and place. True knowledge comes taken up as a part of the growing decolonial trend within museums from knowing the concepts that structure creation. It is a very Platonic and art institutions, and it has had next to no impact within the feld idea. Ismail al-Faruqi and the IIIT instead focus on the need for inter- of Islamic art. A secularist division that sees any Islamic art as part of pretation (ijtihad). Islamic tradition needs to be reinterpreted in light religion, and thus separated from politics, further hinders art from of modern developments, and Islamic history is a kind of prototype playing an openly decolonial, political role.

88 89 Conclusions Western understanding of art, stemming from the turn of the nine- teenth century. Rather than being traditional, their claims about what One of the main points of this article is that all those who 71 is traditionally Islamic are ideological and a product of the secular age. See Ziuddin, op. cit.; write about the religious signifcance of Islamic art do so from within Leaman, op. cit. the secular world, and in relation to the secular Western category Ismail al-Faruqi and the broader feld of Islamisation of art might of Islamic art. This is maybe most evident in the writers calling for seem to have a similar stance, and Faruqi builds on Nasr and Burck- an Islamisation of art and more broadly of knowledge, science, and hardt. Still, his promotion of Islamised values was socio-political ultimately for an Islamisation of society. If Islamic art was already and future-oriented. The Islamisation of art was one small building Islamic it wouldn’t need to be Islamised, would it? block in the creation of a decolonised Islamic society. This activist goal also forced him and his follower to be much more pragmatic in More particularly I have tried to show that Maryamiyya traditional- their theorising about the role of art in the future society. Art and ism might be classifed as anti-secular. But, it must be noted that all aesthetics should play a vital part in the creation of a grounded and its major proponents, with the possible exemption of Titus Burck- complete Islamic world view in tune with contemporary practical hardt, who resided in the Moroccan city of Fez, have lived their lives and socio-political demands. It should be political and decolonial. in the North Atlantic world. They have worked deeply embedded The traditionalists on the other hand are fundamentally reactionary in secular institutions such as universities, libraries and publishing and esoteric, seeing art as a feld where connoisseurs can escape the houses. Their very understanding of tradition is a part and a product fragmentation and politicisation of modern secularity. of the secular age. The Maryamis never express a political agenda, and their eforts to promote a traditional Islamic civilisation are only Islamic art as it is exhibited, discussed and practised today is often furthered via the call for a preservation of tradition. Traditional and enclosed in a traditionalist frame, and functions as an escape from sacred art is in their view the product of a life immersed in a natural- secularity. As such it is disconnected from the broader contemporary ly traditional society. Once it is lost, it is forever lost. Any political art scene and the strugles to understand, and emancipate, our sec- strugle to reinstall the traditional values is futile and will betray the ular age. Like in Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, Islam is imagined as values it sets out to save. outside of secularity.

Luckily for the traditionalists, the traditional truth is not lost. Via sacred art we can reconnect to the Platonic ideas or divine names and thus escape the fallen society that surrounds us. This is why I label their view of art as an escape from secularity. Their sacred art is a reclusive abode where the aristocratic connoisseurs can withdraw from the world that sustains them and contemplate perennial wis- dom. They do not need to change the world. And why should they, given that they tend to enjoy its material privileges at the same time as they are deeply appalled by the vulgarity of secular modernity and its disrespect for natural hierarchies and standards.

The conception of the sacred, as well as the concept of art that is the foundation for the traditionalist’s explication of Islamic art does not have a very deep genealogy.71 They are rather derived from a Romantic

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