page_iii < previous page page_iii next page > Page iii Islamic Art and Spirituality Seyyed Hossein Nasr STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS < previous page page_iii next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_iv < previous page page_iv next page > Page iv Disclaimer: This book contains characters with diacritics. When the characters can be represented using the ISO 8859-1 character set (http://www.w3.org/TR/images/latin1.gif), netLibrary will represent them as they appear in the original text, and most computers will be able to show the full characters correctly. In order to keep the text searchable and readable on most computers, characters with diacritics that are not part of the ISO 8859-1 list will be represented without their diacritical marks. Permission to use the cover painting, Mantiq-al-Tayr: Concourse of the Birds, was given by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1963 (63.210.111) Cover design by Sushila Blackman First published in USA by State University of New York Press Albany © Seyyed Hossein Nasr 1987 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246 Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Nasr, Seyyed Hossein Islamic art and spirituality. Includes index. 1. Arts, Islamic, I. Title. NX688.A4N37 1985 700'.917'671 85-14737 ISBN 0-88706-174-5 ISBN 088706-175-3 (pbk.) < previous page page_iv next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_ix < previous page page_ix next page > Page ix PREFACE In the Name of GodMost Merciful, Most Compassionate Islamic Art has been the subject of study by Western scholars since the nineteenth century and by Western-trained Muslim savants for several decades. It has, moreover, come to receive special attention during the past two or three decades by the larger public as a distinct category of art. Numerous works have appeared in nearly every European language on the history, technical formation, social setting, and other aspects of this art. A few books and articles have been devoted to its spiritual significance and meaning, but these have been few and far between. Except for the writings of T. Burckhardt, which cast special light upon the intellectual, symbolic, and spiritual dimensions of Islamic art, there are very few works which look upon Islamic art as the manifestation in the world of forms of the spiritual realities (al-haqa'iq) of the Islamic revelation itself as coloured by its earthly embodiments. The present work seeks to glance at certain aspects of Islamic art from the point of view of Islamic spirituality and in relation to the principles of the Islamic revelation. It is neither a systematic exposition of the Islamic philosophy of art nor a history of that art. Rather, it is a study of certain important facets of Islamic art, including the literary and the musical as well as the plastic, in the light of the Islamic conception of sacred art and what one might call the Islamic philosophy of art, if philosophy of art is understood in its traditional sense as used by such authorities as A. K. Coomaraswamy. The domain to which the principles in question are applied is mostly, but not wholly, Persian art with which the author is best acquainted because of his own cultural background. Moreover, this art pro- < previous page page_ix next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_v < previous page page_v next page > Page v Ya Karim God has inscribed beauty upon all things. < previous page page_v next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_vi < previous page page_vi next page > Page vi OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR IN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES Three Muslim Sages Ideals and Realities of Islam An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines Science and Civilization in Islam Sufi Essays (also as Living Sufism) An Annotated Bibliography of Islamic Science Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modem Man Islam and the Plight of Modem Man Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study The Transcendent Theosophy of Sadr al-Din Shirazi Islamic Life and Thought Knowledge and the Sacred Traditional Islam in the Modem World Need for a Sacred Science < previous page page_vi next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_vii < previous page page_vii next page > Page vii CONTENTS Preface ix Introduction I The Relation between Islamic Art and Islamic Spirituality 3 Art and the Sacred II The Spiritual Message of Islamic Calligraphy 17 III The Principle of Unity and the Sacred Architecture of Islam 37 IV Sacred Art in Persian Culture 64 Literature V Metaphysics, Logic and Poetry in the Orient 87 VI The Flight of Birds to Union: Meditations upon 'Attar's Mantiq al-tayr 98 VII Rumi, Supreme Poet and Sage 114 VIII Rumi and the Sufi Tradition 133 Music IX Islam and Music 151 X The Influence of Sufism on Traditional Persian Music 163 The Plastic Arts XI The World of Imagination and the Concept of Space in the Persian Miniature 177 XII The Significance of the Void in Islamic Art 185 Postscript The Spiritual Message of Islamic Art 195 List of monochrome plates 203 page_vii List of coloured plates 204 Index 206 < previous page page_vii next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_viii < previous page page_viii next page > Page viii List of Transliterations Arabic characters , f short vowels b q a t k u th l i j m h n Diphthongs kh h aw d w ay (ai) dh y iyy (final form i) r ah; at (construct state) uww (final form u) z (article) al- and l- (even before the anteropalatals) s sh s Persian letters added to the Arabic alphabet d t long vowels p z a ch . u zh gh i g < previous page page_viii next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_x < previous page page_x next page > Page x vides peaks of Islamic art in nearly every field. Persian art of the Islamic period, while being profoundly Persian and in conformity with the sensibility of the Persian people, is also Islamic art in the traditional sense of that term and therefore can serve perfectly to demonstrate the universal rapport between Islamic spirituality and Islamic art. Several of the chapters of this book have appeared earlier in essay and monograph form and have been revised for this work, while many of the chapters are new. The translations throughout the book are ours unless otherwise indicated. Footnotes have been kept to a minimum; their aim is to guide the reader towards further studies in the field or to elucidate or document a point in the text where necessary. Otherwise, since the book is addressed primarily to the general reader, both Western and Muslim, interested in the relation between Islamic spirituality and Islamic art, rather than only to the specialist of Islamic art, we have not attempted to provide exhaustive scholarly notes as in a technical work addressed to scholars in the field. We wish to express our gratitude to Miss Katherine O'Brien, whose help in many ways with the preparation of the manuscript has been invaluable. WA MA TAWFIQI ILLA BI'LLAH SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS OCTOBER, 1983 < previous page page_x next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_1 < previous page page_1 next page > Page 1 INTRODUCTION < previous page page_1 next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_3 < previous page page_3 next page > Page 3 I The Relation between Islamic Art and Islamic Spirituality If one looks with the eye of discernment upon the extremely varied manifestations of Islamic art over vast expanses of space and time, the question arises as to the source of the unifying principles of this art. What is the origin of this art and the nature of this unifying principle whose dazzling effect can hardly be denied ? Whether in the great courtyard of the Delhi Mosque or the Qarawiyyin in Fez, one feels oneself within the same artistic and spiritual universe despite all the local variations in material, structural techniques, and the like. The creation of this artistic universe with its particular genius, distinct characteristics, and formal homogeneity underlying distinctions of a cultural, geographical or temporal nature requires a cause, for no effect of such immense dimensions can be considered as simply a result of chance or the agglomeration of accidental historical factors. A whole library of works in nearly every European language, to which must now he added not only the Islamic languages themselves but also Chinese and Japanese, have studied the history, description, and material characteristics of this art. But rarely has the basic question of the origin of this supra-individual and sacred art been posed. 1 It is by now well known how Sassanid and Byzantine techniques and models were emulated in early Muslim architecture and Roman ones in city planning and how Sassanid music was adopted by the Abbasid court musicians. But the solution of the problems of links across centuries and cultural boundaries, despite their interest from the point of view of the history of art, does not reveal to us the origin of Islamic art, for Islamic art like any other sacred art,2 is not simply the materials used but what a particular religious collectivity has done with the material in question. No one < previous page page_3 next page > If you like this book, buy it! page_4 < previous page page_4 next page > Page 4 would equate a Byzantine church in Greece with a Greek temple even if the actual stone blocks used for the church were taken from a temple.