Voices of Islam (189 page)

•

Titus Burckhardt

ANICONISM

The prohibition of images in Islam applies, strictly speaking, only to the image of the Divinity; it stands, therefore, in the perspective of the decalogue, or more exactly of Abrahamic monotheism, which Islam sees itself as renewing. In its last manifestation as in its first—in the time of Muhammad as in the age of Abraham—monotheism directly opposes idolatrous polytheism,
1
so that any plastic representation of the divinity is for Islam, according to a ‘‘dialectic’’ that is both historical and divine, the distinctive mark of the error which ‘‘associates’’ the relative with the Absolute, or the created with the Uncreated, by reducing the one to the level of the other. To deny idols, or still better to destroy them, is like translating into concrete terms the fundamental testimony of Islam, the formula
La ilaha illa ’Llah
(‘‘there is no divinity save God’’), and just as this testimony in Islam domi- nates or consumes everything in the manner of a purifying fire, so also does the denial of idols, whether actual or virtual, tend to become generalized. Thus it is that portraiture of the divine messengers (
rusul
), prophets (
anbiya
’), and saints (
awliya’
) is avoided, not only because their images could become the object of idolatrous worship but also because of the respect inspired by their inimitability; they are the viceregents of God on earth; ‘‘God created Adam in His form’’ (a saying of the Prophet), and this resemblance of man to God becomes somehow manifest in prophets and saints, without it being possible, even so, to grasp this on the purely corporeal level; the stiff, inanimate image of a divine man could not be other than an empty shell, an imposture, an idol.

In Sunni Arab circles, the representation of any living being is frowned upon, because of respect for the divine secret contained within every creature,
2
and if the prohibition of images is not observed with equal rigor in all ethnic groups, it is nonetheless strict for everything that falls within

30
Voices of Art, Beauty, and Science

the liturgical framework of Islam. Aniconism—which is the appropriate term here, and not iconoclasm
3
—became somehow an inseparable concomitant of the sacred; it is even one of the foundations, if not the main foundation, of the sacred art of Islam.

This may appear paradoxical, for the normal foundation of a sacred art is symbolism, and in a religion expressing itself in anthropomorphic symbols—the Qur’an speaks of God’s ‘‘face,’’ His ‘‘hands’’ and the throne He sits upon—the rejection of images seems to strike at the very roots of a visual art dealing with things divine. But there is a whole array of subtle com- pensations that need to be borne in mind, and in particular the following: a sacred art is not necessarily made of images, even in the broadest sense of the term; it may be no more than the quite silent exteriorization, as it were, of a contemplative state, and in this case—or in this respect—it refl no ideas but transforms the surroundings qualitatively, by having them share in an equilibrium whose centre of gravity is the unseen. That such is the nature of Islamic art is easily verified. Its object is, above all, man’s environment— hence the dominant role of architecture—and its quality is essentially contemplative. Aniconism does not detract from this quality; very much to the contrary, for, by precluding every image inviting man to fix his mind on something outside himself and to project his soul onto an ‘‘individualizing’’ form, it creates a void. In this respect, the function of Islamic art is analogous to that of virgin nature, especially the desert, which is likewise favorable to contemplation, although in another respect the order created by art opposes the chaos of the desert landscape.

The proliferation of decoration in Muslim art does not contradict this quality of contemplative emptiness; on the contrary, ornamentation with abstract forms enhances it through its unbroken rhythm and its endless inter- weaving. Instead of ensnaring the mind and leading it into some imaginary world, it dissolves mental ‘‘fi ns,’’ just as contemplation of a running stream, a fl , or leaves quivering in the wind can detach consciousness from its inward ‘‘idols.’’

It is instructive to compare Islam’s attitude to images with that of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Byzantine Church is known to have gone through an iconoclast crisis, perhaps not uninfluenced by the example of Islam. Certainly, the church was moved to reconsider defining the role of the sacred image, the icon; and the Seventh Ecumenical Council, in confirming the victory of the adorers of images, justified its decision in the following words: ‘‘God Himself is beyond all possible description or representation, but since the Divine Word took human nature upon itself, which it ‘reintegrated into its original form by infusing it with divine beauty’, God can and must be adored through the human image of Christ.’’ This is no more than an application of the dogma of divine incarnation, and it shows how far this way of seeing things is from the viewpoint of Islam. Nevertheless, the two perspectives have a common basis in the notion of man’s theomorphic nature.

The Question of Images
31

The declaration of the Seventh Ecumenical Council took the form of a prayer addressed to the Holy Virgin, for it is the Virgin who lent the Divine Child her human substance, thus making Him accessible to the senses. This act of veneration recalls incidentally the gesture of the Prophet in placing both hands in protection on the icon of the Virgin and Child painted on the inner wall of the Ka‘ba.

It might well be thought that this gesture ought to have led to a conces- sion in Islamic law permitting representation of the Holy Virgin. But this would be to misconstrue the spiritual economy of Islam, which puts aside every superfl s or equivocal element, although this does not prevent Muslim masters of the ‘‘inward science’’ (
al-‘ilm al-batin
) from acknowledg- ing the meaning and legitimacy of icons in their proper context. We actually have a particularly profound vindication of the Christian veneration of icons in the words of one of the greatest masters of Muslim esoterism, the Sufi Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-‘Arabi who wrote in his
Meccan Revelations
(
al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya
). ‘‘The Byzantines developed the art of painting to perfection because, for them, the singular nature (
al-fardaniyya
) of our Lord Jesus is the supreme support of concentration upon Divine Unity.’’ It will be seen that this interpretation of the icon, although it is far removed from Muslim theology as generally accepted, is nevertheless at home in the perspective of
tawhid,
the doctrine of Divine Unity.

Apart from this, the words of the Prophet condemning those who aspire to imitate the work of the Creator have not always been interpreted as a rejection pure and simple of all figurative art; many have taken them only as condemning Promethean or idolatrous intent.

For Aryan peoples like the Persians, as well as for the Mongols, the representational image is far too natural a mode of expression for them to be able to pass it over. But the anathema against artists seeking to imitate the work of the Creator remains nonetheless effective, for figurative Muslim art has always avoided naturalism; it is not simply ingenuousness or ignorance of visual means that causes Persian miniatures not to use perspective giving the illusion of three-dimensional space or not to model the human body in light and shade. In the same way, the zoomorphic sculpture occasionally met with in the world of Islam never exceeds the bounds of a kind of heraldic stylization; its products could not possibly be mistaken for living and breathing creatures.

To recapitulate the question whether fi art is prohibited or tolerated in Islam, we conclude that figurative art can perfectly well be integrated into the universe of Islam provided it does not forget its proper limits, but it will still play only a peripheral role; it will not participate directly in the spiritual economy of Islam.

As for Islamic aniconism, two aspects in all are involved. On the one hand, it safeguards the primordial dignity of man, whose form, made ‘‘in the image of God,’’
4
shall be neither imitated nor usurped by a work of art that is

32
Voices of Art, Beauty, and Science

necessarily limited and one-sided; on the other hand, nothing capable of becoming an ‘‘idol,’’ if only in a relative and quite provisional manner, must interpose between man and the invisible presence of God. What utterly outweighs everything else is the testimony that there is ‘‘no divinity save God’’; this melts away every objectivization of the Divine before it is even able to come forth.

NOTES

This chapter first appeared in Titus Burckhardt,
Art of Islam: Language and Meaning,
translated by J. Peter Hobson (London, U.K.: World of Islam Festival Trust, 1976; Bloomington, Indiana: World Wisdom, forthcoming in 2008), 27–30. It is reprinted here with the permission of the editors of World Wisdom Books and the Burckhardt estate.

1. It is no pleonasm to speak of ‘‘idolatrous polytheism,’’ as is shown by Hinduism, which is polytheist but in no way idolatrous because it recognizes the provisional and symbolic nature of idols and the relative nature of the ‘‘gods’’ (
   devas
   ) as ‘‘aspects’’ of the Absolute. The esoteric Muslims, the Sufis, occasionally compare idols to Divine Names whose significance has been forgotten by the pagans.
   

2. According to a saying of the Prophet, artists who seek to imitate the work of the Creator will be condemned in the hereafter to give life to their creations, and their inability to do so will cause them to be cast into the worst torments. This saying can clearly be understood in several ways; it has, in fact, never prevented the growth, in certain Muslim circles, of a figurative art free from any claims to naturalism.
   

3. ‘‘Aniconism’’ can have a spiritually positive character, whereas ‘‘iconoclasm’’ has only a negative sense.
   

4. From the Islamic point of view, the ‘‘divine form’’ of Adam consists essentially of the seven universal faculties that are likewise attributed to God, namely: life, knowledge, will, power, hearing, seeing, and speech; in man they have limits, but in God none. Even as attributed to man, they cannot be seen and go beyond his bodily form, which alone can be the object of any art.
   

6
‌

T
HE
A
RT OF
Q
UR
’
AN
C
ALLIGRAPHY