Sun 02 December 2018 | None |
Sat 21 March 2015 | None |
I'm quite naive about Islam, so it's hard to get a clear idea of "normal" Islam underneath the headlines about the tiny proportion of violent extremists. Part of the Charlie Hebdo thing was the question about whether it's OK to depict the prophet. So just for reference I found this quote from Tariq Ali in the LRB helpful:
"On the question of images there has always been a debate within Islam. The Quran itself contains warnings against the worship of idols and graven images, but this is taken straight from the Abrahamic tradition and the Old Testament. Itâs a stricture on forms of worship. After all, images of the prophet were embossed on early Muslim coins to replace Byzantine and Persian potentates. A number of paintings by Muslim artists in the late medieval period depict the prophet with loving care. The Shia tradition has always ignored the supposed ban on images and portraits of Shia imams have never been forbidden. All the different schools of Sunni jurisprudence donât agree on the question. It has only become a big issue since Saudi money pushed Wahhabi clerics onto the world stage to fight communism during the Cold War (with the total backing of Washington). Wahhabi literalism misinterprets the Quran and its hostility to images led the Saudi government to destroy the graves in Mecca of the prophet, his companions and his wives. There were no protests except by architects and historians who denounced the vandalism. One can only imagine the response in the world of Islam had the destruction of the graves been carried out, deliberately or accidentally, by a Western power."
Sat 31 January 2015 | None |
Tue 09 April 2013 | None |
Sun 02 December 2018 | None |
Sat 21 March 2015 | None |
I'm quite naive about Islam, so it's hard to get a clear idea of "normal" Islam underneath the headlines about the tiny proportion of violent extremists. Part of the Charlie Hebdo thing was the question about whether it's OK to depict the prophet. So just for reference I found this quote from Tariq Ali in the LRB helpful:
"On the question of images there has always been a debate within Islam. The Quran itself contains warnings against the worship of idols and graven images, but this is taken straight from the Abrahamic tradition and the Old Testament. Itâs a stricture on forms of worship. After all, images of the prophet were embossed on early Muslim coins to replace Byzantine and Persian potentates. A number of paintings by Muslim artists in the late medieval period depict the prophet with
 loving care. The Shia tradition has always ignored the supposed ban on images and portraits of Shia imams have never been forbidden. All the different schools of Sunni jurisprudence donât agree on the question. It has only become a big issue since Saudi money pushed Wahhabi clerics onto the world stage to fight communism during the Cold War (with the total backing of Washington). Wahhabi literalism misinterprets the Quran and its hostility to images led the Saudi government to destroy the graves in Mecca of the prophet, his companions and his wives. There were no protests except by architects and historians who denounced the vandalism. One can only imagine the response in the world of Islam had the destruction of the graves been carried out, deliberately or accidentally, by a Western power."
Sat 31 January 2015 | None |
Tue 09 April 2013 | None |