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- Islamic Textile Art and how it is Misunderstood in the West
Islamic Textile Art and how it is Misunderstood in the West
- By Thompson, Muhammad & Nasima Begum
- Published 21 March 2008
- Carpets
- Unrated
Thompson, Muhammad & Nasima Begum
Proprietors of ‘Moroccan Hanbels’, dealers in Berber tribal rugs and textiles.
Moroccan Hanbels
Spitalfields Market
Brushfield St, EC1
www.moroccanrugs.co.uk
Our Personal Views
Summary: Islamic art in general is poorly understood and the appreciation of Islamic, Moroccan textiles is a case in point. Western markets seem more prepared to recognise the pre-Islamic and pagan origins of kilims than they do the influence of Islam; this anthropological approach misconstrues the art as backward rather than progressive. Reference is made to a number of misconceptions in the literature - barakha, jinn, alms and marriage dowries - and an Islamic interpretation offered to assist readers in developing a truer appreciation of these textiles, which deserve a place in any comprehensive account of 20th century art.
Western attitudes towards Islamic art are often based upon misconceptions, and muslims may have done little to dispel these. While the west spurns the religion it places high value upon its artefacts. But knowing little of the religion the West buys both the rugs and the stories spun about them. Many prayer rugs in the oriental rug market are unlikely to have been intended for prayer and some have been manufactured (even by non-muslims) to exploit the western notions and markets for “the muslim prayer rug” (discussed in more detail in a recent Salon).
There is a tendency among oriental rug collectors and writers to view these textiles as tribal and primitive as opposed to decorative/aesthetic and meditative; to look to the Amazigh (Berbers) as a pastoral people rather than as amongst the builders of the high art of Marrakech, the Alhambra and Muslim Spain. This western view is condescending at best.
This is not to say that the lives led by makers of these rugs aren't both tribal and pastoral. And Morocco, as well as other countries where kilims are still made, is today less developed than the countries where these textiles command high prices.
But the Moroccan women who have made these kilims suffer no deficit in imagination or religious devotion and we might get more in our appreciation of their work if we credit them with more than just a tribal re-working of ancient symbols. To get the most from these rugs, we might concede that their makers are capable of a high level of abstract and devotional thought.
In their otherwise excellent description of kilims (2) and those who make them, Hull & Luczyc-Wyhowska (1993) fall into this trap on occasion:
“The Berbers are one of the few remaining animistic cultures in all Africa, and while Islam prohibits representational motifs, the Berber universe - a realm dominated by the forces of the sun, moon, stars, plants and animals - forms part of their artistic vocabulary.” (page 61)
Delacroix observed Moroccan people and came to a quite different conclusion in the nineteenth century - “They are closer to nature in a thousand ways, their dress, the form of their shoes. And so beauty has a share in everything they make. As for us in our corsets, our tight shoes, our ridiculous pinching shoes, we are pitiful."
African or Oriental?
Within the western market for oriental carpets, Moroccan rugs are apparently not valued in the same way as work from Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. Hull & Luczyc-Wyhowska consider Moroccan textiles to be “less significant” - a statement that would appear to warrant some explanation. Perhaps their designs are less floral and organic than their eastern counterparts; they are more African and consequently less “antique”; they then fit more comfortably into the idea that African art is somehow more pagan, more functional, more backward looking than its Middle Eastern and European equivalents. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, our eyes educated by Gaugin, Matisse, Delacroix and Picasso, we ought to be in a better position to view the arts of the world with a less orientalist or anthropological caste.
But it upsets the historical narrative if we must acknowledge that the European Renaissance would not have been possible without the high art, science and learning passed to it by the Muslim libraries of Toledo and Baghdad; that the renaissance would have been less likely had the rulers of Europe succeeded in obliterating the Muslim heritage.
This ambivalence was and is evident in the western appreciation of the Alhambra as a “pleasure palace”. To the minds of westerners it was inconceivable that the splendour of these courtyards could serve any religious purpose. If Washington Irving can be said to have played an important role in preserving the Alhambra it was done by titillating the readers imagination with stories of luxury and passion.
But many among the millions of people who visit this remarkable Palace, easily understand the purpose of those Muslims and return to their own small gardens inspired to create in them the small haven of peace and contemplation which the Alhambra so wonderfully achieves.
Islamic art is a Trojan horse in the midst of western society, it is neutralised by regular and ritualistic assaults upon the ideas behind it; we are allowed to appreciate the decoration of the Alhambra (with verses from the Qu’ran) but our guides do not trouble us with the meanings of these words and allow us instead, flights of fancy.
And whilst the renaissance is partly seen as a triumph of reason over religion, how can Europeans accept that the fruits of Islamic learning were obtained by a totally different path or that the Christian churches were in some way regressive whereas Islamic society nurtured the intellect?
The western historical narrative rests upon the idea that progress comes from a separation of Church and State and from this will follow democracy, freedom of the individual, freedom of speech, primacy of law and science ... in this view, (as recently expressed by Sr. Berlusconi), Islam cannot be right because it is medieval in its insistence upon the unity of state and religion.
When we look at these textiles we must resist any temptation to look down upon the society which produced them and put aside a purely western interpretation of history. Instead of idealising pastoral societies we can examine and learn the values of these communities through their art and religion.
The Qur’an, sura 16 (ayat 80),
The Bee
bismillahir rahmanir rahim
It is Allah Who made your habitations
Homes of rest and quiet
For you; and made for you,
Out of the skins of animals,
Tents for dwellings, which
Ye find so light and handy
When ye travel and when
Ye stop in your travels,
And out of their wool,
And their soft fibres
Between wool and hair,
And their hair, rich stuff
And articles of convenience
To serve you for a time.
A personal view
We travelled to Morocco after visiting the Alhambra and the imagery of those courtyards, the endless decoration of its high walls, the way the buildings hover between the sky above and the pools of water at your feet, how gardens have been calmly laid out and tended inside the building whilst beyond their walls the ragged slopes are of wildest nature, the jewel-like construction of ceilings, domes and walls and then from a window your eye is drawn toward the Sierra Nevada mountains laced with snow and sun...... it is a Qur’anic recitation in stone, with the same images of paradise being evoked to allow meditation upon the next life.
The Qur’an
sura 88, (ayats 8 -16)
The Overwhelming Event
bismillahir rahmanir rahim
Other faces that Day
Will be joyful,
Pleased with their Striving,
In a Garden on high,
Where they shall hear
No word of vanity:
Therein will be a bubbling spring:
Therein will be couches
Of dignity, raised on high,
Goblets placed (ready),
And Cushions set in rows,
And rich carpets
All spread out.
As muslims we were naturally interested in the people who had built the Alhambra - where they had come from, where they went - and we travelled into Morocco wanting to know more. When we started buying Moroccan hanbels, a dealer in Saharan Amzrou asked us what it was we were looking for in a kilim. He had not been to the Alhambra but we tried to describe the impression it had made on us and how we looked for some of these qualities in the kilims: restrained use of colour, energetic design embellished with fine decoration.
We travelled northwards along the Draa Valley and crossed the High Atlas to Marrakech just as two months earlier we had driven up to Granada nestling in the plains of the high, snow-capped Sierra Nevada. The forebears of those who had once ruled Spain, made Marrakech their capital and built there in the style of al Andalus using Andalucian craftsmen. If our education in kilims began in Saharan Amzrou, (where the quality of the kilims are judged in part by the tightness of the weave so as to exclude sand passing through), it was rounded off in Meknes and nearby Azrou when we started to see Zaiane and Beni M'Gild hanbels.
There is a freedom of expression and a boldness of design in some of them which is emphasised by the many irregularities found in the working patterns. Reduced to its most fundamental, you might say all Moroccan kilims are a variation on the diamond motif, and these Zaiane pieces testify to this. Yet they are not boring, rigid, repetitions on one theme. The motifs do break out of the rugs two dimensions and offer a new perspective for the eye; a glimpse of a space outside this world.
In this, these carpets approach the true purpose of Islamic art: like the Alhambra, they offer the beholder a way of contemplating the greatness of Allah. Islamic art needs to be non-figurative and it is most often employed in decoration, playing with geometric figures capable of endless extension to suggest realities beyond the earthly.
Western attitudes towards Islamic art are often based upon misconceptions, and muslims may have done little to dispel these. While the west spurns the religion it places high value upon its artefacts. But knowing little of the religion the West buys both the rugs and the stories spun about them. Many prayer rugs in the oriental rug market are unlikely to have been intended for prayer and some have been manufactured (even by non-muslims) to exploit the western notions and markets for “the muslim prayer rug” (discussed in more detail in a recent Salon).
There is a tendency among oriental rug collectors and writers to view these textiles as tribal and primitive as opposed to decorative/aesthetic and meditative; to look to the Amazigh (Berbers) as a pastoral people rather than as amongst the builders of the high art of Marrakech, the Alhambra and Muslim Spain. This western view is condescending at best.
This is not to say that the lives led by makers of these rugs aren't both tribal and pastoral. And Morocco, as well as other countries where kilims are still made, is today less developed than the countries where these textiles command high prices.
But the Moroccan women who have made these kilims suffer no deficit in imagination or religious devotion and we might get more in our appreciation of their work if we credit them with more than just a tribal re-working of ancient symbols. To get the most from these rugs, we might concede that their makers are capable of a high level of abstract and devotional thought.
In their otherwise excellent description of kilims (2) and those who make them, Hull & Luczyc-Wyhowska (1993) fall into this trap on occasion:
“The Berbers are one of the few remaining animistic cultures in all Africa, and while Islam prohibits representational motifs, the Berber universe - a realm dominated by the forces of the sun, moon, stars, plants and animals - forms part of their artistic vocabulary.” (page 61)
Delacroix observed Moroccan people and came to a quite different conclusion in the nineteenth century - “They are closer to nature in a thousand ways, their dress, the form of their shoes. And so beauty has a share in everything they make. As for us in our corsets, our tight shoes, our ridiculous pinching shoes, we are pitiful."
African or Oriental?
Within the western market for oriental carpets, Moroccan rugs are apparently not valued in the same way as work from Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. Hull & Luczyc-Wyhowska consider Moroccan textiles to be “less significant” - a statement that would appear to warrant some explanation. Perhaps their designs are less floral and organic than their eastern counterparts; they are more African and consequently less “antique”; they then fit more comfortably into the idea that African art is somehow more pagan, more functional, more backward looking than its Middle Eastern and European equivalents. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, our eyes educated by Gaugin, Matisse, Delacroix and Picasso, we ought to be in a better position to view the arts of the world with a less orientalist or anthropological caste.
But it upsets the historical narrative if we must acknowledge that the European Renaissance would not have been possible without the high art, science and learning passed to it by the Muslim libraries of Toledo and Baghdad; that the renaissance would have been less likely had the rulers of Europe succeeded in obliterating the Muslim heritage.
This ambivalence was and is evident in the western appreciation of the Alhambra as a “pleasure palace”. To the minds of westerners it was inconceivable that the splendour of these courtyards could serve any religious purpose. If Washington Irving can be said to have played an important role in preserving the Alhambra it was done by titillating the readers imagination with stories of luxury and passion.
But many among the millions of people who visit this remarkable Palace, easily understand the purpose of those Muslims and return to their own small gardens inspired to create in them the small haven of peace and contemplation which the Alhambra so wonderfully achieves.
Islamic art is a Trojan horse in the midst of western society, it is neutralised by regular and ritualistic assaults upon the ideas behind it; we are allowed to appreciate the decoration of the Alhambra (with verses from the Qu’ran) but our guides do not trouble us with the meanings of these words and allow us instead, flights of fancy.
And whilst the renaissance is partly seen as a triumph of reason over religion, how can Europeans accept that the fruits of Islamic learning were obtained by a totally different path or that the Christian churches were in some way regressive whereas Islamic society nurtured the intellect?
The western historical narrative rests upon the idea that progress comes from a separation of Church and State and from this will follow democracy, freedom of the individual, freedom of speech, primacy of law and science ... in this view, (as recently expressed by Sr. Berlusconi), Islam cannot be right because it is medieval in its insistence upon the unity of state and religion.
When we look at these textiles we must resist any temptation to look down upon the society which produced them and put aside a purely western interpretation of history. Instead of idealising pastoral societies we can examine and learn the values of these communities through their art and religion.
The Qur’an, sura 16 (ayat 80),
The Bee
bismillahir rahmanir rahim
It is Allah Who made your habitations
Homes of rest and quiet
For you; and made for you,
Out of the skins of animals,
Tents for dwellings, which
Ye find so light and handy
When ye travel and when
Ye stop in your travels,
And out of their wool,
And their soft fibres
Between wool and hair,
And their hair, rich stuff
And articles of convenience
To serve you for a time.
A personal view
We travelled to Morocco after visiting the Alhambra and the imagery of those courtyards, the endless decoration of its high walls, the way the buildings hover between the sky above and the pools of water at your feet, how gardens have been calmly laid out and tended inside the building whilst beyond their walls the ragged slopes are of wildest nature, the jewel-like construction of ceilings, domes and walls and then from a window your eye is drawn toward the Sierra Nevada mountains laced with snow and sun...... it is a Qur’anic recitation in stone, with the same images of paradise being evoked to allow meditation upon the next life.
The Qur’an
sura 88, (ayats 8 -16)
The Overwhelming Event
bismillahir rahmanir rahim
Other faces that Day
Will be joyful,
Pleased with their Striving,
In a Garden on high,
Where they shall hear
No word of vanity:
Therein will be a bubbling spring:
Therein will be couches
Of dignity, raised on high,
Goblets placed (ready),
And Cushions set in rows,
And rich carpets
All spread out.
As muslims we were naturally interested in the people who had built the Alhambra - where they had come from, where they went - and we travelled into Morocco wanting to know more. When we started buying Moroccan hanbels, a dealer in Saharan Amzrou asked us what it was we were looking for in a kilim. He had not been to the Alhambra but we tried to describe the impression it had made on us and how we looked for some of these qualities in the kilims: restrained use of colour, energetic design embellished with fine decoration.
We travelled northwards along the Draa Valley and crossed the High Atlas to Marrakech just as two months earlier we had driven up to Granada nestling in the plains of the high, snow-capped Sierra Nevada. The forebears of those who had once ruled Spain, made Marrakech their capital and built there in the style of al Andalus using Andalucian craftsmen. If our education in kilims began in Saharan Amzrou, (where the quality of the kilims are judged in part by the tightness of the weave so as to exclude sand passing through), it was rounded off in Meknes and nearby Azrou when we started to see Zaiane and Beni M'Gild hanbels.
There is a freedom of expression and a boldness of design in some of them which is emphasised by the many irregularities found in the working patterns. Reduced to its most fundamental, you might say all Moroccan kilims are a variation on the diamond motif, and these Zaiane pieces testify to this. Yet they are not boring, rigid, repetitions on one theme. The motifs do break out of the rugs two dimensions and offer a new perspective for the eye; a glimpse of a space outside this world.
In this, these carpets approach the true purpose of Islamic art: like the Alhambra, they offer the beholder a way of contemplating the greatness of Allah. Islamic art needs to be non-figurative and it is most often employed in decoration, playing with geometric figures capable of endless extension to suggest realities beyond the earthly.