C – Hybrid Learning

COSMOLOGY

Batoota — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 06:49:29 +0000

COSMOLOGY. In Islamic cosmology, the cosmos or the universe (al-`alam) is defined generally as “everything other than God.” This definition, universally accepted in Islam, has its basis in the Qur’an. It is emphasized repeatedly in the Qur’an that God is “lord of all the worlds” and that to God belongs “everything in the heavens and the earth” and “what is in between.” The sum total of “everything other than God,” which constitutes the entire Muslim cosmos, is identified with what the Qur’an refers to as “all the worlds” and “everything in the heavens and the earth.”

The cosmos is also identified with the whole created order (khalq) that, according to the Qur’an, comes into existence through the divine creative command kun (“Be!”). For this reason, the term kawn, which is etymologically related to the word kun and which conveys the meaning of engendered existence, is often used by Muslim cosmologists to refer to the whole cosmos. Consequently, one of the terms used to denote cosmology is `ilm al-kawn, meaning literally “the science of the cosmos.”
The above traditional Muslim definition of the cosmos is of great significance to contemporary Muslims as far as their encounter with modern cosmology is concerned. First, in contrast to modern cosmology, which either ignores or rejects altogether the existence and reality of God, and views the cosmos as a completely independent order of reality or even as the one and only reality, Islamic cosmology is theocentric. The idea of the cosmos in Islam is inseparable from the Qur’anic conception of God.
The most fundamental teaching of the Qur’an is that God is the central reality. Although from a certain point of view the cosmos is not God, and there is a fundamental distinction between the two, the cosmos is always defined in relation to this central reality that, in fact, is its metaphysical source and origin as well as its ultimate goal. Indeed, God enters into the definition of the cosmos. And the various cosmological schemes or theories developed by the different schools of Islamic cosmology represent so many ways of looking at the relationship between God and the cosmos. The nature of this relationship is one of the most fundamental issues to have engaged the minds of Muslim cosmologists over the centuries.
Second, in contrast to Islamic cosmology, which deals with all the worlds or the whole cosmos, modern cosmology has in view only a small portion of this cosmos, namely, the physical world. Modern cosmology might have discovered a lot of new facts about the physical universe that were unknown to ancient and medieval cosmologists, and it might have extended the boundaries of that universe far beyond those they had ever known. However, judging by their qualitative contents, the dimensions of the modern cosmos, limited as it were to the physical realm, are far smaller than those of the traditional Muslim cosmos.
Islamic cosmology inquires into the nature and reality of the nonphysical worlds without neglecting the physical world. In fact, it has made important contributions to the development of natural and mathematical studies of the physical cosmos. Clearly, Islamic cosmology covers a far wider domain of rational inquiry than what we find in modern cosmology. As defined by the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa’), a secret brotherhood of philosophers and scientists in tenth- and eleventh-century Islam, which wrote the influential Rasa’il (a collection of fifty-two treatises covering almost every branch of medieval philosophy and science), the cosmos is “all the spiritual and material beings who populate the immensity of the skies, who constitute the reign of multiplicity which extends to the spheres, the stars, the elements, their products and to man” (Nasr, 1978, p. 53).
Sources of Islamic Cosmology. For Muslims, the Qur’an is the most important source of cosmological knowledge. It provides Muslims with knowledge of general cosmological principles that determine the dimensions and boundaries of the Muslim cosmos, both temporally and spatially speaking, and that also serve as a necessary background for the scientific study of that cosmos.
These cosmological principles are either explicitly stated or derived from the metaphysical teachings of the Qur’an through their application to the cosmic domain. According to the Qur’an itself, its verses are of two kinds, the muhkamat (clear) and the mutashabihat (ambiguous). Many cosmological ideas that have been developed in Islam are derived from verses of the second kind. Cosmological meanings contained in such verses have been arrived at primarily through ta’wil (symbolic or esoteric interpretation) that presupposes a deep spiritual insight and the soundness of the faculty of intellectual intuition, as distinct from the faculty of ratiocination or discursive reasoning, on the part of the interpreters, who seek to understand the inner meanings of those verses.
For example, the Qur’anic metaphysical statement “God is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward” (surah 57.3) has immediate implications for the cosmos. To say that God is al-Awwal (the First) means that the cosmos has an origin or a beginning. And to say that he is al-Akhir (the Last) means that the cosmos has an end. In other words, the world of multiplicity comes from the One God and returns to the One God. The cosmos therefore has not come into existence by chance or without any ultimate purpose.
On the contrary, it is a purposive world. This fact finds strong support in numerous Qur’anic verses that state categorically that the whole universe is created in truth and by the truth (bi-al-haqq) and not in vain (see, e.g., surahs 16.3 and 21.16). Muslims view the cosmos as being governed by teleological principles. A discussion of these principles has a legitimate and indeed an important place in Islamic cosmology and by extension in the particular sciences, such as the physical and the biological sciences.
If the first pair of the four Divine Names mentioned above, the First and the Last, can be said to have determined the temporal boundaries of the cosmos, then the other pair, the Outward and the Inward, determines its spatial boundaries. How this latter pair of names shapes directly the Muslims’ vision of the cosmos is more difficult to see if one were to accept only a logical interpretation of the names. This is because looking at the cosmos through the two names presents two different pictures, one being the reverse of the other.
According to one traditional interpretation, to say that God is the Outward or al-Zahir (the Manifested) means that the cosmos is contained or enclosed by God. If the cosmos is divided into its physical and nonphysical parts, then, following the same principle of outwardness, it is the physical world that is enveloped by the nonphysical parts. And to say that God is al-Batin (the Hidden) means that the cosmos is a reality that lies outside God and that veils him. If the same relation is now considered between the different parts of the cosmos itself, then it is the physical world that lies outside the spiritual world and that hides the latter.
The two different pictures of the cosmos that result from a consideration of the Divine Names, the Outward and the Inward respectively, might be best represented geometrically by means of two concentric circles. In the first picture, in which God is viewed as the Outward, the inner circle represents the cosmos while the outer circle represents Divine Reality. In the second picture, in which God is viewed as the Inward, we have the reverse. The inner circle now represents Divine Reality whereas the outer circle represents the cosmos. By further considering the hierarchy of existence within both Divine Reality itself and the cosmos, this simple geometric representation can be enlarged to include more concentric circles, each of which represents a particular state of existence. Within this geometric scheme, Muslim cosmologists found a means of integrating elements of pre-Islamic cosmology into the Qur’anic cosmological perspective.
Allusions to the dimensions of the cosmos are also to be found in those Qur’anic verses that speak of the seven heavens and the seven earths, of the Divine Throne, `arsh, and the Divine Footstool, kursi (see surahs 20.5 and 2.255), of the cosmic mountain Qaf and of the cosmic tree. Then there are those verses which refer to such complementary pairs as light and darkness, this world and the next world, paradise and hell, the origin and the return, spirit and body, sun and moon, and day and night. All these pairs too allude to the dimensions of the Muslim cosmos. Even the term “Muslim cosmos” itself is derived directly from the Qur’an. Everything in the cosmos, says the Qur’an, is a Muslim because it submits willingly or unwillingly to the Will of God as manifested in the laws of the cosmos. Submission to the divine will is precisely what the word Muslim means.
The most popular of all Qur’anic verses that deal with general cosmological principles are the Throne Verse (2.255) and the Light Verse (24.35). The Light Verse in particular has been commented on by many famous Muslim thinkers, including al-Farabi (d. 950), Ibn Sina (d. 1037), the Ikhwan al-Safa’, al-Ghazali (d. i i i i ), and Mulls Sadra (d. 1641). In these commentaries are to be found some of the most important cosmological speculations by classical Muslim thinkers, which seek to harmonize pre-Islamic cosmology with cosmological data contained in the Islamic revelation.
For example, the Ikhwan al-Safa’ identified the heaven of the fixed stars in the Ptolemaic system of eight concentric spheres with the kursi mentioned in the Throne Verse. Further, they equated the `arsh of the Qur’an (see also surah 9.129, referring to God as the Lord of the Throne, and surah 69.17, referring to eight angelic bearers of the Divine Throne) with the highest heaven, that is, the ninth and starless heaven that Muslims have added to the Ptolemaic scheme to account for diurnal motion. The Ikhwan called this heaven the Muhit or the outermost sphere, while many other Muslims named it falak al-aflak, meaning the sphere of spheres or the supreme heaven. In their commentary on the Light Verse, the Ikhwan interpreted light (al-nur) as the Universal Intellect, niche (mishkdt) as the Universal Soul, glass (zujdjah) as the prime form (al-surah al-ula), a shining star (kawkab durri) as individual form (al-surah al-mujarradah), the blessed olive tree (shajarah mubarakah zaytunah) again as the Universal Soul, and light on light (nur `ald nur) as the light of the intellect over the light of the Soul (see Nasr, 1978, p. 77).
Another revealed datum that has influenced traditional Islamic conceptions of the cosmos refers to Laylat al-mi’raj, the Prophet’s miraculous night journey (see surahs 17.1 and 53.11-18) from the earth to the Divine Throne, an event ever fresh in the memory of every generation of Muslims until our present times, because every year it is celebrated by Muslims all over the world. About the journey itself the Qur’an tells us very little. We are told only that the Prophet was transported fromMeccatoJerusalem, then taken to the heavens until he reached the farthest Lote tree (sidrat al-muntaha; surah 53.14) before being finally brought to the Divine Throne.
Detailed descriptions of the journey are given in the hadiths. Thanks to this second most important source of knowledge in Islam, we have more information not only about the journey fromMeccatoJerusalembut also about the Prophet’s ascension fromJerusalemto the Divine Throne through all the heavens and about the throne itself. There is a description of every heaven through which the Prophet had passed. He was accomparied throughout the journey by the archangel Gabriel, who acted as his guide. The only exception was during the final stage of the journey from the Lote tree to the Divine Throne, when the Prophet alone was given the honor of being transported on a beautiful rafraf (narrow piece of silk brocade) (see account given by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti [d. 1505), translated in A. Jeffery, Islam: Muhammad and His Religion, Indianapolis, 1958, pp. 42-46).
The language used to describe the entire journey is largely a symbolic one. The farthest Lote tree symbolizes the outermost region of the universe, and the Prophet’s passage through every heaven symbolizes his journey through all states of being in the cosmic hierarchy. The final goal of the journey is to go beyond the cosmos itself, that is, to reach the Divine Presence. Undoubtedly, the Prophet’s nocturnal ascension to the Divine Throne has a great significance for Islamic cosmology. On the basis of the data given in both the Qur’an and the hadiths concerning that event, Muslims have been presented with a clear picture of the total dimensions of the cosmos. That event has also taught them the ultimate purpose of cosmology.
The highest goal in the study of the cosmos is to enable oneself to visualize it as a book of symbols that can be meditated on and contemplated for spiritual upliftment or as a prison from which the human soul must escape to attain true freedom. This view concerning the role of the cosmos in man’s spiritual journey to God, inspired by the Prophet’s mi’raj, was enthusiastically shared by many members of the two main traditions of Islamic cosmology. One is the tradition that is against Greek and other foreign learnings and that relied solely on the Qur’an and hadiths for cosmological knowledge. Religious scholars, such as Abu Muhammad al-Isfahani (Abu’ al-Shaykh, d. 979), the eleventh-century alKhatib al-Baghdadi, and Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 1505), who can be regarded as among the leading representatives of this tradition but whose cosmological works are little known to the modern world, insisted that, in the study of the cosmos, it is more important to contemplate the cosmos as a book of divine signs than to speculate rationally about it.
The other cosmological tradition, represented mainly by philosophers of various schools and scientists, but also by a number of leading theologians and Sfifis, sought to synthesize cosmological ideas taken from nonIslamic sources and the cosmological teachings of the Qur’an and hadiths. Among many representatives of this tradition, vast knowledge of scientific cosmology was no obstacle to acceptance of a spiritual or metaphysical cosmology in which such ideas as the symbolic interpretation of all natural phenomena, the concept of the interiorization of the cosmos, and a spiritual journey through the universe to what lies beyond it are particularly important. On the contrary, as we find in the “visionary recitals” of Ibn Sina (see Corbin, 1980; Nasr, 1978, chap. 15), which were no doubt inspired by the Prophet’s mi’raj, they had the spiritual ingenuity of transforming scientific facts drawn from many sciences of the day into cosmic symbols that were to act as guide posts for the traveler on the path of spiritual perfection in his journey through and beyond the cosmos to the Divine Presence.
As a source of cosmology the Qur’an provides us mainly with knowledge of general principles, but it is much more comprehensive and detailed than all other sacred books of the world in its accounts of cosmogony, cosmography, the qualitative contents of the cosmos, such as the angelic realm, eschatological events, and other cosmic phenomena. However, it is generally the case that concerning all these aspects of the cosmos the Qur’anic accounts are complemented by those given in the hadiths in a more detailed manner. The beginning of cosmological speculation in Islam must be traced back to the commentaries and interpretations of cosmological data contained in these two main sources by the first few generations of Muslims.
There were two main traditions of Islamic cosmology. The indigenous tradition, which was strongly opposed to Greek and other foreign sciences, formulated a cosmology based almost entirely on Islamic sources, namely the Qur’an, hadiths, and transmitted sciences. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a leading contemporary historian and philosopher of Islamic science, has likened the position of this indigenous cosmology within the total Islamic cosmological tradition to that of Prophetic medicine within the general body of medical knowledge stored within the house of Islam.
The other tradition, which had a far greater impact than the first on the historical and philosophical development of Islamic science, had developed a number of cosmologies that were partly inspired by ideas and theories inherited from pre-Islamic cosmological systems. The most important of these were Hermetic, Pythagorean, and Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmologies made available to the Muslims mainly through translations of Greek sources, Mazdean cosmology from Persia, and certain forms of Indian cosmology. However, all the elements that had been borrowed from these non-Islamic sources were fully integrated into the more universal Qur’anic cosmological perspective.
Historical Development of Islamic Cosmology. We can identify the historical beginning of Islamic cosmological thought with the first cosmological speculations and utterances on the subject made by some of the most distinguished companions of the Prophet, whom Hasan al-Basri (d. 728) referred to as the ahl al-batin (people of inwardness), meaning those possessed of an esoteric cast of mind and a sound knowledge in the science of ta’wil of both the Qur’an and hadiths, particularly the sacred hadiths (hadith qudsi). Prominent among these companions were `Ali ibn Abi Talib, ibn `Abbas, Ibn Mas’ud, and Abu Hurayrah.
Ibn `Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet, told us that he learned from the Prophet the esoteric meaning of the seven heavens and the seven earths mentioned in the Qur’an. In his commentary on this sacred text, which continues to be widely read in traditional Muslim circles and which is popularly referred to as tafsir Ibn `Abbas, he gave many insightful clarifications of the meanings of verses related to cosmology, and also delved into the symbolic meanings of letters of the alphabet which appear at the opening of some chapters of the Qur’an.
To cite just a few examples, he defined the qualitative contents of the Muslim cosmos through his explanation of the meaning of the Qur’anic term `alamin (“all the worlds”). He explained the nature and number of angelic bearers of the Divine Throne. Then, there is his description in symbolic language of the form of the angel in charge of each of the seven heavens as well as his mention of its name. This shows that from the very beginning of Islamic cosmological thought, there has been a close relationship between cosmology and angelology. Ibn `Abbas is also an important early source of a detailed account of the Prophet’s mi’raj.
But, without doubt, it was `Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, the fourth rightly guided caliph of Sunni Islam and the first imam of Shi`i Islam, who enjoyed the greatest respect and influence in the domain of both exoteric and esoteric sciences. In what has survived of his sermons, letters, poems, and proverbs, as preserved mainly in the Nahj al-balaghah (The Way of Eloquence), a late ShN compilation by Sharif al-Radi (d. 1015), we meet for the first time in Islam a number of technical expressions of an almost philosophical nature as well as tendencies toward an analytical intellectual discourse. Of interest to historians of Islamic cosmology is `All’s reference in one of his poems to man as al-`alam al-saghir (microcosm). It was the earliest explicit mention of this important cosmological idea in Islamic sources.
Many traditional sources have also attributed to `Ali the origin of several distinctively Islamic arts and sciences, such as the art of khan (calligraphy) and the science of numerical symbolism of the alphabets (`ilm al-jafr). According to Bel-Mughus al-Maghribi, a sixteenth-century historian of alchemy, `Ali also inherited the alchemical art from the Prophet. In Islam, both the science of alphabetical symbolism and alchemy have always had a very close link with cosmology. The cosmological teachings of `Ali as inherited and further developed by both his distinguished blood and intellectual descendants must have served as important foundational elements in the early development of Islamic cosmology. His idea of the analogy between the microcosm and the macrocosm, and his use of numerical symbolism for the letters of the Arabic alphabet, found fuller and more systematic exposition in the cosmological writings of the later period, such as those of Ikhwan al-Safa’ and Ibn Sins.
Among the most distinguished of `All’s early intellectual successors were Hasan al-Basri and Ja’far al-Sadiq (d. 765). Both were Sufis, but the former, a disciple of `Al! who lived long enough to witness the Muslim community of the first three generations, was a Sunni and the latter the sixth imam of Shiism, although he was revered too by many Sunnis. From the point of view of the later development of many schools of Islamic cosmology, the alchemical and other esoteric teachings and writings associated with the intellectual circle of Imam Ja’far are of particular importance. Jabir ibn Hayyan, the greatest alchemist of Islam, also belonged to this circle.
In many alchemical writings attributed to Jabir, in which the author claims to be expounding the teachings of his master, Iman Ja’far, we find many cosmological schemes which betray a strong influence of Hermetic, Pythagorean, Aristotelian, and Neoplatonic cosmologies. The Jabirian cosmology is a remarkable synthesis of cosmological and scientific ideas drawn from diverse sources. There is a place in it for the Neoplatonic theory of emanation of the world and depiction of the cosmos as a hierarchy of concentric spheres; a place for the Pythagorean concept of cosmic harmony arising from the qualitative or symbolic properties of numbers; a place for the magic square or the Ming Tang taken from Chinese science thanks to the numerical symbolism inherent in it; and there is a place for Hermetic science of alchemical and astrological symbolisms based on the maxim, “that which is lowest symbolizes that which is highest,” in which the sulphur-mercury principle is of fundamental importance. However, the alchemical perspective predominates.
The central idea in Jabirean cosmology which connects the different elements together in a coherent way is the cosmological concept of the balance. The balance is the cosmic principle by means of which the correct proportion of elements is reached. It refers to the harmony of the various tendencies of the Universal Soul that determines and orders the qualities of cosmic existence. In Jabir’s cosmological scheme, which he presented as a hierarchy of concentric circles, the Universal Soul exists below the intellect, further above which is the First Cause (God). Below the Universal Soul is the world of substance, which is the principle of the physical cosmos.
Jabirean cosmology exerted a great influence on the cosmological thought of Ikhwan al-Safa’ and on Ismd’ili and Sufi cosmologies, especially that of Ibn al-`Arabi (d. 1240). But during the period that separates Jabir from Ikhwan al-Safa’ and the flowering of Fatimid Isma’ili thought, there emerged another school of Islamic cosmology that was more rational and scientific in its intellectual outlook. This is the Peripatetic school of philosopher-scientists founded by al-Kind! (d. c.873), further developed by al-Farabi, which reached its greatest height with Ibn Sins. Muslim Peripatetic cosmology is based on a synthesis between Aristotelian philosophy as interpreted mainly by the Neoplatonists and the cosmological teachings of Islam.
Al-Kind! argued for a closed and finite cosmos. He also believed in the doctrine of creatio ex-nihilo. In contrast, both al-Farabi and Ibn Sina maintained the theory of emanation to explain the existence of the world of multiplicity from the One. The picture of the cosmos associated with this school was the one largely used in Islam by its astronomers. Prior to and parallel to the development of Peripatetic cosmological thought we can refer to the various schools of kalam (dialectical theology), especially the Ash’aris, who possess what we might call an atomistic cosmology.
Al-Ghazali, the most well known of the Ash`ari theologians, criticized severely Peripatetic thought. This criticism helped to pave the way for the emergence of the Illuminationist school of philosophy of Suhrawardi and the mystical philosophy of Ibn al-`Arabi. Each of these schools developed its own cosmology as well. Ibn al-`Arabi’s cosmology, which constitutes a grand synthesis of all the cosmological ideas that have been developed earlier and those produced by his own creative genius, became the dominant cosmology in many parts of the Islamic world until today. InIran, Mulls Sadra, while being greatly influenced by Ibn al-`Arabi’s cosmology, attempted to create his own synthesis. Mulls Sadra’s contemporaries in the Malay world, such as Hamzah Fansuri and Nur al-Din al-Raniri, were busy interpreting and writing Ibn al-`Arabi’s thought in Malay. The cosmological writings of these Malay thinkers continue to be read and discussed.
Many Muslim intellectuals, including scientists, are now interested to know what past Muslim cosmologists have written on the subject of cosmology. Their encounter with modern cosmology has forced them to reexamine Islamic cosmological heritage in a more favorable light.
[See also Philosophy; Theology.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bakar, Osman. Tawhid and Science. Penang andKuala Lumpur, 1991. Chapter 5 deals with the atomistic cosmology of the Ash’aris. Chittick, William. The Sufi Path of Knowledge.Albany,N.Y., 1989. This book provides a wealth of information on Sufi cosmology as interpreted by Ibn al-`Arabi.
Corbin, Henry. Avicenna and the Visionary Recital. Translated by Willard R. Trask.Irving,Texas, 1980. Contains Ibn Seta’s three short treatises on symbolic cosmology in which he gives an important place to angels. The most comprehensive work in a Western language on Ibn Sina’s angelology.
Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy.New YorkandLondon, 1983. Although it is a general introductory work on Islamic philosophy, it makes many references to the cosmological ideas of leading Muslim thinkers.
Haq, Syed Nomanul. Names, Natures, and Things: The Alchemist jabir ibn Hayyan and his Kitdb al Ahjar (Book of Stones).Boston, 1994. A good discussion of some of the principles of Jabirean cosmology. Heinen, A. M. Islamic Cosmology: A Study of as-Suyuti’s al-Hay’s assaniyah fi’l-hay’s as-sunniya.Beirutand Weisbaden, 1982. A very useful work on the cosmology of religious scholars that is based totally on traditional Islamic sources.
Naguib al-Attas, Syed Muhammad. The Mysticism of Hamzah Fansuri.Kuala Lumpur, 1970. It contains a good discussion of the metaphysical cosmology of Fansuri, the first Malay thinker to write on the subject in the Malay language.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study.London, 1976. Chapter III provides a good summary of Islamic cosmology and cosmography and clarifies their significance for Islamic science.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines.Boulder, 1978. The first comprehensive work on the subject. Although it was written more than three decades ago, it is still the best work on Islamic cosmology.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. “The Cosmos and the Natural Order.” In Islamic Spirituality: Foundations, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, pp. 345-357. World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, vol. 19.New York, 1987. An excellent summary of the views of different schools of Islamic cosmology.
Schuon, F. Dimensions of Islam. Translated by P. Townsend.London, 1970. Chapter 1 t is an excellent discussion of the dimensions of the Muslim cosmos based on revealed data in the Qur’an and on the teachings of the hadiths.
OSMAN BAKAR

CIRCUMCISION

Batoota — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 06:29:24 +0000

CIRCUMCISION. The rite of passage of circumcision plays varied roles in Islamic society, depending on gender, ethnic orientation, and modern cultural attitudes. There are differences of opinion among the legal authorities over whether circumcision is fard (legally obligatory) or sunnah (the practice of the Prophet), nor is the motive for the operation always clear. Socially, it is obviously a rite of passage of considerable status significance for young boys when it is performed at ten to twelve years of age, as in some parts of the Arab world, to mark their move to male responsibilities. In the religious sphere, the view that circumcision is necessary for conversion to Islam, as the legist al-Malik stressed, is still adhered to by many Muslims.
Other sources speak of circumcision within the context of purification; indeed, in the present-day Arab world the rite is called taharah (purification) rather than the classical khitan. The purification concept probably derives from al-Malik’s Sunnah of Fitrah, where it is linked with cutting nails, trimming the mustache, and removing hair from the armpits and pubic area. Such notions affirm that circumcision is required of both sexes, as Shafi’i (767-820 CE) held. [See Purification.] Some Muslims, however, relate the practice to Abraham and thus see it as part of the original law promulgated among their Semitic ancestors, particularly the Jews.
Finally, circumcision is an outward symbol of the religious process of bringing oneself under the discipline of God’s requirements, reflecting the inner growth of `aql (reason) and the submission of base passions to the higher spiritual requisites of true Islam. When interpreted this way, modifying the sexual organs is a physical expression of the acknowledgment of God’s hegemony over one’s uncontrolled instincts and signals the deeper religious commitment expected of the mature Muslim.
Although the presence of the operation is often regarded by Western writers and many Muslims as evidence of Islamic orthodoxy, it is not universal in the Muslim world: for example, not all Muslims inChinapractice it, and in many Muslim countries the law is not held binding on females. There is also considerable cultural distinction in the time at which the process is undertaken. In Europe and North America Muslims have adopted the cultural norm of having the operation done to their sons in the hospital immediately after birth, but in theMiddle Easta separate rite is undertaken sometime between the ages of two and twelve. An Arab proverb perceptively embodies the initiatory meanings: “The Arab is king on his wedding day and his circumcision day.” In theSudan, this proverbial connection influences the activities: the ceremony is referred to as al-‘Irs (a wedding); and the young boy is dressed like a girl, wears jewelry and perfume, and is painted with henna to ward off the evil eye. Among the Beja people the boys live together in a special but along with the individual who performs the operation. InEgypt, barbers often set up circumcision stalls during holy days, such as the Prophet’s birthday or the mawlids of saints. Being circumcised during a saint’s holy day is held to tie one directly to the barakah of the saint, ensuring fertility and blessings later. On such occasions a sheep is also sacrificed. InMorocco, the rite also parallels the wedding rituals and is supervised by the boy’s mother; it is customary to dress the boy in a white shift, bathe him, shave his head, and paint his hands with henna the day before the rite. Relatives, neighbors and friends join in eating the sacrificed sheep, and small gifts are brought in his honor.
Among the peoples of Java, where the rite is called islaman or sometimes sunatan, the wedding motif dominates. It is a time of great celebration and lavish spending, including entertainment by orchestras and traveling dancing troupes, along with massive receptions for the community. Guests bring presents or money. Sometimes groups of boys, usually related, undergo the rite together, and the celebration usually follows the completion of the boys’ Islamic studies. The rite itself is performed by a tjalak (officially registered operator) who charges for his service and uses a knife called wesi tawa (“iron you can’t feel”). The initiant is placed on a low bed and his mother steps over him three times, signaling her release of her possessiveness and her dispatch of him to his manly responsibilities. Parallel rites guard against unfit attitudes such as envy or jealousy entering people’s hearts, thus undermining the boy’s potential in life. This explicit control of negative attitudes at circumcision appears to be exclusive to the Javanese. Because of the expense of the rite, parents often delay it as long as possible, sometimes prompting the boy to campaign for the rite before his parents can afford it. Among the Brunei Malays, the initiation aspect is stressed, but the ceremony is embellished by dhikr chanting, thus appropriating the sacrality of Sufi ceremonial life.
In contrast, some countries inCentral Africahave distanced themselves from the initiatory meaning of circumcision precisely because of the importance of the rite of passage in traditional African religions. When a tribe is converting to Islam, circumcision is a badge of identity with the new religion, as among the Dagomba; however, the neighboring Nanumba, who do follow a form of Islam, do not circumcise, and indeed regard it as a rite peculiar to the Dagomba. A further development is seen among the Merina of Madagascar, who, though not Muslim, appear to have appropriated some aspects of Muslim circumcision as a means of transferring ancestral power.
The need to take the pain of the operation without flinching is seen by the northern Yemenis as a mark of toughness and manliness. The initiant is surrounded by villagers who cut and toss the foreskin into the milling crowd. The boy finds the skin, is mounted on his mother’s shoulder, and proudly displays the severed section to the adulation of the crowd. This emphasis on fortitude occurs in all Islamic societies, but the Yemeni example is unusual in that it highlights virility more than the passage to Islamic maturity.
It is the norm in Islamic cultures that the older circumcised boy is immediately required to join his father and older relatives in public prayer and is restricted from moving freely between the male and female parts of the house. The Islamic character of his changed status is essential. Where the operation is separate from the passage to maturity, as is increasingly the case among urban and middle-class Muslims worldwide, the change in status requires other kinds of celebrations, such as graduation exercises from special classes held by imams to teach the basics of Islam. Since female circumcision is not practiced by the majority of Muslims, and girls too are increasingly given advanced religious training, the differences in the early life-experience of boys and girls are being reduced. Hence Islamic modernity seems to have reduced the contiguity of the physical operation with the change in spiritual status and thus to have made adolescent experience less differentiated by gender.
[See also Birth Rites; Puberty Rites; Rites of Passage.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bloch, Maurice. From Blessing to Violence: History and Ideology in the Circumcision Ritual of the Merino ofMadagascar.Cambridge, 1986. Broomhall, Marshall. Islam inChina(191o).New York, 1966. Eickelman, Dale F. Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in aPilgrimageCenter.Austin, 1976.
Eickelman, Dale F. “Rites of Passage.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 12, pp. 380-403.New York, 1987.
Geertz, Clifford. The Religion of java.New York, 196o.
Geertz, Hildred. The javanese Family: A Study of Kinship and Socialization.New York, 1961.
Levtzion, Nehemia. Muslims and Chiefs inWest Africa.Oxford, 1968. Murray, G. W. Sons of Ishmael: A Study of the Egyptian Bedouin.London, 1935
Trimingham, J. Spencer. Islam inEthiopia.Oxford, 1965. Trimingham, J. Spencer. Islam in theSudan.Oxford, 1965. Trimingham, J. Spencer. The Influence of Islam uponAfrica. 2d ed.London,1980.
Westermarck, Edward A. Ritual and Belief inMorocco(1926). Vol. 2. Reprint,New York, 1968.
EARLE H. WAUGH

CINEMA

Batoota — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 15:42:38 +0000

CINEMA. The development of cinema was closely linked to Western industrialization. It was exploited in Europe and the United States as a commercial entertainment for a largely working-class audience, and, even when exported, has remained a secular, commercial entertainment. At the turn of the century, the social and economic conditions in the Islamic world were vastly different from those in Europe and the United States, and it is significant that some of the first contacts between cinema and the Islamic world were through the royal families. In the Ottoman Empire, the first screenings were held in the Sultan’s Palace in Istanbul, and in Tehran a cinematograph, acquired on a visit to Paris in 1900 and operated by the court photographer, became a favorite entertainment for members of the Qajar Dynasty. Public screenings came only much later: in 1905 in Tehran and Istanbul, 19o8 in Aleppo, and 19o9 in Baghdad. Often, in Tehran ‘for example, there was strong initial opposition to such entertainment from religious groups.
Sometimes those responsible for early film showings were local entrepreneurs-Albert Samama, also known as Chikly, in Tunisia, or the Armenian Ardeshir Khan in Iran-who also imported other Western novelties, such as the bicycle, still photography, or the phonograph. Chikly, indeed, is a true pioneer, since he subsequently directed the first Tunisian short film in 1922 and a first feature in 1926. But, as this was an era of colonialism and European domination, many of the early showings were arranged by foreign residents. Thus, in Egypt and Algeria, screenings of the Lumiere cinematograph were organized as early as 1896 in those cities with the highest numbers of foreign residents: Cairo and Alexandria, Algiers and Oran. In sub-Saharan Africa it was similarly foreign businessmen who set up first screenings, in Dakar in 1900 and Lagos in 1903. Often local scenes were shot by the Lumiere operators to add to the attraction of their programs. In time, screenings for an elite audience-foreign residents and members of a westernized bourgeoisie-came to be supplemented by film shows for a popular audience. A two tier system of distribution-new imported films in luxurious but expensive air-conditioned cinemas and cheap, low-grade productions shown in poor conditions to the popular audience-remains common in many parts of the Islamic world.
Usually the first film productions, like the first screenings, were the work of foreigners: the Frenchman De Lagarne in Egypt in 1912, the Romanian representative of Pathe, Sigmund Weinberg, in Turkey in 1916, two Dutchmen, Kruger and Heuveldorp, in Indonesia in 1926. Such films were based on foreign models. Thus the Armenian Avans Ohanian’s first film-shown in 193o and one of only four Iranian silent films-was an imitation of a Danish silent comedy, and most Turkish films of the 19205 were adaptations of European stage plays. More authentic national productions usually followed within a few years, but overall film production remained low throughout the silent era of the 1920s. Just thirteen features-including Mohamed Khan’s 193o adaptation of Muhammad Husayn Haykal’s novel, Zaynab-were made in Egypt, eight films in Indonesia, a half dozen in Turkey (where production ceased altogether for five years with the advent of Kemal ataturk’s secular republic), three in Syria, one in Lebanon. By contrast, European filmmakers made great use of some parts of the Islamic world as film locations, with more than sixty features shot in North Africa alone before the end of the 1920s.
The coming of sound presented Islamic filmmakers with fresh problems, such as higher production costs and greater technical demands. The employment of foreign directors was therefore common: Italian directors for a number of early Egyptian sound films and an Indian, Ardeshir Irani, for the first Persian-language sound film, shot in Bombay in 1931. Sound also confronted distributors with fresh problems, as differing languages and dialects fragmented previously unified markets. But sound also allowed the possibility of closer links with audiences, through the use of local languages and dialects and, above all, local music and song. Though producers were usually seeking-in an unsophisticated way-to create a popular mass art imbued with national values, they remained very vulnerable to imported films. Far from giving support or offering tariff barriers, governments tended to see cinema simply as a source of tax revenue, at rates usually far higher than in the West. Even a comparatively successful film industry, like that established in Egypt, found it hard to compete with films from the West, especially as these matched the tastes of elite audiences in the major cities, where most cinemas were located.
In most parts of the Islamic world production remained low in the period from 1930 to the end of World War II and beyond. In Tunisia, Chikly’s pioneering efforts found little echo, and only two sound features were made in the period before independence in 1966. In Lebanon, where cinema attendance was the highest in the Arab world, only eight features were made between 1930 and 1952, and there was no production at all in Syria or Iraq. Arab cinema became synonymous with Egyptian cinema, as Egyptian producers gradually came to dominate film markets throughout the Arab world. Initial progress was slow, however, though producers showed an early interest in the sound film’s potential for films featuring Oriental songs. By the mid-1930s, when the Misr studio opened, equipped with imported European facilities and employing staff trained in Europe, output reached twenty-five films in 1945. The bulk of the films-unpretentious love stories with exotic settings and plenty of space for song and dance, bedouin adventure tales, and theatrical melodramas-have little lasting value. But critics are united in praising, as an example of totally independent filmmaking, The Will/ Al-`azimah (1939), the first film to look realistically at Egyptian life, directed by Kemal Selim (1913-1945)
Elsewhere in the Middle East progress was more muted. The first five Persian-language feature films shot in Bombay were patriotic films which enjoyed some success with audiences. But the driving force behind them, the actor and director Abdolhossein Sepenta (19071969), received no official support and was unable to continue his career on his return to Iran in 1936. Indeed, no further Iranian films were made until 1947. In Turkey, production was more sustained, but remained at under half a dozen films a year until 1948, when changes in taxation made low-budget production profitable. The key figure in the transition from silent to sound cinema was Muhsin Ertugrul (1892-1979), who joined Ipek Film when it was set up in 1928 and directed the first Turkish sound film. Ertugrul’s heavily theatrical style-he was director of the Istanbul Municipal Theater and appeared as an actor in most of his films-set the pattern for younger directors of the period.
In the Far East, filmmaking got under way in Malaysia in the 1930s, but since the films were financed by Chinese producers, written and directed by Indian expatriates, and performed by Malay actors, little cultural authenticity was possible. In Indonesia, film output remained at seven films or less a year until 1939, then swiftly expanded to reach forty-one films in 1941, only to fall back to three or so a year during the Japanese occupation and to dry up completely during the early years of the independence struggle against the Dutch colonizers. It was not until after independence was formalized in 1949 that the industry again began to expand rapidly.
The period after 1945 saw a boom in film production in many parts of the Islamic world. In Egypt, the immediate postwar years were a period of rapid expansion as production levels rose to more than fifty films a year, a total that has been largely maintained into the 1990s. As a result, Egyptian films came to dominate the Arab film market and impose the Egyptian dialect as the “natural” language for Arab films. Most of this output comprised melodramas and farces, with a liberal helping of song and dance, but from the early 1950s, serious writers began to involve themselves in filmmaking and a number of major directors made their appearance. Salah Abou Seif (b. 1915), Youssef Chahine (b. 1926), and Tewfik Saleh (b. 1926), all of whom made strikingly realistic studies of Egyptian lower- and middle-class life, came to dominate Egyptian cinema from the 1950s through the 1980s.
The expansion of cinema in Turkey was even more striking. From just two films in 1947, output rose to thirty-five in the early 1960s, eventually reaching a peak of 298 features in 1972. Some new directors made their reputations: Metin Erksan (b. 1929), Atif Yilmaz (b. 1925), and Lufti O. Akad (b. 1916). But much of this production was mediocre, often derivative of foreign models, and there was even-unique in an Islamic country-a proliferation of pornographic films. But political censorship remained strict, and the charismatic and politically committed actor-director Yilmaz Guney (19371984) spent much of his career in jail. Though he ended his life in exile, the films he was able to make in Turkey-such as Yol and suru-gave Guney an international reputation. The economic crisis caused production levels to fall drastically to just sixty-four films by 1980, but Guney’s example has been followed in the 1980s and 1990s. by two of his collaborators, Zeki Okten (b. 1941) and ,Serif Goren (b. 1944)
Iran experienced a similar upsurge of production when indigenous production began in 1947. By the mid1950s, output was around fifteen features, rising to thirty in 1961 and peaking at ninety in 1972, before falling back to just eighteen in 1978. Alongside the conventional commercial production, there emerged in the 1970s a New Iranian Cinema receiving support from the government and the state television service. Among the largely Western-trained directors were Dariush Mehrjui (b. 1940) and Bahrain Bayzai (b. 1938), both of whom established an international reputation. This particular organization of cinema ceased, however, with the fall of the shah.
Equally striking has been the growth of production in Indonesia, where production rose from eight features in 1949, the year of independence, to 124 in 1977, staying at more than fifty features a year throughout the 1980s, though falling back in the early 1990s. The backgrounds of the successive generations of directors offer a fascinating reflection of the country’s political transformations. The 1950s generation-Usmar Ismail, D. Djajakusuma, and Asrul Sani-studied in Dutch schools, while the 1970s generation comprises both filmmakers trained in Moscow-Wim Umboh (b. 1933), Syumanjaya (b. 1933), and Ami Primyono (b. 1939)-and a younger group coming from Indonesian theater, such as Teguh Karya (b. 1937), Arifin Noer (b. 1940, and Slamet Rahardjo (b. 1949) By contrast, Malaysian cinema, though it experienced a brief growth in the 1950s, has seen its markets continue to be dominated by imported Indonesian films, as government efforts to aid the industry have proved unsuccessful.
At the time of the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, there was no tradition of filmmaking in either West Pakistan or East Pakistan (later to secede as Bangladesh). The all-India movie, which passed two hundred films a year in the 1940s, was a Hindi-language phenomenon, with some Muslim actors, often disguised under Hindi names, but only Hindu filmmakers. Moreover the tight political censorship under British rule had precluded the depiction of religious differences or specifically Muslim viewpoints. From the moment of partition, cinema in the two halves of Pakistan developed separately. Though output levels rose steadily, to peak at a hundred films a year in Pakistan and fifty a year in Bangladesh, most of this production was derivative, even plagiaristic, of Indian models. Few productions have more than local interest, though the great Indian filmmaker, Ritwikkumar Ghatak (1925-1976), did return to his native region of Dhaka to shoot a solitary feature in 1973.
The virtual nationalization of the Egyptian film industry, after the establishment of the General Organization of Egyptian Cinema in 1961, served to give some support to serious filmmaking in Egypt, but was a financial disaster. Perhaps as a result, Egyptian cinema did not experience the kind of renewal common elsewhere in the 1960s, and the one major new filmmaker to emerge, Shadi Abdel-Salam (1930-1986), was never able to create a real career for himself, though his sole feature, Almumiyah (1969), was internationally acclaimed. Overall, film production remained at a level of around fifty films a year, and in the 1960s many Egyptian producers moved abroad, particularly to Lebanon, and continued to make “Egyptian” films there. But this did little to foster the emergence of a genuinely Lebanese cinema, and it was not until the 1970s that a number of talented, Western-trained filmmakers, led by Heiny Srour (b. 1945) and Borhan Alawiya (b. 1941), emerged and began to treat the social and political problems of their country in a number of features strongly influenced by documentary techniques.
Though Egypt’s nationalized film industry was dissolved in 1972, the Higher Cinema Institute in Cairo has remained in operation. As a result, Egypt is the only Arab country to train its own filmmakers locally. The generation that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, led by Mohamed Khan (b. 1942), has shown itself very aware of the history and style of Egyptian filmmaking. In one of the more remarkable film developments in the Arab world, the so-called New Egyptian Realists have produced a series of films within the commercial structures of the industry which play with the genre conventions of film narrative and star casting.
Though the state film organization eventually proved to be an expensive commercial failure in Egypt, it provided a model for neighboring Arab countries. In Syria, which, like Lebanon, became a site for expatriate Egyptian producers, a state sector was developed alongside the commercial industry. The policy that offered state backing for talented young filmmakers was rewarded with the emergence in the 1980s, of two extremely talented newcomers, both born in 1945 and trained in Moscow: Samir Zikra and Mohamed Malass. Another Syrian-born filmmaker to make an international reputation has been the French-trained documentarist, Umar Amiralay (b. 1941), who, after an initial feature-length documentary, has worked largely for television. By contrast, in Iraq, where film production had been sporadic until the I96os, the General Organization for Cinema, which achieved autonomy in 1964, pursued a policy of funding epic super-productions, some directed by Egyptian veterans such as Tewfik Saleh and Salah Abou Seif, others by Iraqi-born directors, like the British-trained Mohammed Shukry Jamil (b. 1936). Elsewhere in the Middle East, isolated pioneers made their appearance: Toryali Shafaq (b. 1947) in Afghanistan, the Indiantrained Khalid Siddik (b. 1948) in Kuwait, and the Nazareth-born Michel Khleifi (b. 1950), whose work reflects Palestinian values from an exile base in Belgium.
The mid-I96os also saw the emergence of new national cinemas in the Maghrib, though most of the filmmakers were European-trained and the influence of France was all-persuasive. In Algeria the roots of the new cinema lay in the liberation struggle. The nationalized film industry established in the mid-I96os organized first a series of studies of resistance to the French-with notable contributions from Ahmed Rachedi (b. 1938) and especially Mohamed LakhdarHamina (b. 1934)-and then a series on rural reform, beginning with the first feature of Mohamed Bouamari (b. 1945) But already by the late 1970s more distinctive individual voices could be heard-among them Merzak Allouache (b. 1944) and Mahmoud Zemmouri (b. 1946)-and by the mid-1980s the state monopoly had been broken up.
In Tunisia the state had no such clear initial objectives, but there is a strong film culture, evidenced by the biennial film festival, the Journees Cinematographiques de Carthage, in Tunis. Output in Tunisia is largely the work of dedicated individualists such as the self-taught Omar Khlfi (b. 1934) in the I96os, Abdellatif Ben Ammar (b. 1943) in the 1970s, and Nouri Bouzid (b. 1947) in the 1980s. Output in Morocco shows a similar mix of those, like Souhel Ben Barka (b. 1942), who seek commercial success, and others, among them Moumen Smihi (b. 1945), who are more concerned with formal innovation. But in general, the films of the Maghrib receive more showings at foreign festivals than in local cinemas.
The same problem confronts filmmakers in subSaharan Africa, though a few directors have made international reputations, among them the Paris-based Med Hondo (b. 1936) from Mauritania, Souleymane Cisse (b. 1940) from Mali, and Gaston Kabore (b. 1951) from Burkina Faso. There have been occasional Musliminspired films, like the Nigerian Adamu Halilu’s Shehu Uma (1977), but these have received far less notice and screening than the works of the Marxist Senegalese veteran, Ousmane Sembene (b. 1923), whose Ceddo (1976) is an outspoken attack on Islam.
In general, cinema in the Islamic world falls into two categories: mindless commercial production for a limited local audience or Western-influenced “art cinema” destined for foreign film festivals. There have been few attempts to create a genuinely Islamic cinema, though in Turkey a group of filmmakers led by Yucel Cakmakli (b. 1937), and given some tacit government support, has advocated a return to Islam and national origins. The sole state-backed Islamic cinema developed after the 1979 Revolution in Iran, where attacks on film theaters had formed a key part in the campaign against the shah. Yet the leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolution showed themselves in support of cinema as a positive cultural force, organized through the Farabi Cinema Foundation. After initial interruptions of production, older established filmmakers like Mehrjui and Bayzai were allowed once again to produce freely, fresh opportunities were given to other veterans, like Amir Naderi (b. 1945) and a new generation of directors came to the fore, led by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (b. 1957). Iranian cinema has again found a way to reach its own audiences and reestablish its place at international film festivals. [See also Communications Media.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Armes, Roy. Third World Film Making and the West. Berkeley and London, 1987. Wide-ranging study of factors governing the emergence and growth of cinema in the Third World.
Barnouw, Erik, and Subrahmanyam Krishnaswamy. Indian Film. 2d ed. New York, 1980. Invaluable, pioneering survey.
Diawara, Manthia. African Cinema: Politics and Culture. Bloomington, 1992. Wide-ranging survey by a Malian-born academic now teaching in the U.S.
Downing, John D. H., ed. Film and Politics in the Third World. New York, 1987. Excellent anthology with articles on African, Arab, Turkish, and Iranian cinema.
Heider, Karl G. Indonesian Cinema: National Culture on Screen. Honolulu, 1991. Study of Indonesian cinema as an aspect of national culture, by a U.S. anthropologist.
Issari, Mohammad Ali. Cinema in Iran, 1900-1979. Metuchen, N.J., and London, 1989. Meticulous and well-documented history of cinema and its cultural context.
Kabir, Alamgir. The Cinema in Pakistan. Dacca, 1969. Film in Bangladesh. Dacca, 1979. Two extremely useful general surveys.
Lent, John A. The Asian Film Industry. Austin, 1990. Ten essays on Asian national cinemas, with emphasis on contemporary developments.
Malkmus, Lizbeth, and Roy Armes. Arab and African Film Making. London and Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1991. Detailed study of narrative patterns in the cinemas of Africa and the Arab world.
Naficy, Hamid. “The Development of an Islamic Cinema in Iran.” Third World Affairs (1987): 447-463. Rare example of discussion in English of the implications of a specifically Islamic approach to cinema.
Naficy, Hamid. “Islamizing Film Culture in Iran.” In Iran: Political Culture in the Islamic Republic, edited by Samih K. Farsoun and Mehrdad Mashayekhi, pp. 178-213. London, 1992. A further examination of the topic.
Pines, Jim, and Paul Willemen, eds. Questions of Third Cinema. London, 1989. Essays on theoretical aspects of Third World cinema. Sadoul, Georges, ed. The Cinema in the Arab Countries. Beirut, 1966. Pioneering account of various national cinemas.
Roy ARMES

CHIRAGH `ALI

Batoota — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 15:28:51 +0000

CHIRAGH `ALI (1844-1895), Indian modernist author. Chiragh ‘Ali came to prominence as a supporter of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Aligarh movement. He came from a Kashmiri family settled in the United Provinces and served the British administration in North India in various judicial and revenue positions. In 1877, thanks to the recommendation of Sir Sayyid, he entered the service of the nizam of Hyderabad. There he rose to the position of Revenue and Political Secretary and was known by the title Nawab `Azam Yar Jang.
Chiragh ‘Ali agreed with Sir Sayyid that there could be no conflict between the word of God, as contained in the Qur’an, and the work of God, as expounded in modern science. His writings are modernist apologetics designed to refute missionary and orientalist criticisms of Islam as incapable of reform. Among his works are The Proposed Political, Constitutional and Legal Reforms in the Ottoman Empire and Other Mohammedan States (1883) and A Critical Exposition of the Popular Jihad (1885). He also wrote frequently in Sir Sayyid’s journal of Muslim social reform, Tahdhib al-akhldq (The Muslim Reformer), published in Aligarh.
Chiragh ‘Ali maintained that Islamic religion inculcated no set political or social system and that the schools of Islamic law, as human institutions, were subject to revision. Muslim governments were in no way theocratic, nor did jihad imply a forcible expansion of the faith. On the contrary, all the Prophet’s wars were defensive in nature. Chiragh `Ali, as a modernist, based his ideas on the teachings of the Qur’an; all other sources of law, including hadith, were subject to interpretation. He was particularly dismissive of the founders of the classical schools of Islamic law, whose writings, he felt, reflected the needs of their times but had little applicability to the modern age.
Chiragh `Alt’s writings were influential among Western-educated Muslims of the Aligarh school in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He championed education for women and was critical of polygamy and divorce. He also argued that slavery was incompatible with the true spirit of Islam. His favorable discussion of political reforms in the Ottoman empire was a factor, albeit a minor one, in the Indian Muslims’ growing sympathy for Turkey in the period before World War I.
[See also Aligarh and the biography of Ahmad Khan. ]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ahmad, Aziz. Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857-1964. London, 1967. Good general guide to intellectual modernism in Indian Islam.
Chiragh ‘Ali. The Proposed Political, Constitutional, and Legal Reforms in the Ottoman Empire and Other Mohammedan States. Bombay, 1883. Chiragh ‘Ali’s main exposition of his reformist ideas.
Hardy, Peter. The Muslims of British India. Cambridge, 1972. Short intellectual history of Muslims in nineteenth- and twentieth-century India, in political context.
Saksena, Ram Babu. A History of Urdu Literature. Reprint, Lahore, 1975. One of the better guides in English to Urdu authors’ lives and works.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Modern Islam in India. Rev. ed. Lahore, 1963. Provocative and original Marxist analysis of modernist thought in Indian Islam.
GAIL MINAULT

CASSETTES

Batoota — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 15:05:58 +0000

CASSETTES. Since the 1970s, the “little medium” of the audio cassette has become an important means of communication with a sociopolitical impact reaching far beyond the boundaries of the nation states. This medium differs in significant ways from the “big media,” particularly television and radio, which in much of the Islamic world have been a state monopoly pressed into serving national development projects of often repressive governments. Moreover, until recently the big media (which includes cinema) were characterized by centralization of production, distribution, exhibition, and control; one-way transmission of materials; and capital intensiveness, necessitating the existence of highly trained technical and professional infrastructures and equipment. Because of their contribution to monopolization of power, manipulation and homogenization of public opinion, and subversion of traditional and folk ways, these media have been considered negatively and distrusted by large segments of the so-called third and Islamic worlds.
The audio cassette, on the other hand, is potentially a two-way, grassroots medium which is reusable, durable, portable, and inexpensive. The production and distribution of cassettes need not be centralized, and their reception does not depend on a preexisting schedule (as do radio and television broadcasts) or on a special exhibition hall (as do films) or on an expensive playback unit (as do videocassettes). In terms of contents, cassettes can contain polished, studio-recorded productions or impromptu interviews, lectures, sermons, recitations, music and songs, and documentary materials. Tapes can be listened to individually or collectively and in diverse times and locations. Women and ethnic and religious minorities, traditionally shut off from the public sphere, can enter it through listening, re taping, and exchanging of cassettes. Through such activities the receivers of tapes can themselves become transmitters. As such, audio cassettes are not as prone as the big media are to centralized control, and they can be employed as an effective diversifying, participatory medium in support of alternative causes, minority aspirations, or revolutionary ideologies.
For cassettes to act as agents of social change and alternative religious discourse, certain enabling conditions must be present. These include the presence of a repressive and secular government, central hegemonic control of mass media, social and political inequality and turmoil, charismatic religious leaders and speakers, social institutions, such as churches and mosques and underground political groups, which can provide alternatives to the state ideology, traditional economic and social institutions and formations, such as bazaars and labor unions, which can provide financial assistance and networking infrastructure, linkage with expatriate groups, and a population that is orally oriented. The availability in recent years of efficient national and international telephone, low-cost publishing and duplicating, clandestine radio stations, and exile periodicals and radio and television programs abroad has proven to be instrumental in the further relay and propagation of cassettes’ messages to and from the nation states.
Two cautionary points must be remembered, however. First, each of these enabling conditions is not sufficient by itself to transform the little medium of audio cassette into one with a mighty social impact. Similar to all social changes, linkage, crossfertilization, and intertextuality among the aforementioned sociopolitical, economic, and technological forces is essential. Second, as illustrated by the cases of Iran and India (below)-in which resurgent Islam and Hindu chauvinism respectively resorted to cassettes-the use of such a potentially democratic, grassroot, “people’s” medium does not necessarily guarantee a progressive, democratic, or humane outcome.
Iran. Although audiotapes have been used to record and to listen to religious sermons in such Islamic countries as Afghanistan since the 1950s (Oliver Roy, “The Mujahidin and the Future of Afghanistan,” in The Iranian Revolution: Its Global Impact, edited by John L. Esposito, Miami, 1990, p. 187), it was the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that catapulted the small medium of audio cassettes into the pantheons of big media in terms of its sociopolitical impact within and beyond national borders. Because in Iran the cassette was so fully and effectively used in support of an Islamist social change, this case deserves elaboration.
In the decade leading up to the revolution, tapes of anti shah clandestine radio broadcasts, such as those by the Mujahidin-i Khalq organization, provided a link between guerrilla organizations and their sympathizers. But it was the use of audio cassettes by two charismatic leaders that demonstrated that when a number of the enabling conditions are met, audio cassettes can help produce significant social effect and political impact in fact, an alternative epistemic community sufficiently powerful to topple the powerful Pahlavi regime. The enabling institutions and formations included a network of between 60,000 and 200,000 mullahs with organic ties to the people and to some 90,000 mosques located throughout the country (Tehranian, 1980, pp. 17-18).
There were also numerous seminaries (hawzah -yi ilmiyah), religious councils (hay’at-i mazhabi) often sponsored by bazaar merchants and guilds, shrines (imdmzddah) and pilgrimage to them organized by the hay’ats, performance arenas (takkiyah), religious and secular salons (dawrah), religious community centers (husayniyah), and colleges and universities. Whether in cities or villages, in these locations religious leaders, scholars, and preachers would lecture, give sermons, pray, recite verses from the Qur’an, and recount tales of lamentations for the martyrdom of Shl’! imams (rawzah). Mourning ceremonies and religious processions and passion plays (ta’ziyah) would also take place at appropriate sites. The established networks of bazaars and guilds throughout the country and the emerging network of antishah leftist and guerrilla organizations provided financial, humanpower, and ideological support that further interlinked and imbricated these disparate institutions and practices. [See Bazaar; Guilds; Imamzadah; Husayniyah; Ta’ziyah.]
During the 1970s, many of the speeches of the Western-educated religious scholar, ‘Ali Sharl’ati, who combined a revisionist Islamist rereading of Shi’i ideology with Fanonist liberation ideology, were recorded at Mashhad University and the famous Husayniyah Irshad in Tehran. Many of the cassettes were subsequently transcribed and published in book form. Both the tapes and the books were clandestinely but widely distributed in Iran and abroad through the aforementioned nexus of institutions and formations. By mid 1970s, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini began sending from his exile in Iraq increasingly radical anti government messages by way of leaflets and cassettes. The tapes were transcribed and distributed by way of similar channels. When in 1978 he was forced into a double exile to France, his access to Western mass media increased greatly as did his taped messages, which were now more resolute and were transmitted by way of telephone lines to banks of cassette recorders in Tehran for duplication and distribution (Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1985, pp. 122-124). In Yazd, Ayatollah Saduqi’s house was apparently turned into a major cassette manufacturing center: four or five hours a day, half a dozen phone lines received Khomeini’s taped messages from Paris and duplicated them on cassettes at high speed for distribution (Mehdy Naficy, Klerus, Basar and die iranische Revolution [Hamburg, 1993] pp. 231-232).
The audio cassette medium proved to be highly suitable for the task of toppling the shah because it met many of the enabling conditions and because of two additional reasons: First, revolutionary speakers, such as Shari`ati and Khomeini, turned their lectures and pronouncements into powerfully crafted messages by taking advantage of the intimacy, immediacy, and interactivity of the “live” lecture situation; the narrative structure of Iranian oral and folk traditions; and the rhetorical, symbolic, and performative patterns of religious recitation, mourning and lamentation-so familiar to Iranians, literate or not. Second, the taped messages suited the oral orientation of the transnational electronic news media eager for sensational sound-bites. The political impact of the messages increased vastly when they became the source of news, quoted by Western news organizations, the Persian language programs of Western broadcasting agencies (particularly the BBC), and the anti government clandestine radios operating from outside Iran. Each important taped pronouncement from Khomeini or quotation based on it would cause widespread reaction in Iran that would in turn lead to another message, escalating the effect of the previous one. This complex interconnection of forces, media, technologies, and narrative forms turned the traditional local pulpit (minbar) into a powerful, interactive, transnational, long-distance, electronic pulpit.
In Iran, both the distribution and the reception of these cassettes defied the pervasive censorship system of the shah’s government, turning the exchange of tapes or the mere listening to them into acts of commitment and opposition. Immediately after the revolution, a wide array of religious and revolutionary tapes were distributed by the aforementioned networks and by the newly formed agencies, such as the Reconstruction Crusade, which claimed that in 1983 alone it had distributed 74,789 audio cassettes nationwide along with a profusion of other audiovisual materials (Naficy, 1992, p. 198). In the post revolution era, for a variety of sociopolitical reasons, the enabling mechanisms were disabled, causing the audio casstte genie in Iran to be put back in the bottle. However, the exile-produced Iranian pop music from Los Angeles and its wide availability in Iran-despite the official ban-proclaimed yet again a new tact in the long-distance, transnational cassette wars of cultures-this time against the reigning Islamist ideology (Naficy, 1993, pp. 54-58).
India. Audio cassettes containing nationalistic music and political speeches have been instrumental in fomenting or capitalizing on the vast existing religious, linguistic, and nationalistic divisions in India. One recent incident illustrates the manner in which this potentially liberating medium can become a tool of suppression and violence.
Since the 1980s Hindu chauvinists and Muslim militants have engaged in a series of escalating clashes and riots, which culminated in 1992 in the death of over one thousand people and the destruction of the Babri Masjid near Lucknow, a mosque that is said to have been built by the Mughal emperor Babur on the site of a Rama temple that he had destroyed. Before the incident, some Muslim leaders (such as Sayyid Shahabuddin and Imam al-Bukharii) had raised the stakes by promoting militancy and confrontation. But it was the inflammatory songs and speeches of firebrand Hindu chauvinists (like Uma Bharati and Sadhvi Ritambhara), distributed by way of videocassettes and audio cassettes that fanned the fires of intolerance and destruction against Muslims. There are deep-rooted mythological and real reasons for the Babri Masjid events, but according to Peter Manuel, who studied the audiocassettes produced during the events leading up to the destruction, they contained a basic recurring message that scapegoated and blamed the Muslims in India for much of the ills of India since its partition in 1948 and for a desire to capture Kashmir and the rest of the country.
On these cassettes, songs and incendiary speeches by male and female speakers repeatedly urged violent action to recapture the mosque, destroy it, and rebuild the temple on its ruins. Some of these cassettes, banned by the government, were the hottest-selling tapes of 1990. Other cassettes were apparently used by Hindus as sparks for Hindu-Muslim sectarian violence in Agra. These recordings, captured by the Agra police, contained Muslim or Hindu slogans (Allahu Akbar; Jai Shri Ram), blood-curdling screams (“help, help”; “kill, kill”), gunfire, and other sound effects. Street demonstrators or passing cars in the dead of the night played these cassettes at high volume to seed distrust and foment violence in both communities (Manuel, 1993, pp.250-256).
Afghanistan. Farghanachi Uzbek women and children who were refugees from Afghanistan and living in Karachi, Pakistan, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan used audio cassettes in an innovative way that corroborates the capability of this medium to transcend national boundaries and transform the discourse on gender relations 11 in the service of Islamic politics and ideologies. During the 1980s these women refugees led a rather traditional life in exile: ensconced within a closed circle of kinship and friendship, frequently visiting each other, wearing either the Afghani veil called chadara or the Saudi Arabian veil called hijab. Their communal activities centered around various rites of passage celebrations, religious study, and prayer. During these gatherings they would listen to and discuss one of the numerous cassettes purchased from stores in Pakistan.
Although some cassettes carried folk music and anti Afghani regime chants, the majority contained stories based on the Qur’an and the hadith that explained the importance of martyrdom and sacrifice in time of jihad (war against nonbelievers), particularly the ongoing one against the Soviet invaders and their Afghani collaborators. The stories, taped in Afghanistan during public sermons about the jihad were delivered by religious scholars and preachers in Dari that tended to unify the varied linguistic communities of refugees from Afghanistan. Since these cassettes had been taped during public sermons, many of them were dialogic, preserving the live audience-speaker interactions. In them male preachers consistently urged women to participate in this modern jihad by following the examples set by women in the early Islamic period. Audrey Shalinsky, who studied these tapes, reports that the stories of the courageous behavior of Muhammad’s womenfolk during the famous battle of Uhud and the vanquishing of the vengeful Hind the liver eater provided ideal role models of mother, wife, and daughter for these displaced women and children (1993 p. 661). Thrust into the extraordinary time of jihad, these model women had been able to transcend the boundaries of their traditional roles in order to fight the enemy.
These emotionally charged cassettes were popular with women and children, and to some degree they were successful in their political mission, since they energized some of the listeners to want to return to their homeland-not so much to be reunited with their families (thus fulfilling traditional patterns) as to participate in the on-going jihad. Both jihad and exile are liminal periods that raise questions about and tend to subvert established identities and traditional social structures.
Uzbekistan. In the former Soviet Union, during the Gorbachev era of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness), a shadow information network developed in Uzbekistan that appears to have been a challenge to the official mass media. Audio cassettes were part of this shadow network, which provided songs and speeches asserting Uzbek nationalism and Islamic ideology and culture. There are a few reports of the use of audio cassettes before the Gorbachev era. These indicate that the Sfifis in Uzbekistan, through their network of schools, mosques, and khanqah (Sufi teaching center) extensively used illegally produced “recorded samizdats” and recordings of stories glorifying per-Communist Turkistan (Alexander Bennigsen and Enders S. Wimbush, Mystics and Commissars: Sufism in the Soviet Union, Berkeley, 1985; H. B. Pakovsky, “The Deceivers,” Central Asian Survey 3.1 [1984]: 124-131; and H. B. Pakovsky, “Chora Batir: A Tartar Admonition to Future Generations,” Studies in Comparative Communism 19.3-4 [1986]: 253-265). That such an activity, then considered to be criminal and punishable, could be undertaken is an indication of the power of linkage between the small medium of cassette and a religious institution offering itself as an ideological alternative to the state.
During transition to independence, when mass media were still centrally controlled, cassettes containing music, comedy skits, and political and religious discussions became widely available in Uzbekistan cities and villages. They could be heard at home, in the bazaars, or at informal gatherings called gaps, causing a lengthy public discussion of the issues the tapes raised. Using the informal networks of distribution, Dadakhan Hasan, a politically active Uzbek singer, became one of the three most respected public figures in Uzbekistan in 199o (David Tyson, unpublished manuscript, 1992, pp. 16-19). In these cassettes containing nationalist songs interspersed with Islamist commentary, he blamed the social and moral malaise befalling Uzbekistan on Soviet colonialism and urged his listeners to work for political independence through Islamic unity and struggle. In addition to such analysis of a general nature, Hasan’s commentaries on specific events (such as the slaughter in June 199o of hundreds of Uzbeks, apparently at the hands of the Kyrgyz in Osh and Uzgen, Kyrgyzstan) provided an alternative, popular reading to that transmitted by the official mass media. In this case, the relative freedom of expression brought on by political openness allowed a charismatic figure to wed popular music with religiously informed political commentary, producing widely appealing oppositional products.
Indonesia. The case of Indonesia illustrates the intensity of cultural struggle over Islamic legitimacy by means of cassettes and the high cost that individuals can incur in that process. Islam forms the faith of 9o percent of the Indonesian population, yet it is not the official religion of this heterogeneous country. The multifaceted Islamic revival movement can be broken down into four groups here: traditionalists, radicals, fundamentalists, and revivalists. Each poses a different threat to the state, causing varied governmental responses including coercion, cooptation, establishment of an official Islamic support group, scapegoating of foreign governments, and creation of symbols of legitimacy (Fred von der Mehden, “The Political and Social Challenge of the Islamic Revival in Malaysia and Indonesia,” Muslim World 76 [July-October 1986]: 219-233). Of these measures, coercion is related to the subject of audio cassettes. In the late 1980s a number of sedition show trials were held in which Muslim preachers, spokespersons, and leaders were charged with fomenting specific violent acts through their writing and speeches which questioned the official ideology of pancasila (five principles) and supported an Islamic revolution. Individuals were also charged with publishing and distributing banned and seditious literature and “inflammatory” sermons and religious speeches. Stiff sentences were requested and handed down in these elaborate trials. For example, in 1985 the prosecution demanded that the accused, Ali Masrun Al Mudafar, a primary school teacher in Surabaya, be given a prison term of twenty years for teaching courses that aimed to undermine and overthrow the state and replace it with an Islamic state. He was further charged with copying the cassettes of speeches by religious figures Amir Biki and Sayrifin Maloko, distributing them free of charge, and broadcasting them over the radio station of the Surabaya Islamic Dakwan College (Indonesia Report, April log [25 May 1985]: 47; August log, no. 11 [September 1985]: 34). The reason for the stiff penalty demanded by the prosecutor was partly that the speech that Biki had delivered to a large crowd in Tanjung Priok in September 1984 had caused a street demonstration in which a hundred people had been shot and killed in cold blood by the police. Attempting to prevent further popularization of this inflammatory speech, the court sessions in which the tape was played were held in camera. Maloko himself was charged with subversion and sentenced to ten years in jail (Indonesia Mirror 5 [March 1987]: 1).
Even though many tapes of sermons and religious lectures had been in circulation in Indonesia and exported to Malaysia, the Tanjung Priok event forced the governments in both countries to become more sensitive to the power of cassettes. As a result, religious cassettes, even those recorded before the incident, were banned, such as those containing the sermons of the Indonesian Muslim preacher and scholar Abdul Qadir Djaelani. The following excerpt from one of his sermons, entitled “Die As Martyrs,” gives an indication of its powerful dialogic form:
My Muslim brothers, my call to you to die as martyrs is not mere talk. My call comes from the depth of my heart directed to your heart! (Loud shouts of approval) Are you ready to die as martyrs? (Loud shouts of “Yes!”) Are you really ready? (Louder shouts) You are not being hypocritical? (Loud shouts of “No!”) Are you sincere? (Loud shouts of “Yes!”) Then, God willing, we will face this situation gloriously! Let them know, I am ready to die as a martyr now, right now! (Loud shouts) If you want to join me, get ready now, brothers! (Loud shouts of “Ready! Ready!”) (Indonesia Report, Politics supplement, no. 13 [November 1985]: 2-3.)
In 1985 Djaelani was arrested and tried for subversion, with the prosecutor demanding the death sentence. He was declared guilty and sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment.
Iranian revolutionary and Shi’! thoughts, particularly those of `All Shari’ati, have penetrated into Indonesia (Fred von der Mehden, Two Worlds of Islam: Interaction Between Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Gainesville, 1993, pp. 87-91). Although cassette tapes of his lectures in Persian are not useful because of language differences, his translated books are available. And since many of these are revised transcripts of his speeches, they retain features of the spoken word and of oral narratives.
The use of audio cassettes for transnational propagation of Islamist ideologies and politics has gone beyond the Islamic countries. In North America, some of the cassettes are focused on the politics and societies of that region, such as those containing sermons, speeches, and Qur’anic recitations delivered by African-American Muslim preachers. These are available in Islamic bookstores. Other cassettes, although produced in the United States, aim to influence the politics of Middle Eastern societies. For example, for a number of years the tapes of sermons and speeches of Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman (`Umar `Abd al-Rahman), a charismatic Egyptian cleric preaching in New Jersey mosques, were distributed in Egypt. Highly influential from a position in exile, he has been regarded by Egyptian authorities to be the spiritual leader of the Islamic Jihad Organization, which advocates a violent overthrow of the Egyptian government and its replacement with an Islamic state (New York Times, 5 March 1993, p. I). [See the biography of Abdel Rahman] The broadcast of his taped speeches by the Party of God radio station in Lebanon and by other stations has expanded his influence beyond U.S. mosques and Egyptian borders. However, the shaykh’s public utterances came to a halt in 1993 with his arrest on the charge of involvement in the bombing of the World Trade Center building in New York City. [See also Communications Media.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Antoun, Richard. Muslim Preacher in the Modern World: A Jordanian Case Study in Comparative Perspective. Princeton; 1989. Analysis of the social organization of preachers, their rhetoric, and narratives. Boyd, Douglas A., et al. Videocassette Recorders in the Third World. New York, 1989. Useful analysis of the development and use of videocassettes (which has a bearing on audiocassettes) in the Arab world, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
Manuel, Peter. Popular Musics of the Non-Western World: An Introductory Survey. New York, 1988. Valuable survey of popular musics (including the impact of cassettes) in various non-Western areas, including the Arab and non-Arab Middle East.
Manuel, Peter. Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India. Chicago, 1993. Detailed discussion of the impact of audiocassettes in forming a popular culture that links music, cinema, and television with capitalist commodification practices. Mowlana, Hamid. “Technology versus Tradition: Communication in the Iranian Revolution.” Journal of Communication 29 (Summer 1979) 107-112. Early analysis of the Iranian Revolution from a communication theory standpoint.
Naficy, Hamid. “Islamizing Film Culture in Iran.” In Iran: Political Culture in the Islamic Republic, edited by Samih K. Farsoun and Mehrdad Mashayekhi, pp. 178-213. London and New York, 1992. Comprehensive analysis of the formation of a new cinema culture in postrevolutionary Iran.
Naficy, Hamid. The Making of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television in Los Angeles. Minneapolis, 1993. Theoretical and ethnographic analysis of the place of culture and cultural productions (including audiocassettes) in the formation of exilic identities.
Nelson, Kristina. The Art of Reciting the Qur’an. Austin, 1985. A thorough examination of the various arts of recitation of the Qur’an and their relationship to music.
Shalinsky, Audrey C. “Women’s Role in the Afghanistan Jihad.” InternationalJournal of Middle East Studies 25 (1993): 661-675. Detailed ethnographic study of Afghani women’s uses of audiocassettes about the anti-Soviet jihad.
Soley, Lawrence C., and John S. Nichols. Clandestine Radio Broadcasting: A Study of Revolutionary and Counterrevolutionary Electronic Communication. New York, 1987. Well-documented history of clandestine radio in the world, with sections on Islamic countries. Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle. “The Power of Tradition: Communication and the Iranian Revolution.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1985. Comprehensive study of the revolution through an examination of the various formal and informal communication systems involved.
Tehranian, Majid. “Communication and Revolution in Iran: The Passing of a Paradigm.” Iranian Studies 13.1-4 (198o): 5-30. Charts the shift in political and communication discourses from the Pahlavi to the Islamic era.
HAMID NAFICY

CARPETS

Batoota — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:51:22 +0000

CARPETS. The weaving of carpets is one of the most distinctive and characteristic of Islamic art forms, whether manifested in the more familiar pile carpets or the various flat-woven types. Found in a “rug belt” characterized for the most part by a dry and temperate climate, an abundance of marginal grazing land, and nomadic or seminomadic pastoral traditions, the heavy textiles we know as rugs or carpets are woven from Morocco to northern India and western China. Carpets were traditionally woven by and for all levels of Islamic society: court carpets were unique creations made to special order for the palace; commercial carpets were woven for sale in urban workshops; village and nomadic carpets served various domestic needs of their makers and were also made and sold as a source of cash. Because of their social embeddedness, carpets are among the most traditional and unchanging of Islamic art forms; yet because of their popularity in urban and Western markets, carpets are also paradoxically one of the traditional Islamic art forms most subject to influence from outside Islamic society. By the early nineteenth century, the four most important traditions of Islamic carpet weaving were those of Anatolia, Iran, Transcaucasia, and Turkic Central Asia.

Iranian carpet shop pic.courtesy:Irane7000saale.com

Anatolia. The carpets woven in the heartland of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, constitute the tradition of Islamic carpet-weaving that can be most continually documented since the fourteenth century. Woven in large part for export, by the beginning of the nineteenth century Anatolian carpet production was in decline owing to a shrinking market in Europe. Many local village and nomadic traditions of weaving, largely immune to outside economic pressure, had continued in virtually unbroken form for centuries, but commercial manufactories in west Anatolia in centers such as Ushak were moribund or began to produce machine-made goods in the Western taste for foreign markets. Gradually, in response to growing European and American demand, Anatolian handwoven carpet production increased over the century, largely under a piecework system but also, in the case of larger carpets, in urban weaving factories. Demand for the more traditional village carpets also increased during this century, and the carpets associated with the areas of Milas, Bergama, and the northwestern Anatolian coast, as well as with Mujur, Karapinar, Kirshehir, and Ladik in the west-central Anatolian plain, were produced in ever-increasing numbers. New commercial centers of manufacture, notably in urban Kayseri in central Anatolia, Bandirma in the northwest, and the areas around Gordes and Kula in the west, used the piecework system for the weaving of small seccade (Ar., sajjddah) or prayer-sized carpets (around I by 1.5 meters) for foreign markets; the designs and colors of their products, while reliant on traditional motifs, reflected the demands of the marketplace more than did those of the traditional village carpets. In 1843, the Hereke factory on the Marmara near Istanbul was founded by imperial decree, and in 1891 began producing pile carpets in a variety of traditional and persianized designs. Sometime after 186o commercial aniline dyestuffs from central Europe flooded Anatolia and quickly replaced the more laborious traditional methods of dyeing wool with vegetal dyestuffs and imported natural indigo. The aniline dyes blighted several generations of Anatolian carpets whose faded purples, jarring oranges, and fugitive reds continued well into the twentieth century, when they were sometimes replaced by harsh but permanent commercial chromium dyes. Another innovation of the later nineteenth century was the introduction of the commercial “wash” process, by which the naturally brilliant hues of traditional carpets were chemically muted or altered. Even the products of village and nomadic weaving in Turkey were often affected by these technical innovations, since the dyeing of wool was often a specialized process done in larger towns, and the weaver had no control over the alteration of a carpet’s color once it had been purchased by a middleman.
The fortunes of Anatolian carpet-weaving waxed and waned with taste and economy in the twentieth century. The Turkish war of independence resulted in massive population dislocations around traditional rug-weaving centers in west and central Anatolia; new immigrants, refugees from political turmoil in Transcaucasia and the Balkans, resettled in Anatolia, often bringing their own carpet-weaving traditions with them. The growth of serious carpet-collecting in Europe in the late nineteenth century and the establishment of the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum in Istanbul in 1908 helped keep alive respect for the great traditions of early nineteenth-century weaving with their strong historical roots. But by the 1960s, most new carpets woven in Turkey were pale shadows of their historical forebears, and the fashion for broadloom carpets in the West had significantly reduced exports.
In the 1970s, an explosion in European collectors’ interest in Turkish carpets resulted in skyrocketing prices for old carpets and in attempts by contemporary Turkish carpet-weavers to cater to the growing sophistication in European taste. A remarkable revival of traditional dyeing methods and a concomitant return to traditional carpet designs reflecting examples found in museums were supported by the growth of government-sponsored cooperatives such as the DOBAG project (see figure 2), centered in two traditional west Anatolian weaving areas and soon joined by a host of free-market imitators.
Turkish and foreign scholarship produced a flood of books on traditional carpet-weaving; major American and European museums mounted exhibitions of Turkish carpets; and in Istanbul two new museums devoted to pile and flat-woven carpets were opened by the Directorate of Pious Foundations. By the early 1990s the Turkish carpet industry was producing carpets of markedly improved quality in record quantities.
Transcaucasia. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century carpets from the Caucasus find their design roots in the seventeenth century and later, in the large commercial carpets of the south and east Caucasus derived from earlier Persian examples. Local traditions of village weaving seem to have endured through the nineteenth century, resulting in a limited production of small carpets in traditional designs, but the middle to later nineteenth century saw an explosion in production, primarily of seccade-sized rugs and other small formats. These small carpets, produced in various locales in widely varying knot density and designs, pose special problems for the carpet historian because of the patchwork of nationalities inhabiting Transcaucasia. Documentary sources indicate that the majority of the weavers were Muslims, while the functions of dyeing and marketing and a good deal of local patronage came from the prosperous Armenian communities in the south Caucasus. Around I9oo production seems to have reached its zenith; Caucasian rugs were inexpensive, they were much in vogue in New England, and they were marketed both in their original colors and in chemically washed versions. Some locales used aniline dyes extensively in their weaving, but others appear to have been virtually untouched by the aniline blight. Nineteenth-century Caucasian rugs became a serious interest of collectors in Britain and the United States around I9oo, reaching the latter in vast quantities and marketed by a burgeoning community of immigrant Armenian rug dealers around the country.
After the sovietization of Transcaucasia in the early I92os, a renewed production of Caucasian carpets in traditional designs was begun under the export-oriented New Economic Policy of the Soviets. These carpets, of high technical quality and woven in impeccably authentic nineteenth-century designs, are as popular among many contemporary collectors as their forebears, despite their use of somewhat harsh and metallic chromium dyes. By the late I92os, however, carpet production in the Caucasus was in deep decline, and export markets for Soviet goods in the West dried up. By the late twentieth century there was little new carpet production of consequence emerging from the Caucasus, although the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in a flood of older goods reaching Middle Eastern and European markets. The national governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan have recently promoted the study of older carpets, and museums of carpet history and institutes for carpet design and production exist in both states.
Iran. The mid-eighteenth-century Afghan invasion that brought an end to the Safavid dynasty in Iran also brought about a collapse in the Iranian economy that the emerging nineteenth-century provincial dynasties were unable completely to overcome. The glorious past traditions of urban weaving in Iran were by the middle of the nineteenth century largely in decline, although various village and nomadic weavers continued to produce carpets for their own use. In the later nineteenth century, however, simultaneous with the revival of weaving in Anatolia and Transcaucasia, Iran experienced a remarkable revival in carpet-making that once again brought the Iranian weaving tradition to international prominence. By 1880 merchants from Tabriz, later joined by foreign entrepreneurs, brought about a renaissance in urban rug-weaving in Iran. By adapting the Iranian traditions of weaving large, regularly woven, intricately designed carpets-whose many-plied cotton warps and carefully supervised production made them lie flat and square-to new sizes suitable for the proportions of European and American middleclass living and dining rooms, hallways, foyers, parlors, and bedrooms, the new entrepreneurs quickly created a huge market for Iranian carpets. Companies such as OCM (Oriental Carpet Manufacturers) and Ziegler, based in Britain, controlled urban weaving factories in many Iranian cities and sometimes operated their own design ateliers. Looms were constructed and placed through the piecework system in urban and village homes around the country, and local design workshops produced distinctive regional designs of varying quality. By the early twentieth century the urban looms of Kashan, Tabriz, Kerman, and Mashhad were producing finely woven carpets with intricate designs, while distinctive local products were woven all over the country, with major centers in the Kurdish areas of Bijar and Sanadaj (Sehna), in the Arak district (home of Feraghan and Sarouk carpets), and in Iranian Azerbaijan (site of Heriz and Serab weavings). Stringent government action to discourage the use of aniline dyes was effective in many parts of Iran, although the process of color alteration through “washing” was commonly used in European marketing centers; another phenomenon known as “washing and painting” resulted in the bleaching out of a rug’s original colors and the substitution of chromium dyes “painted” on the rug in an entirely different palette. Between the World Wars carpet-weaving in Iran slackened, but after World War II new centers for the production of extremely fine rugs woven in traditional sixteenthand seventeenth-century designs were established in Isfahan, Qom, and Nayyin (see figure 3). The Pahlavi regime promoted rug-weaving not so much for economic reasons as for its symbolic importance as a national cultural achievement; in the early 1970s a Carpet Museum was established in Tehran. In the meantime, a growing interest on the part of western collectors in traditional village nomadic weaving from Iran resulted in attempts to produce modern carpets in Yalameh and Ardebil that reflected these traditions of design.
The flight of many carpet merchants and their inventories prior to 1978, the large stockpiles of Iranian rugs in the warehouses of the great European companies, and a porous Iran-Turkey border kept Iranian rugs in Western markets during trade embargo following the Iranian revolution, without much benefit to Iranian weavers or merchants. By the early 1990s, the Iranian government decided to sponsor new efforts to expand carpet exports and invited foreign collectors and dealers to an international conference and trade fair in Tehran in 1992, but the Iranian carpet industry faced serious competition from Iranian-style carpets produced in India, Turkey, Pakistan, China, and Rumania; traditional village and nomadic weaving, meanwhile, had undergone a great decline after the revolution.
Central Asia. The Turkmen peoples of Central Asia have probably woven carpets for well over a millennium, but these carpets appear to have been produced almost entirely for their own consumption; thus examples of Turkmen weaving from before 1800 are both rare and difficult to date precisely. In the early nineteenth century the six major Turkmen rug-weaving tribes-the Salor, Saryk, Yomut, Chaudor, Tekke, and Ersari-saw chaotic change with the expansion of the Russian empire, turmoil in Afghanistan and Iran, and intertribal warfare in Central Asia. The Salor and Saryk tribes were eventually overcome by the more warlike Tekke before the latter were defeated by the Russians in the battle of Gok Tepe in 1881. Traditional Turkmen tribal carpets woven before the middle of the nineteenth century are distinguished by designs and techniques peculiar to each tribe and subtribe and by a variety of genres, including pentagonal camel-trappings, tentbands, and utilitarian bags peculiar to the nomadic weaving traditions; the predominant dyestuff used in these carpets was madder, giving a variety of reds and red-browns from scarlet to mahogany.
Because of their relative isolation from the forces of modernity and their geographical remoteness from Western markets, Turkmen weavers managed to preserve their traditional weaving practices through most of the nineteenth century, although aniline dyes had made their way into Central Asia by the last two decades of the century. The ascendance of the Tekke resulted in the subordination of the older traditions of the Salor and Saryk; the northern Ersari, who were settled in villages along the Oxus by the nineteenth century, were influenced by the weaving of Iran to the south. At the end of the nineteenth century the opening of a Russian railway into Bukhara led to the first significant appearance of Turkmen rugs in European markets, not surprisingly
under the misnomer “Bukhara carpets.” Production of carpets continued after sovietization of the Turkmen and Uzbek republics, but with the forced settlement of the formerly nomadic tribes, the many genres of weaving associated with the nomadic tent and tribal festivities quickly disappeared to be replaced by rectangular floor carpets for export made with brilliant and sometimes jarring chromium dyes. Weaving continued on a reduced level of quantity and quality under the Soviets; the reproduction of traditional Turkmen designs in cheap cotton-warped factory rugs made in Pakistan, coupled with the preference of collectors for the older carpets, contributed to the decline of Turkmen weaving by the late twentieth century.
Carpets and Culture. As Islamic nation-states attempt to find living expressions of their cultural identity, as Western museums and collectors expand their notions of what art is and what constitutes the legitimate subject of a collector’s interest, and as an eclectic and historically aware aesthetic of interior decoration flourishes in the late twentieth century, many parts of the Islamic world are witnessing an increase in rug production, against all predictions made in the early 1970s by historians of carpets. The economic needs of oil-poor third-world Islamic nations, the rising appreciation of Islamic art in the West, and most of all a rising appreciation of national cultural traditions in the Islamic world itself have fueled this phenomenon. How long it will last in the face of economic and social change is still a matter for speculation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bruggemann, Werner, and Harold Bohmer. Rugs of the Peasants and Nomads of Anatolia. Munich, 1983. Exhibition catalog with an extensive discussion of more recent Anatolian rug weaving, and a chapter on the reintroduction of traditional dyestuffs.
Denny, Walter B. Oriental Rugs. New York, 1979. General introduction to the history and major groups of Islamic carpets.
Eiland, Murray. Oriental Rugs: A Comprehensive Guide. Rev. and exp. ed. Boston, 1976. General rug manual with extensive information on nineteenth- and twentieth-century production in the major Islamic weaving areas.
Eiland, Murray. Chinese and Exotic Rugs. Boston, 1979. Companion volume to the same author’s Oriental Rugs; covers peripheral weaving areas from Morocco to China.
Hillmann, Michael C. Persian Carpets. Austin, 1984. Discussion of later and contemporary Iranian carpets.
Landreau, Anthony, ed. Yoruk: The Nomadic Weaving Tradition of the Middle East. Pittsburgh, 1978. Exhibition catalog dealing with nineteenth- and twentieth-century nomadic carpets.
Landreau, Anthony, and W. R. Pickering. From the Bosporus to Samarkand: Flat-Woven Rugs. Washington, D.C., 1969. Exhibition catalog focusing on carpets in the various flat-woven techniques. Mackie, Louise W., and Jon Thompson, eds. Turkmen: Tribal Carpets and Traditions. Washington, D.C., 198o. Exhibition catalog, with important contributions by leading scholars on the history, context, and weaving of Turkmen carpets.
Thompson, Jon. Oriental Carpets from the Tents, Cottages, and Workshops of Asia. New York, 1988. Fine general introduction to the medium of carpets and their place in traditional and modern IsIamic culture.
Wright, Richard. Rugs and Flatweaves of the Transcaucasus. Pittsburgh, 198o. Exhibition catalog with commentary on nineteenth and twentieth-century Caucasian carpets by the leading authority in the field.
WALTER B. DENNY

CANADA

Batoota — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:39:17 +0000

CANADA. Muslim immigration to Canada began in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but the great majority of Canadian Muslims are recent immigrants. For most, emigration from their ancestral lands involved dramatic changes from hegemonic to minoritarian status and from a setting where Muslim religious values are reinforced to a predominantly Christian country that sometimes assumes religious uniformity among its citizens. That context presents particular challenges to Canadians of Muslim heritage.

Baitul Islam Mosque, Maple, Ontario, Canada

Most of the early Muslim pioneers came from Turkey and the territory under Turkish Ottoman rule known as Greater Syria, and some from South Asia. Reportedly there were 13 Muslims in Canada in 1871, 300 to 400 in 1901, and about 1,500 in 1911. Between 1911 and 1931 the size of the Canadian Muslim community declined to 645 owing to the departure of many Turkish immigrants who were classified as enemy aliens during World War I. Additionally, the 1907 government restrictions on the admission of immigrants from Asia reduced Muslim immigration to a trickle. Those able to immigrate to Canada tended to be part of a chain migration of relatives and people from the same villages. The resulting communities were closely knit, primarily Sunni and “Syrian” (Arab) in origin.
During this period before and immediately after World War II most of the expansion in the Muslim community came from natural increase (births over deaths). After 1951, however, community growth became much more a product of immigration. There were between 2,000 and 3,000 Muslim residents in Canada in 1951. By 1971 this figure had multiplied more than tenfold to 33,370; in 1981, it had tripled to 98,160. Between 1981 and 1991 the Muslim population grew dramatically, rising by 158 percent to 253,260. Nearly eight out of ten Canadian Muslims were born outside Canada (mostly in Asian and African countries), and most entered after 1965. They included a large number of refugees from Lebanon, Iran, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Bosnia.
Most Canadian Muslims are Sunni. In addition there are various Shi’i groups, including Isma’ilis and Twelvers. It is estimated that Sunnis are in the majority (about 70 percent), followed by Isma’ilis (20 percent), with Twelvers and other groups such as the Druze and Ahmadis (Qadianis) accounting for the balance.
The Muslim population of Canada is ethnically diverse as well. About ninety percent claim a single ethnic origin. Of these more than 82 percent were of Asian and North African descent, including Indo-Pakistanis (numerically the most dominant), followed next by West Asian and North African Arabs and then by Iranians, and Turks, plus a very small percentage of East and Southeast Asians, including Chinese and Filipinos. The remainder (18 percent) represents a wide range of ethnic origins, including European (mostly Balkan but also British and French), African, African-American, Caribbean, “Canadian,” and others, reflecting the diversity of worldwide Islam. Of Canada’s two official languages, about 30 percent of Canadian Muslims reported English as their mother tongue in 1991, while only 2 percent claimed French. Most reported the language of their country of origin as their mother tongue. The Muslim population’s age distribution is relatively youthful. Historically, more Muslim males than females have entered as immigrants; today there are about 120 males per loo females among Muslims. The average educational background of Canadian Muslims exceeds the national average, especially among males.
Muslim men appear to be well placed in Canadian society, with a large majority falling in the “professional” or “white-collar” occupational category. Prominent Muslims have held positions as provincial cabinet ministers or provincial court judges. Muslim women are much less represented in the professions and, despite their superior educational attainment, they are less well placed occupationally than Canadian women in general. The average employment income of Muslims, especially women, is about 1o percent lower than the income for equivalent Canadians in general.
The great majority of Canadian Muslims live in large urban areas. The province of Ontario is home to 57 percent of Muslims; other provinces with large Muslim concentrations include Quebec (18 percent), Alberta (12 percent), and British Columbia (1o percent).
The Al-Rashid Mosque in Edmonton, Alberta, the first of its kind in Canada and one of the oldest in North America, was completed in 1938. It was constructed through the efforts of a small number of Muslim families, primarily in Alberta and Saskatchewan, with support and funding from non-Muslims as well. Both men and women played important roles in the development of the mosque and its administration. For two decades it was the only mosque in Canada. The original structure is now preserved in a historical park honoring early Canadian pioneers. Mosques are now found in all major Canadian cities; in addition, some Muslim groups hold religious prayers and observances in public buildings. Muslim religious leaders or imams are often brought in from different parts of the Muslim world to attend to the social and spiritual needs of the local community. Other important Muslim institutions include religious and language schools. Community links are reinforced through newsletters, journals, and newspapers.
A number of important religious and charitable institutions have appeared, both local and national. At the national level, the Council of Muslim Communities of Canada (CMCC), founded in 1972, is an important umbrella organization. The CMCC grew out of a commitment to self-help and a perceived need to develop an integrated approach to issues facing the Canadian Muslim community. It is a member of the Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada. The Canadian Council of Muslim Women, established in 1982, brings women together in a national organization with a focus on women’s rights, gender equality, Islamic education, appreciation of Muslim cultural differences, and outreach with women of different religious backgrounds. Another important umbrella organization is the Toronto-based Ismaili National Council for Canada, which coordinates the activities of all branch regional councils.
Other major organizations include the Muslim World League (Canada branch), which has an active office in the Toronto area; the Toronto-based Canadian Muslim Education and Research Institute, which is in the process of developing a resource guide on Islam; and the Muslim Research Foundation, an international organization established in 1985 to enhance global understanding of Muslims and Islam through research and publication. Organizations focusing on international development include the Children of Islamic Nations (COIN), the Ismaili national and regional councils that link with various Aga Khan foundations, and the International Development and Refugee Foundation (IDRF), which emphasizes an Islamic approach to social and economic development. Across Canada organizations of Muslim students are common.
There have been at least three major waves of Muslim immigration to Canada: one beginning at the end of the nineteenth century up through World War II, the second from the postwar era to around 1967, and the third and largest wave from 1967 to the present. Each immigration cohort had distinctive formative experiences in adapting to Canada and made distinctive contributions to Canadian society, and the descendants of each form distinct cohorts. Superimposed on this is the diversity resulting from varied national, cultural and linguistic origins, educational and occupational experiences, and income levels. More recent immigrants have far greater contact with relatives in their ancestral lands and oldcountry ways. As a result, different cohorts and generations of Canadian Muslims may have differing views on religious observances and practices. Generally speaking, immigrants (who are in the majority) tend to be less accommodating in their conception of Islam than are the Canadian-born Muslims.
Muslim immigrants came to Canada largely from countries where their religion was taken for granted and institutional supports for practicing it were plentiful. The challenge of their new environment has been felt not only by individual Muslims and families but also by the Muslim community as a whole. At one level, the challenge is internal to the community but at another level it is societal in scope. For example, differences in political or ideological attitudes within the community, sometimes glaring and sometimes more nuanced, tend to appear in the context of international crises such as the Gulf War or of newsworthy events, for example, the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. During the Gulf War allegations of dangers from “internal terrorism,” knowledge that Canada in past wars had detained “enemy” groups, and Canada’s position in this war were difficult for Canadian Muslims. This resulted in unfavorable news coverage and actual (if underreported) harassment. Muslim organizations and individuals made representations to the media and government. The federal government organized advisory groups of community leaders and organizations in response. This resulted in increased awareness and somewhat more evenhanded media coverage of Canadian Muslims and their religious practices. For example, Ramadan is sometimes given press coverage and even congratulatory front-page headlines.
Nonetheless, popular television and film programming continue to be major sources of distortion and libel regarding Islam and Muslims. In recent years, more immigrants have brought traditional dress codes to Canada, specifically the veil (hijab). The visibility of the hijab and a common Canadian association of it with female oppression makes it controversial in the larger society, but most who wear it do so without harassment. By contrast, the predominantly African cultural practice of female circumcision (clitoridectomy) has been reported among some recent immigrants (particularly Somalis), and it is highly controversial. Even among Muslims such sharply divergent cultural practices can undermine community unity. [See Hijab; Clitoridectomy.]
At a broader societal level, prejudice surfaces intermittently against non-British, non-American, and non Western European immigrants. In addition, Muslim immigrants represent a region of the world where the geopolitical interests of the West are strong and where there are frequent confrontations between Muslim and foreign interests. Negative images and stereotypes of Muslims and Islam are also encountered in the entertainment media (radio and television), popular literature, and cartoons, as well as the cinema. The Gulf War increased displays of prejudice as Arab and non-Arab members of the Canadian Muslim community were harassed, intimidated, and vandalized, as well as being rumored targets of government internment. Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East and more recently in the Bosnian conflict creates additional difficulties for Canadian Muslims.
The community faces a number of important issues. At the internal level, Canadian Muslims are still grappling with the issue of internal diversity. The issue of diversity is not unknown in many of the countries from which these immigrants came, but it is made more complex in the Canadian environment partly because of their newly acquired minority status and partly because of new national, cultural, and ideological mixture. Although religion bonds people together, apart from religious activities interethnic contacts tend to be limited. A major issue confronting the contemporary Muslim community is how to unite into a coherent whole.
Another issue facing the community concerns the difficulty of practicing the faith in a nonfacilitative, Christian environment. Observing prayer five times a day and dietary restrictions requires immense resistance to pressures from the larger community. Somewhat related is the issue of how to preserve the Islamic cultural heritage while facilitating Muslim integration into the Canadian secular mainstream and, more importantly, how to transmit the heritage effectively to the Canadian-born generation. For parents the marriageability of their children is of primary importance, and pressures toward ingroup marriage are strong, particularly among immigrant parents. There tends to be greater control over daughters than sons and greater tolerance for a son’s dating and marrying a non-Muslim woman, which contributes to a greater incidence of outmarriage among males and leaves a pool of eligible Muslim females. In 1981 about one-fifth of Muslim husbands and one-tenth of Muslim wives were married to non-Muslims (excluding converts). These figures have implications for the transmission of religious heritage. Studies indicate that where both parents are Muslim, practically all their children are Muslim; where only the father is Muslim, 36 percent of the children are Muslim, and where only the mother is Muslim, 23 percent are. Within each family type, Canadian-born Muslims are less likely to have children who are Muslim.
Concerns regarding the training of children link with the fact that the legacy of Muslim achievement and contributions to Western civilization are not widely known in Canada. This is reflected in school textbooks and in the training of public school teachers. The concern of Muslim groups about children’s education has been repeatedly expressed by identifying shortcomings in textbook coverage of Islam and, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, by pressing school boards to broaden the traditional Judeo-Christian perspective to include Islamic values in school programs in moral and religious education.
Gender-related concerns are central for Canadian Muslims, including issues relating to defining propriety in male and female behavior; the tradition of male kin’s control over the actions and dress of women and girls, youth, dating, marriage, and possible intermarriage; and the family and public roles of men and women. This continuing interplay of external and internal issues tends to reflect duration of residency as well as ethnic origin and religious identification.
Despite pockets of bigotry and ignorance, there is a tradition of tolerance in Canada. Muslim and nonMuslim activists are working toward improved understanding between faith communities, and Muslim groups have begun to monitor ways in which the larger society misrepresents or distorts Islam, denies Muslims rights, or restricts their ability to practice their faith or transmit it to their children. With respect to the community itself, diversity in interpretation, practice, and cultural tradition presents challenges. As the Canadian Muslim community moves toward the twenty-first century it continues to address issues surrounding adaptation to Canadian society within the framework of Islamic principles.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abu-Laban, Baha. An Olive Branch on the Family Tree: The Arabs in Canada. Toronto, 1980.
Abu-Laban, Baha, and M. Ibrahim Alladin, eds. Beyond the Gulf War: Muslims, Arabs, and the West. Edmonton, Alta., 1991. Abu-Laban, Sharon McIrvin. “The Co-Existence of Cohorts: Identity and Adaptation among Arab-American Muslims.” Arab Studies Quarterly 11 (1989): 45-63.
Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck. “Islam.” In The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2d ed., vol. z, pp. 1097-1098. Edmonton, Alta., 1988.
Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck. “Muslims in Canada: A Preliminary Study.” In Religion and Ethnicity, edited by Harold Coward and Leslie S. Kawamura, pp. 71-100. Waterloo, Ont., 1978.
Husaini, Zohra. Muslims in the Canadian Mosaic: Socio-Cultural and Economic Links with Their Countries of Origin. Edmonton, Alta., 1990.
Rashid, Asma. The Muslim Canadians: A Profile. Ottawa, 1985. Religions in Canada/Statistics Canada. Ottawa, 1993. Census of Canada, 1991, catalogue number 93-319
Waugh, Earle H., Baha Abu-Laban, and Regula B. Qureshi, eds. The Muslim Community in North America. Edmonton, Alta., 1983. Waugh, Earle H., Sharon McIrvin Abu-Laban, and Regula B. Qureshi, eds. Muslim Families in North America. Edmonton, Alta., 1991.
BAHA ABU-LABAN and
SHARON MCIRVIN ABU-LABAN

CAMEROON

Batoota — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:39:46 +0000

CAMEROON. The Republic of Cameroon in West Central Africa is a microcosm of African diversity. Inhabited by some 12 million people in 1993, it has a Muslim population of about 21 percent, most of whom live in the northern part of the country. Islam was introduced in this region earlier than the nineteenth century, although it was only after 1 8o6 that it experienced its greatest success there. Islamic expansion was facilitated by the fact that what later became German Cameroon (1884-1916), then French Cameroon and British Cameroon (1916-196o), was located in the Central Sudan belt that had encountered Islam much earlier. The Islamic revolution initiated by Usuman Dan Fodio in 1804 was the catalyst that made northern Cameroon a stronghold of the faith. [See the biography of Dan Fodio.]

mosque in ngaoundere cameroon

The greatest carriers of Islam in West Central Africa during the nineteenth century were the Fulani, a pastoral nomadic group from Futa Jalon, Futa Toro, and the Senegal Valley in West Africa who swept through the Sahel at the onset of the seventeenth century and spread their faith among the sedentary peoples. Their conversion method was the jihad as well as persuasion (whenever possible) through the work of long-distance merchants, learned men, and, during the nineteenth century and later, the work of organized brotherhoods such as the Qadiriyah and Tijaniyah. The greatest apostle of Islam in northern Cameroon was Modibo Adama (1786-1848), son of Hassan from the Ba family of Gourin on the Faro River, who studied in Bornu. In 18o6, Usuman Dan Fodio gave this fiery scholar the authorization to expand Islam into the areas comprising northern Cameroon and northern Chad.
Adama subsequently brought his zeal and his armies to northern Cameroon and made Yola the capital of his Islamic empire, which he named Adamawa after himself; he subdued or drove to the mountains and valleys the indigenous traditionalist population, whom the Fulani called kirdi (pagans). Some of the traditionalists converted to Islam in substantial numbers, including the Bamun, who established a sultanate in Foumban with which both the Germans and the French had to contend, especially during the reign of Sultan Njoya (1896-1933) Njoya became a threat to the French occupation, who deposed him in 1923 and exiled him to Yaounde, where he died in 1933.
Adama created a series of chiefdoms (lamidats) under his sons; twenty-one of these units survived until the 1980s. A lamidat was run by a political and religious leader known as the lamido, who was elected by a council of twelve. A lamidat had a feudal structure, including an aristocracy (the Fulani, joined by Arab, Hausa, and Bornuan settlers), the converted kirdi locals, and the slaves (matchoube). The matchoube, who could also be sold, were used by the conquering Fulani in agricultural work and even in the production of objects of art and in metallurgy.
Notwithstanding the rivalries among the lamidats, the Adamawa Islamic empire was flourishing when the Germans arrived during the 1 880s. The lamidos declared several jihads against them, and in 1888 the lamido of Tibati assaulted and defeated a German contingent, forcing it to retreat to Nigeria, and repelled another German occupying force under Captains Morgan and Stelten in 1893. On 24 November 1894 the lamido of Rey clashed with German forces under General Passarge. Tibati was finally subdued in 1899, and Rey was occupied in 1901-1902. By 1902 the Germans had finally succeeded in “pacifying” the Islamic country from Ngaoundere to Maroua.
The Fulani lamidats were left almost alone under the system of indirect rule by both the Germans and the French. Until independence Cameroonian Muslims considered Western education as poison to their children. In some cases, for example, Fulani aristocrats would send their slaves’ children rather than their own to Western schools. Resistance to westernization was such that the Germans forbade Christian missionaries from proselytizing in the area. As a result, apart from the few Qur’anic schools, there were no educational institutions in the north before independence. The economic situation was aggravated by the region’s poor soil. Both the Germans and the French concentrated their developmental programs in other parts of the territory. When independence came in 196o the developmental imbalance in the country was obvious, and most political power was centered in the south, with the differences sharpened by the religious factor. Even during the mid1980s, while 9o percent of the school-age children attended primary school in the former Centre-South and Littoral provinces, only 31 percent were in school in the north.
What guaranteed Muslim influence in the new Cameroon(s) was the assumption of power by Ahmadou Ahidjo, half-Fulani and a devout Muslim born in Garoua. Ahidjo founded his Union Camerounaise in 1958, combining five small, predominantly Muslim political groups from the north, and became premier that year and later president of Cameroon (1960-1982). Under Ahidjo northern influence was considerable. Northerners protected the regime and the president by heading the Ministry of Defense and by dominating the elite Republican Guard, which was predominantly Muslim. Moreover, during Ahidjo’s regime several northern politicians became department ministers, party secretariesgeneral, judges, and important businessmen. Ahidjo also initiated a bold “affirmative action program” aimed at the underprivileged areas of the country, with the north as the major beneficiary of government developmental programs. With the sudden departure of Ahidjo in 1982, northern influence in the country diminished, particularly after the attempted coups of February and April 1984, in which Ahidjo himself, some of his former northern supporters, and the Republican Guard were implicated.
Although tensions based on religious, social, economic, and political differences between north and south have subsided recently, there is a degree of uneasiness in the country. The fact that the predominantly Muslim north in neighboring Chad toppled a southernbased and non-Muslim regime makes Cameroonian politicians apprehensive about the future. This fear is heightened by the fact that northern Cameroon straddles the Muslim belt, with strong cosmopolitan ties with Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, North Africa, and the Middle East, where Islamic fundamentalist movements are emerging. The Muslim world, in fact, has noted the strength of Islam in the country: Saudi Arabia, as a gesture to Ahidjo’s birthplace and to the Islamic community, built the most beautiful and spacious mosque in the country during the 1970s in Garoua.
The yearly pilgrimage of Cameroonian Muslims to Mecca has been going on for centuries, but new communication and transportation systems have made the hajj easier. Furthermore, the number of Muslims in the country has steadily grown over the years (from 395,000 in former East Cameroon in 1986, to 700,000 in the 1980s, and to an estimated 2.3 million during the early 1990s). While colonization stopped the forceful conversion of Traditionalists, it accelerated Islamic expansion through improvement in communication and transportation and through the enhancement of Islamic society, since administrators (often out of fear) respected Islamic traditions and structures and employed learned Muslim civil servants rather than Traditionalist Africans. The active brotherhoods, which had tended to be more receptive to africanization (including African leadership, tolerance of African traditions, and considerable nonArab or non-Fulani membership), have been an extremely important vehicle for the spread of Islam both in Cameroon and in other parts of West Central Africa. Active expansion continued after independence, and it appears that, despite the problems, the future of Islam in Cameroon is bright.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Atterbury, Anson P. Islam in Africa. New York, 1889.
Azarya, Victor. Aristocrats Facing Change: The Fulbe in Guinea, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Chicago, 1978.
Fisher, Alan G. B., and Humphrey J. Fisher. Slavery and Muslim Society in Africa. Garden City, N.Y., 1972.
Holt, P. M., et al., eds. The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 2. Cambridge, 1970.
Kerekes, Tibor, ed. The Arab Middle East and Muslim Africa. New York, 1961.
Kettani, M. Ali. Muslim Minorities in the World Today. London, 1986. Lapidus, Ira. A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge, 1989.
Nimtz, August H., Jr. Islam and Politics in East Africa. Minneapolis, 198o.
Nieuma, M. Z. Fulani Hegemony in Yola (Old Adamawa), 1809-1902. Buea, Cameroon, 1978.
Stoddard, Philip H., et al., eds. Change and the Muslim World. Syracuse, N.Y., 1981.
Tikku, Girdhari L., ed. Islam and Its Cultural Divergence: Studies in Honor of Gustave E. Von Grunebaum. Urbana, Ill., 1971. Trimingham, J. Spencer. Islam in West Africa. Oxford, 1959. Trimingham, J. Spencer. A History of Islam in West Africa. London, 1962.
Voll, John Obert. Islam, Continuity, and Change in the Modern World. Boulder, 1982.
MARIO J. AZEVEDO

CAMBODIA

Batoota — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:38:21 +0000

CAMBODIA. The great Angkor civilization that began in the eighth century and survived until the seventeenth was centered in present-day Cambodia. It was followed by incessant wars with neighboring Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam until Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863. French rule lasted until 1953, when an independent Cambodia was once again established. However, this was followed by a civil war that ended with the success of the communist Khmer Rouge, who caused countless deaths during their four years of rule. In 1979, with Vietnamese military backing, a new communist-led government was formed. Later, the Paris Conference on Cambodia was held, and the United Nations became involved, a situation that ended with the formation of a coalition government in Phnom Penh and the reinstatement of Prince Norodom Sihanouk as head of state in June 1993.

Phnom Penh Mosque

The Muslim community of Cambodia prior to the victory of the Khmer Rouge in 1975 was essentially composed of Cams (or Chains) from the former kingdom of Campa (Champa). These people had been converted by Arab and Indian merchants and artisans. Large numbers of Cams emigrated to Cambodia in the fifteenth century. Also included in the Muslim community were Malays from present-day Malaysia and Indonesia, who also began to arrive in the fifteenth century, as well as Arabs, emigrants from the Indian subcontinent, and some indigenous converts. Muslims came to live throughout Cambodia, but particularly along the Mekong near the capital Phnom Penh and in’ Kompot, Tonle Sap, Kompong, and Battambang. They have tended to be employed in trading, agriculture, and fishing.
Cambodian Muslims have primarily been Sunnis with practices and beliefs similar to other orthodox Southeast Asian Muslims. They have tended to follow religious practices more regularly than their Vietnamese counterparts. Ramadan appears to have been respected, but the hajj was only made by those who could afford it, with as many as eighty pilgrims annually. In 1975 there were between I13 and 120 mosques with some three hundred religious teachers and three hundred preachers. A great many of these teachers were trained in Kelantan, Malaysia, and at Islamic universities in Cairo, India, or Medina. The years from independence to 1975 also saw the formation of Islamic organizations-for example, the Islamic Association in Phnom Penh, which attempted to coordinate all cultural and religious activities, and an Islamic youth group that sought to encourage young people to study at the university.
There were good relations between the Muslim and majority Buddhist communities. During the pre-French period, Muslims played important military and political roles under the kings and held high titles through the centuries. Many Muslims acted as merchants who were also translators for the monarchs in their dealings with Europeans. During the French colonial period Muslims were completely removed from national decision making. However, with the return of independence in 1953 Muslims again were placed in significant posts, including high ranks in the Cambodian military.
The mass murder inflicted on the Cambodian population by the Khmer Rouge after 1975 severely decimated the Muslim population. An untold number were killed, and some twelve to fifteen thousand left the country for nearby refugee camps or settlement overseas. Nearly half the refugees went to Muslim-ruled Malaysia, while others settled in France, Australia, and the United States. Muslims also became part of anticommunist military units based on the Thai-Cambodian border. In 1980, of almost six hundred preachers and religious teachers who had resided in Cambodia in 1975, fewer than forty remained; of nearly 700,000 Muslims prior to 1975, only 150,000 to 190,000 remained. Cambodia’s elite were especially targeted by the Khmer Rouge, and this was also true for the Muslim leadership. For example, only one of the country’s nine graduates of al-Azhar University survived. During this period most of Cambodia’s mosques and Muslim religious books were also destroyed.
The new government allowed the return of religious freedom, and many Muslims moved into important government posts; for example Math Ly or Abdellah Hamzah became vice president of parliament. Ibrahim Athmane was the highest religious authority in the early 1990s. At the same time, the death of so many teachers and other religious leaders has meant a severe weakening of religious education and understanding in the remaining Muslim community. There are major gaps in popular recognition of basic issues in Islamic history, theology, and the international Muslim world.
[See also Islam, article on Islam in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. ]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Correze, Franqois. “Cambodge: Terre d’Islam.” Sud-est Asie (March 1981).
Danois, Jacques. Le temps d’une resurrection. Paris, 1981.
Phoeur, Mak. “La communaute malaise musulmane au Cambodge.” In Le monde indochinois et la peninsule malaise (CNRS publication). Paris and Kuala Lumpur, 1990.
Taouti, Seddik. “The Forgotten Muslims of Kampuchea and Viet Nam.” journal Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 4.1-2 (1982): 3-13.
SEDDIK TAOUTI

CALLIGRAPHY AND EPIGRAPHY

Batoota — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:11:11 +0000

CALLIGRAPHY AND EPIGRAPHY. The art most cherished by Muslims throughout history has been calligraphy. A saying attributed to the Prophet claims that a person who writes beautifully the Basmalah, the formula “In the name of God the Merciful the Compassionate,” will enter paradise. The feeling that the Qur’an, being God’s own word, should be written in a style worthy of its contents has led to the development of different calligraphic styles. The ancient Qur’ans were written in the heavy script called Kufic on vellum in broad format; the letters had neither diacritical marks nor vowel signs. Kufic became the favorite epigraphic style, and its most complicated forms, called floriated, foliated, or plaited Kufic appeared on tombstones, buildings, and utensils. One style called square Kufic is used to this day for decorative purposes.
Nonreligious texts were first written on papyrus, but when the Muslims learned the art of papermaking from the Chinese after 751 CE, numerous styles developed in the cursive hand generally termed naskh. The shapes of the letters were standardized by Ibn Muqlah (d. 940) in a refined system of triangles, circles, and semicircles and measured by dots according to the breadth of the reed pen. This system was further developed by Ibn alBawwab (d. C. 102o) and reached its apogee in the writing of Yaqut al-Musta’simi (d. 1298).
In Iran a “hanging” style prevailed (with a strong tendency to accentuate the writing toward the lower left), influenced by the character of the Persian language. This style also was standardized according to Ibn Muqlah’s system around 1400 and was then called nasta’liq. It is well suited to poetic texts in Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu. In later times

Khatt-e_Nastaliq

nasta’liq was “simplified,” and the letters were connected in ways that seem illegible to the uninitiated, although strict rules prevail. This style was called shikastah, “broken”; it is used to this day in Iran and sometimes in the Indian subcontinent.
Special attention was given to the scripts used in chancelleries such as the large, complicated tawqi, the Ottoman divdni, and the musalsal (the “chainlike” script) so that no one would be able to imitate or fake the text of important documents. The Maghribi script, which does not follow the rules of Ibn Muqlah, was restricted to North Africa and Andalusia where writers often used colorful ornamentation of the pages. A similar development can be observed in the Bihari script used in India from the Middle Ages for Qur’anic texts. These are the basic classical styles of writing that were used through the centuries, with regional variants, wherever Islamic culture prevailed.
The traditionalism of calligraphers was and still is so strong that it seems next to impossible to distinguish between a calligraphic page (lauhah) written by the great Turkish calligrapher Shaykh Hamdullah (d. 152o) and one composed by one of his spiritual heirs Hafiz Osman (d. 1689) or `Aziz Rifa`i (d. 1934); as in other Islamic arts and sciences, the silsilah or chain of transmission that leads back to the founder-or ideally to the Prophet or `All ibn Abi Talib-is of central importance. Calligraphers still boast of their connections with the earlier masters of the craft. Hence innovative trends developed not so much in copying the Qur’an or hadiths but rather in architectural epigraphy and the decoration of ceramics, metalwork, and the like. Here the inventive power of the artists-almost all anonymous-could show itself from the beginning.
Different types of mirrored script (even fourfold mirroring occurs) are particularly strong in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ottoman Turkey and the countries under her influence. To write Qur’anic texts in circular forms, as one often sees them around the apexes of mosques in Turkey, inspired a number of modern artists to create circular sets of invocations or of the divine names. Such calligrams, which have proliferated throughout the Muslim world during the past two or three centuries, are usually called tughra. The tughra originated in the elaboration of the ruler’s handsign that was placed at the top of a document. The true Ottoman tughra is easy to recognize: two oval loops to the left and three vertical strokes are the basic ingredients; these are drawn around the name of the ruling sultan and then decorated according to the taste of the era. In the nineteenth century such tughras were used on banknotes, postage stamps, and coins; many good calligraphers in both the Ottoman Empire and the Muslim states of India invented fine tughras for these purposes and thus kept the tradition alive. Later tughra-like writings using the traditional forms were added. These appeared, for example, on title pages of books showing the publisher’s name or place. They are often formed from pious invocations, prayer formulas, or saints’ blessings; typical is a tughrd made for Mawlana Rumi in Turkey, which was turned into a fine piece of jewelry. A great many tughras contain the Basmalah (see figure 2). The term tughra was frequently employed from the nineteenth century for any artistic form of calligraphy, however different it might be from the original style. An increasing interest in meaningful “pseudo-tughras” is visible in this period, when books on the construction of such forms were published, for instance in India.
The last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar (d. 1862), was not only a fine poet in Urdu but also a skilled calligrapher who produced, as did many of his contemporaries, faces, flowers, and trees formed from sentences. To write an invocation to `Ali ibn Abi Talib in the shape of a lion was particularly admired by Shi`is because `Ali is called Asad Allah, “God’s lion.” The art of forming faces and even human figures from letters seems to have developed especially in Turkey, mainly among the Bektashi Sufis whose convents were adorned with figures and faces made up from the names of the Panjtan or other important persons. Calligraphers even tried to write entire surahs in animal or flower shapes in both Turkey and India; horses and elephants appear there, and even more common are different kinds of birds, especially for the Basmalah. Falcons and storks are among the most frequently used motifs, but recently a Malaysian artist created a lovely kingfisher from the Basmalah. Somewhat earlier, the perfect semicircular endings of Divan! script were used to construct a blessing formula for an Ottoman ruler.
Calligraphy does not consist only of these delightful games with letters. All over the Muslim world artists began to create new or at least less traditional forms of writing. A fine example is Iran, where the masters not only excelled in superb nasta’liq and even in classical naskh (as did Nairizi, the leading master of the eighteenth century) but also produced a remarkable renaissance of calligraphy in recent decades. Some Persian calligraphy of the late nineteenth century appears to be influenced by Art Nouveau. The classical style of Mir `Imad (d. 1615) with its sharp distinction between the thick and thin lines in nasta’liq is still an unsurpassable model, but it was modernized when Mirza Riza Kalhor (d. 1893) wrote somewhat thicker hairlines as an adaptation to reproduction by lithography. `Imad al-Kuttab (d. 1936) continued Kalhor’s style and deeply influenced the present generation.
Contrary to the classical rule of writing a page with perfectly black or monotone ink, modern Persian calligraphers instead let the ink flow irregularly to achieve a livelier effect; by using different colorful inks they produce calligraphic “paintings” of great beauty. Recent exhibitions of Shams Anwari-Alhosseiny (Cologne) or the new publications of Jalil Rasuli clearly show the possibilities of this style, which attracts quite a number of young artists (see figure 4). Other trends range from the “telling” calligraphies of artists like Adharbod to the sculptures of Parviz Tanavuli, who uses words like hich “nothing” in various positions in his metalwork. Many approaches are found in Iran, where the art of calligraphy is strongly encouraged. Some modern calligraphers in both Turkey and Pakistan have striven to invent styles that in a certain sense conflict with the classical ideals. In the 1950s in Turkey they used a “flame script” in which the letters are strangely bent; some artists from the Indian subcontinent try to modernize the time-honored forms by introducing weird angles and sharp edges into the letters.
More convincing are attempts to use square Kufic for decorative purposes. This style was often used in the Middle Ages to decorate walls (the Iranian and Central Asian mosques are good examples) because the rectangular shape of glazed tiles lent itself readily to square forms, and Arabic formulas with their comparatively high frequency of tall letters like alif and ldm could be well reproduced in this style. It was used also, though rarely, for book decoration. Recently many leading artists have developed different types of decorative square Kufic; the letters may be written in a square and then cut by diagonals, parts of which are then differently colored. They can be used to form cubes or dodecahedrons; they may appear on ceramics or batik on silk (as in the Iraqi Wasmaa Chorbachi’s work); or the artist (e.g., the Iraqi `Isam al-Sa’id) may use traditional motifs in new techniques such as embossing and color etching. Among the best-known modern calligraphers is Ahmad Mustafa, an Egyptian living in London, who writes a perfectly classical naskh-muhaqqaq but produces (often in silkscreen technique) fascinating works using mirrors and reflections yielding highly pictorial yet legible color calligrams.
Very different are the works of the Iraqi Hassan Massoudi in Paris, whose most recent publication displays new techniques with what appears to be a dry brush, contrasting one large and artistically shaped word or brief sentence with a background of smaller letters. The artist, who-like several other contemporary calligraphers-was trained in Western arts, often uses brown and blue hues. Some of his large letters remind the spectator of Chinese Arabic calligraphy, whose beauty has only recently been discovered: there the artists produce a style resembling the Chinese script with a large brush, and only at a second look does one realize that the characters are indeed Arabic. This unusual style may well influence some modern artists.
In much modern calligraphy (aside from Qur’anic manuscripts, which continue to be written in the classical style) the border between calligraphy and painting is often blurred. An exhibition in Karachi in 1975 showed many different approaches to calligraphy in Pakistan alone. Almost every major artist had produced some painting in which calligraphy was used to form a picture or in which calligraphic fragments and pseudocalligraphy appeared-the letters becoming graphic forms devoid of true meaning. Some pictures resembled graffiti on walls; others ventured to combine Mughal architectural structures with a Kufiesque style (as Aslam Kamal put it). The attempts of the Pakistani painter Sadiqain to produce a version of some surah by forming calligraphic pictures has been criticized by both calligraphers and orthodox Muslims. However, one example from this series of paintings is worthy of mention. This is his illustration of the Qur’anic phrase kun fa -yakun, “Be! and it becomes,” in which the round endings of the letter n form a spiral nebula out of which the whole universe emerges. The work of the Pakistani artist Guljee also contains some calligraphic pictures and interesting bronze structures; his masterpiece, however, is the mthrdb of the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, which he shaped like a large book of marble, inscribed in a medieval style of Kufic with parts of surah 55, al-Rahman.
Artists have become increasingly interested in using abstract letterforms in their work. Good examples are Nja Mahdoui from Tunis, who does not attempt to write something meaningful but uses letters in isolated and combined forms simply to achieve a fine work of art. Similarly, the Lebanese Husayn Mad! uses letters in an innovative way, without deeper meaning. Likewise, Wajih Hakleh tries, as his critics claim, to “transcend” pure calligraphy.
Everywhere interest in calligraphy is increasing. Even Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia, which use scripts other than the Arabic for their languages, seem to be quite interested in turning back to the traditional Islamic features of calligraphy and are producing both modern interpretations of traditional forms and calligraphic paintings. The same holds true in Turkey, where a revival of the calligraphic arts can be observed, largely thanks to the activities of the International Research Center for Islamic Culture and Art (IRCICA) in Istanbul, where competitions in classical calligraphy are held. Many Turks, deprived of the Arabic alphabet since the introduction of the Roman script in 1928, feel that they would like at least to read the beautiful inscriptions on mosques or the tombstones of their ancestors, and so attempts are being made to introduce young people to Arabic letters, and a few young calligraphers may continue the tradition of a country famed for its outstanding calligraphy.
The general interest in the art of writing is visible in the increasing tendency to decorate cards for Muslim festivals such as the two `Id, or announcements of important events with calligraphic text-some of it truly beautiful and some merely well meant. Even UNICEF has added some classical and modern Arabic calligraphic works to the motifs on their holiday cards. Many books printed in Islamic countries have calligraphy of varying quality on their covers, and European or American books on Islamic topics are more often than not decorated with classical or modern calligrams. There are even computer programs offering different styles of Arabic writing. Recently there have appeared computergenerated calligraphy or letter-combinations that, although not “real” calligraphy, show the possibilities of the Arabic script for decorative purposes. These may contribute to further interest in the calligraphic tradition and may perhaps inspire artists to even more innovative experiments.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baltacioglu, lsmayil Hakki. Turklerde Yazt Sanatt. Ankara, 1958. Halem, Hilmann von, ed. Calligraphy in Modern Art. Karachi, 1975. Khatibi, Abdelkebir, and Mohammed Sijelmassi. The Splendour of Is lamic Calligraphy. London, 1976.
Massoudy, Hassan. Calligraphie arabe vivante. Paris, 1981.
Naef, Silvia. L’art de l’ecriture arabe, passe et present. Geneva, 1992. Rasuli, Jalal. Chahdr fasl dar asar-i jalal Rasuli. Tehran, 1371/1992. Safadi, Yasin H. Islamic Calligraphy. Boulder, 1978.
Schimmel, Annemarie. Calligraphy and Islamic Culture. New York, 1984.
Sicre, Jean-Pierre. Hassan Massoudy. Paris, 1991.
Tanavuli, Parviz. Fifteen Years of Bronze Sculpture. New York, 1977. Welch, Anthony. Calligraphy in the Arts of the Muslim World. Austin, 1979
ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL