Art and Culture *

Mohamed Zakariya

One cannot live well in a vacuum from which is excluded the artistic and cultural aspects of life. Many Muslim people ask me about these things, and, since they are part of my experience, and my profession, it has fallen to me to open the discussion in this excellent magazine. Comments are welcome.

Among some of our contemporary Muslims in America, there resides the opinion that artistic and cultural matters are play, hobbies, or “women’s things,” not serious matters that need attention. I am not alone in believing that they are as necessary as the air we breathe. Of course, there is a tremendous precedent to be found in Islamic regions of influence, past and present. These can only be ignored at the peril of the American Muslim present and future.

So, I would like to write of things and events that I find to concern these matters, in a lighter vein. I hope to include the visual arts, music, literature, architecture, design, decor, and the language that we speak, not in any organized way, but in an informal mode. There will be some criticism in it. (But we should never be too fast to criticize others, before ourselves).

Here and there, I will be touching on Islamic law and usage, as well as old country customs, in relation to art and culture. The Shar’ia has many sides and is wide. It is Islam made practical. I am a “taklidi’ sort of man, however, in that tradition I believe in keeping an open mind, a sense of humor, and believe deeply in Imam Malik’s oft repeated answer: “I don’t know.”

I want to be practical and useful, to let readers know about events and people they should know about. American Muslims need to know how to partake or participate in art and culture. We should strive to become players, not just spectators. There is harm in passivity. A Turkish poem: “In my life, my greatest hope is knowledge. If my day passes without learning anything, it was in vain.”

Art and culture, in their many forms, can demonstrate how knowledge and faith manifest themselves on a practical leve1. When we become Muslims, our spirits get a renewal, and we learn so much everyday that it fins our lives with awe, wonder, and amazement. But it doesn’t make us automatically able to navigate the intricacies of various Islamic cultures, nor how to deal effectively with our “western” culture. It has not been figured out how to live an authentic Muslim life in our homeland, especially without ghettoizing ourselves. Art and culture are a passport that can allow us to function in a more holistic way, be more effective people, and get a deal of enjoyment to boot.

Therefore, to begin, I would like to mention a great artistic and cultural event for Muslims the world over, the Calligraphy Competition. This is a new event, first held in 1985, the plan being to hold it every three years. The competition is held in a recently restored palace of the late Sultan Abdulhamid II, in the Yildiz Park in the Besiktas section of Istanbul.

The organization responsible for starting the contest is The Research Centre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture (IRCICA). It is the prime organization of its kind in the world and is headed by Prof. Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. IRCICA is responsible for producing much fine research, lectures, and books. They are not all talk (as we see too much of) but have moved many of their projects into realization including the calligraphy competition.

The competition is caned the “International ibn EI-Bawwab Calligraphy Competition” - 1413/1992 to 1414/1993. Each competition is named after a famous ca11igrapher of the past—the first was named for Hamid Aytac (d. 1982) and the second, after Yakut EI-Mustasimi (d. 1296) ..May Allah have mercy on all of them, and us. The competitions are designed to promote the revivication of classical standards and to encourage professionals, amateurs, and newcomers. It is not uncommon that in the countries and cities of today’s Islamic world, calligraphers are considered to be less than serious artists, even in the Islamic sense of the word. Consequently, while ca11igraphy is the last of the surviving Islamic visual arts to make it, relatively unscathed into our century, standards have suffered, and so have its practitioners. Only in Turkey does the classical teaching, and criticism of the art remain intact from its Osmanli (Ottoman) predecessors. Therefore, it is the logical place from whence to stage a renewal. That calligraphy is the foremost visual art of Islam is well known. The reasons why this is so are also well known.

In the last contest in 1989, over 400 ca11igraphers participated, and a panel of international experts judged the submitted works. More are expected to participate this time. The prospective contestants are given, at the outset of the contest cycle, a series of texts - a text for each script, to be executed to the best of their ability, with traditional materials, without any embe11ishment. The contest was announced in October of 1992 and closes at the end of October 1993—giving the contestants one year to design and execute and rework their submissions.

Out of a total of fourteen styles of writing, only three were to be used by each contestant. I entered a piece in Jeli sulus, sulus, and jeli nestalik styles. The judging can take several weeks. There are generous prizes and the winning works win be published in an album in 1994. In the next issue I will write about the results.

In Islam, we are urged to do the best we can in all circumstances, and not to be lazy or satisfied with half-baked efforts. When the Islamic regions of influence were in an efflorescent condition, especially in areas which valued merit, an individual’s efforts often produced prodigies of art of every kind that are lasting testimonials to the fact that great things were happening. This calligraphy contest is a healthy sign that such high standards are once again being set.

Originally published in the January-March Winter 1994 print edition of

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