{"id":98313,"date":"2023-01-17T13:20:16","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T20:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=98313"},"modified":"2023-01-17T14:52:56","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T21:52:56","slug":"on-an-american-universitys-imposing-one-particular-version-of-islamic-orthodoxy-on-its-students-and-faculty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/01\/on-an-american-universitys-imposing-one-particular-version-of-islamic-orthodoxy-on-its-students-and-faculty.html","title":{"rendered":"On an American university’s imposing one particular version of Islamic orthodoxy on its students and faculty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
I\u2019m actually not overly fond of it, since I don\u2019t much care for the depiction of Gabriel (or \u201cJibril\u201d or \u201cJibra\u2019il\u201d).\u00a0 But this is the very miniature that has provoked the controversy: Muhammad receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. Miniature illustration on vellum from the book \u201cJami\u2019 al-Tawarikh\u201d (literally \u201cCompendium of Chronicles,\u201d but often referred to as \u201cThe Universal History\u201d or \u201cHistory of the World\u201d), by Rashid al-Din, published in Tabriz, Persia, in 1307 AD. It is now in the collection of the Edinburgh University Library, in Scotland.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

By now, you may perhaps have heard of this outrageous case from Hamline University in Minnesota.\u00a0 (I\u2019ve already mentioned it here in my blog entry for 30 December 2022<\/a>, noting that I myself have used precisely the same image \u2014 see immediately above \u2014 in lectures that I have delivered, accompanied by exactly the same explanation about varieties within Islam and about differences of Muslim opinion with regard to images of the Prophet Muhammad.)\u00a0 Here is an octet of articles that I\u2019ve noted about the matter, in no particular order and with no claim or pretense to completeness:<\/p>\n

New York Times<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cA Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job.\u00a0 After an outcry over the art history class by Muslim students Hamline University officials said the incident was Islamophobic.\u00a0 But many scholars say the work is a masterpiece.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

National Review<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cOld-World and New-World Illiberalism Team Up at Hamline University\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Amna Khalid, of Carleton College, in The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cMost of All, I Am Offended as a Muslim: On Hamline University\u2019s shocking imposition of narrow religious orthodoxy in the classroom\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Kenan Malik, in The Guardian<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cAn art treasure long cherished by Muslims is deemed offensive. But to whom?:\u00a0 An academic spat over a depiction of Muhammad reveals how the language of diversity is eviscerating its very meaning\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Christiane Gruber, Professor of Art, University of Michigan:\u00a0 \u201cIslamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammad are an important piece of history \u2013 here\u2019s why art historians teach them\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Jill Filopovic, in Slate<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cHamline University\u2019s Controversial Firing Is a Warning: Insistence that others follow one\u2019s strict religion is authoritarian and illiberal no matter what the religion is.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark Silk, Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Connecticut, where he also serves as the Director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWho says you can\u2019t show students a portrait of Muhammad?\u00a0 A multiple-choice quiz to help college administrators navigate religious freedom on campus.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHamline University under fire for art professor\u2019s dismissal\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Hamline University\u2019s administration should be ashamed of itself for its ignorant pandering, its gross injustice, and its crude violation of academic freedom, and it should reinstate Erika L\u00f3pez Prater immediately and with (at the very least) an apology.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Muhammad<\/a>
Muhammad visiting Hell, according to the extra-Qur\u2019anic story of his so-called \u201cNight Journey\u201d (the \u201cmi\u2018raj\u201d or \u201cisra\u2019\u201d).\u00a0 Please note that the Prophet\u2019s face, like that of the accompanying archangel Gabriel (or Jibril) and that of the miraculous mount Buraq) is shown with full features.
(15th cent Persian ms. Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is true that the Islamic artistic tradition has devoted far more attention to calligraphy and to more or less abstract representations than to, say, landscape painting or other forms familiar in the West.\u00a0 It has tended to shy away from portraiture, and especially from portraying saints and prophets.\u00a0 In particular, there has been, in many circles, a reluctance to depict the Prophet Muhammad.\u00a0 You will, so far as I\u2019m aware \u2014 and I\u2019ve been in more mosques than I can count \u2014 never, ever, see a portrait of Muhammad in a mosque, and certainly not in the specific space set aside for worship.\u00a0 Moreover, there are absolutely no \u201cillustrated Qur\u2019ans\u201d in the manner of the illustrated Bibles, for both children and adults, with which many of us are well acquainted.\u00a0 Even when the Prophet is<\/em> depicted, it is not uncommon for his general bodily form to be indicated while, at the same time, his face is either left blank or covered with a cloth veil.\u00a0 There is a real fear among many Muslims, both historically and still today, of falling into idolatry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A cropped image of Muhammad\u2019s Call to Prophecy and the First Revelation; Journey of the Prophet ; leaf from a copy of the \u201cMajma\u2018 al-Tawarikh\u201d (\u201cCompendium of Histories\u201d), created ca. 1425 AD in Herat, Afghanistan. It is currently located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, extreme sects of Sunni Islam \u2014 e.g., the Wahhabis of the Arabian Peninsula \u2014 are vociferous in their opposition to visual representations of the Prophet Muhammad.\u00a0 But, although they would fain claim that they speak for Islam as a whole, they don\u2019t.\u00a0 Not historically and not today.\u00a0 And it seems inappropriate, to say the least, for the administration at an American university to give those extreme sects veto power over how Islam should be depicted and portrayed in the West and even, in a sense, over how other Muslims (a substantial minority, if not indeed the majority) express their own faith.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Angel Gabriel (left) and the Prophet Muhammad (right) in a building with three domes. Provenance and date unknown.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A once-famous case of the reluctance to show Muhammad is the 1976 film by the Syrian-American director Moustapha Akkad<\/a> entitled The Message<\/em> (Ar-Ris\u0101lah <\/i>or\u00a0 \u0627\u0644\u0631\u0633\u0627\u0644\u0629; originally, Mohammad, Messenger of God<\/em>),<\/a> which I saw when it appeared and remember quite liking.\u00a0 (Of course, I really liked Anthony Quinn.). Although it is a narrative of the life of Muhammad as seen from the perspective of his uncle Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib (played by Anthony Quinn) and his adopted son Zayd ibn Harithah, it never shows Muhammad himself.\u00a0 Rather, the camera<\/em> is Muhammad, and we watch events unfold through his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Anthony<\/a>
1976 movie poster for \u201cThe Message\u201d showing Anthony Quinn as Muhammad\u2019s uncle, Hamza (Fair Use)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that is absolutely not to say that there is no artistic tradition among Muslims of representing the Prophet.\u00a0 In fact, I offer four examples of precisely that here in this blog entry \u2014 see above \u2014 and I could easily have multiplied them many times over.<\/p>\n

It would be an oversimplification to say that such representations are characteristic solely of the Iranian and\/or Shi\u2018i regions of the Islamic world (e.g., modern-day Iran and Afghanistan), but it wouldn\u2019t be altogether misleading, either.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 By now, you may perhaps have heard of this outrageous case from Hamline University in Minnesota.\u00a0 (I\u2019ve already mentioned it here in my blog entry for 30 December 2022, noting that I myself have used precisely the same image \u2014 see immediately above \u2014 in lectures that I have delivered, accompanied by exactly 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