Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, spoke in Ottawa, one stop in his presentations for Islamic History Month in Canada.  His topic was “Islamic Architecture, Science, Art, and Spirituality.”

Nasr said that sacred art is the heart of religion.  Theology is secondary.  Thus, Islamic art is the heart of Islam, “beyond all polemics.”  Yet, until 1965, no museum in the West had a display of Islamic art.  They had Persian art, Egyptian art, and so on, but none had an over-all display of Islamic art as such.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York put on the first such display, attracting over a million visitors.  The Victoria and Albert in London then followed suit.  The category of Islamic art was thus accepted. According to Professor Nasr, art is a combination of wisdom and science.  Christian iconography is a combination of technique and knowledge of forms.  There is no Islamic iconography because God has no image, and it is also forbidden to portray Mohammed.  In Islamic art, the forms are based on geometry. While he sees the icon as the high point of Christian art, in Islam it is architecture and calligraphy. 

Nasr traces the roots of calligraphy to pre-Islamic illiterate Bedouins, who had a strong tradition of oral poetry.  When Islam came upon the scene, writing was developed to record this wisdom.  Yet, the tradition of eloquence persisted.  Mohammed was also illiterate and recited the poetry of the Qur’an for others to copy.   To this day, the Qur’an is chanted, and even Muslims who do not understand the words understand the essence, the beauty of the poetry and music. The Qur’an attacks “poets,” he explained, but what is meant is the pre-Islamic poets of Arabia who were also soothsayers.  Predicting the future is forbidden because the future belongs to God.  Thus, the attack on poets should not be read broadly. Islamic art began to go into decline in the 16th and 17th centuries, he relates, largely due to Western influences.  There is some revival now, with a return to traditional forms.  As an outstanding example he mentioned the mosque in Toledo, Ohio. One of the great tragedies of the war in Iraq, he said, was the destruction of great works of art, Islamic and ancient: the looting of museums, the using of sandstone monuments to fill U.S. army sandbags, the bombing of a library of Sufi manuscripts.  He called it a catastrophe. 

In answer to a question, Dr. Nasr rejected the “clash of civilizations” thesis.  He charged that the thesis was developed “to serve certain interests,” to make Islam into an enemy.  “Who,” he asked,”is the danger to the world?”  He then referred to the American and Israeli atomic bombs.  This “clash,” he charged, has “abetted extremism in the West and in Islam.”  Rather than a clash, he called for communication.