Christiane Gruber

Francesca Leoni

* Power and Protection is an innovative, beautifully illustrated account of the link between artistic production and divinatory practices in pre-modern and early modern Islamic societies* An exhibition of the same title will be displayed at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford from 20 October 2016 to 15 January 2017. It will tour to the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto in March to May 2017Power and Protection: Islamic Art and the Supernatural is a ground-breaking investigation of divinatory arts in the Islamic world discussing their impact on, and expression through, material culture. This part of the Islamic tradition has hitherto received limited attention, leaving a fascinating and rich chapter of Islam s cultural production largely unexplored. Essays by three leading experts contextualize over 100 extraordinary objects produced between the twelfth and the twentieth centuries - including personal ornaments, weaponry, textiles, miniature books, and scrolls - demonstrating the currency of astrology, geomancy, bibliomancy, dream interpretation, and the science of divination through letters at all levels of society. Insights gleaned from historical sources unveil and chart the animated debates surrounding divinatory 'sciences', reflecting changing attitudes towards these practices over the centuries.Thoroughly researched and richly illustrated, Power and Protection offers a stimulating and accessible introduction to this topic for the general reader as well as a fresh and well-balanced account for the specialist.

Islamic Art and the Supernatural

Power and Protection

The traditional account of the Prophet Muhammad's ascension has inspired generations of writers and storytellers from the beginnings of Islam until today. By the tenth century, narratives describing Muhammad's encounter with prophets and angels, his colloquy with God, and his visits of heaven and hell lead to the formation of the "Book of Ascension", a novelizing and engaging literary genre most commonly written in Arabic and Turkic dialects. This is the study of an extremely rare Persian "Book of Ascension", which was written in Persian by an anonymous author and dates from the Ilkhanid Period (1256-1353). Christiane Gruber presents an English translation alongside the original manuscript text, together with critical commentary on the text as well as a series of Ilkhanid ascension paintings. The text appears to promote adherence, as well as to encourage conversion, to Sunni Islam - providing a fascinating insight into the interplay between artistic practices and missionary efforts aimed at promoting Sunni Islam in Persian lands during Ilkhanid rule.

A Persian-Sunni Devotional Tale

The Ilkhanid Book of Ascension

"Christiane Gruber's analysis of the illustrations of the Prophet's ascension has revolutionized the interpretation of this important aspect of Islamic art history, bringing out its deep religious significance as well as its political context. This is a must-read for anyone engaged in global art history or the understanding of Islamic culture". Carl W. Ernst, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Miʿrājnāma

Even a casual observer can spy traces of Islamic architecture and design on buildings all over the world, a reminder that artistic traditions and visual culture have never been limited to their region or country of origin, but rather are highly diffusible. This book brings together scholars from architectural studies, design, art history and other fields to challenge and expand concepts of Islamic architecture. Ranging from eighteenth-century Ottoman tents to manifestations of Islamic motifs in 1960s Hawaii, this richly illustrated volume raises key questions about Islamic architecture, and, more broadly, about how we can rethink our understanding of material, artistic and cultural mobility in the modern world.

Motion and Modernity

Islamic Architecture on the Move

In the wake of controversies over printing or displaying images of the Prophet Muhammad, Christiane Gruber's aim is to bring back into scholarly and public discussion the 'lost' history of imagining the Prophet in Islamic cultures. By studying the various verbal and visual constructions of the Prophet's character and persona over the course of more than one thousand years, Gruber seeks to correct public misconceptions and restore to Islam its rich artistic heritage, illuminating the critical role Muhammad has played in Muslim constructions of self and community at different times and in various cultural contexts. The Praiseworthy One is an exploration of the Prophet Muhammad's significance in Muslim life and thought from the beginning of Islam to today. It pays particular attention to procedures of narration, veneration, and sacralization. Gruber stresses that a fruitful approach to extant textual and visual materials is one that emphasizes the harnessing of Muhammad's persona as a larger metaphor to explain both past and present historical events, to build and delineate a sense of community, and to help individuals conceive of and communicate with the realm of the sacred. The Praiseworthy One shows that Muhammad has served as a polyvalent symbol rather than a historical figure with fixed significance.

The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Texts and Images

The Praiseworthy One

The images released by the Islamic State of militants smashing statues at ancient sites were a horrifying aspect of their advance across Northern Iraq and Syria during 2015-16. Their leaders justified this iconoclasm by arguing that such actions were divinely decreed in Islam, a notion that has remained fixed in the public consciousness. The Image Debate is a collection of thirteen essays which examine the controversy surrounding the use of images in Islamic and other religious cultures and seek to redress some of the misunderstandings that have arisen. Written by leading academics from the United States, Australia, Turkey, Israel and the United Kingdom, the book has a foreword by Stefano Carboni, Director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, followed by an introduction by the editor Christiane Gruber, who sets the subject in context with a detailed examination of the debates over idols and the production of figural images in Islamic traditions. Twelve further articles are divided into three sections: the first deals with pre-modern Islam: Mika Natif looks at tensions between the Hadith prohibition on images and the praxis of image-making under the Umayyad dynasty and argues that the Umayyad rulers used imagery to establish their political and religious authority; Finbarr Barry Flood examines the practice of epigraphic erasure, i.e., the removal of names of rulers and patrons from historical inscriptions from the medieval Islamic world; and Oya Pancaroğlu focuses on the figural conventions of an illustrated manuscript of Varqa and Gulshah, a medieval Persian romance composed in the masnavi (rhyming couplet) form by the 11th-century poet 'Ayyuqi. The second section addresses the situation outside Islam: Alicia Walker surveys attitudes toward the production and veneration of religious images in Byzantium from the earliest years of the Christian Roman Empire (early 4th century) to the aftermath of the Iconoclast controversy (late 9th century); Steven Fine explores the history of Jewish engagement with 'art' from Roman antiquity through the high middle ages through a detailed exploration of the 3rd-century Dura Europos synagogue and its wall paintings; Michael Shenkar examines evidence for the employment of figural images in the cultic practices of some of the major ancient Iranian cultural and political entities, offering a broad perspective on perceptions of images in ancient Iranian worship; and Robert DeCaroli delves into the question of why no image of the Buddha was made during the first five hundred years of Buddhism. The third section brings the reader back to Islamic lands with five articles examining aspects of the issue in the modern and contemporary periods: Yousuf Saaed investigates South Asian mass-produced images, especially posters that include illustrations of local Sufi shrines, portraits of saints and Shi'i iconography; James Bennett explores the visual depiction of Javanese shadow puppets (wayang kulit), including the sage Begawan Abiyasa, whose narratives convey key elements of Sufi mystical philosophy; Allen and Mary Roberts consider images of Cheikh Amadu Bamba, the founding Sufi saint of the Senegalese Mouride order; Rose Issa addresses how the term 'Islamic' relates to contemporary art, how artists manage to create work in countries in constant turmoil and to what extent such works reflect their conceptual, aesthetic, and socio-political concerns; and finally Shiva Balaghi traces the use of the figure, along its symbolic shadows and silhouettes, in works by notable Iranian artists living in Iran and in diaspora.

Figural Representation in Islam and Across the World

The Image Debate

Michelle Al-Ferzly

Between 1964 and 1971, renowned Islamic art historian Oleg Grabar directed a large-scale archaeological excavation at the site of Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi. Drawn to the remote eighth-century complex in the hopes of uncovering a princely Umayyad palace, Grabar and his team instead stumbled upon a new type of urban settlement in the Syrian steppe. A rich lifeworld emerged in the midst of their discoveries, and over the course of the excavation's six seasons, close relationships formed between the American and Syrian archaeologists, historians, and workers who labored and lived at the site. Featuring previously unpublished documents and illustrating over fifty photographs from the Qasr al-Hayr dig, City in the Desert, Revisited recounts the personal experiences and professional endeavors that shaped the field of Islamic archaeology, art, and architectural history during the field's rise in the US academy.

Oleg Grabar at Qasr Al-Hayr Al-Sharqi, 1964-71

City in the Desert, Revisited

Sune Haugbolle

This timely book examines the power and role of the image in modern Middle Eastern societies. The essays explore the role and function of image making to highlight the ways in which the images "speak" and what visual languages mean for the construction of Islamic subjectivities, the distribution of power, and the formation of identity and belonging. Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East addresses aspects of the visual in the Islamic world, including the presentation of Islam on television; on the internet and other digital media; in banners, posters, murals, and graffiti; and in the satirical press, cartoons, and children’s books.

Christiane Gruber

Books

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