In our post-9/11 world, a greater understanding across cultures is more important than ever before, yet the purpose of this program is not simply to provide political or historical context. ... Read allIn our post-9/11 world, a greater understanding across cultures is more important than ever before, yet the purpose of this program is not simply to provide political or historical context. Rather it is to explore and celebrate the great richness of Islamic art and architecture t... Read allIn our post-9/11 world, a greater understanding across cultures is more important than ever before, yet the purpose of this program is not simply to provide political or historical context. Rather it is to explore and celebrate the great richness of Islamic art and architecture throughout the world to peer into extraordinary palaces and mosques, decorated with exquisi... Read all
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One of the most spread element of Islamic culture is writings. Arabic writings are almost omnipresent. They can be found almost anywhere: in the walls of buildings, mosques, domes, and in day-to-day objects such as boxes. Writing is central in Islamic culture. If we look back into how Islam came, we think of the story when the Prophet Muhammed was in the cave and God or Allah send revelations to him. These revelations or suras are foundamental in Islam and are considered to be very important. Quranic excerpts or suras are written in many places such as mosques and palaces. Examples are the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of Alhambra which is located in Cardoba, Spain. Alhambra, as historians say, if you walk in that mosque you can see Arabic writings in the walls which are in the same level as human eyes. The idea is that when people walk inside the mosque, they can read whole stories written in Arabic. Muslim people put enermous effort in improving writings and this is the place where caligraphy was born. As contemporary worlds best caligraphy writer Mohammed Zachariye says, it is wonderful how Muslim people are very delicate in writings. They carefully choose special parchments or papers today and special stick to write caligraphy. Even the angle of stick must be in a certain value to achieve the best writing. He says that Writing Arabic words (mostly they are Quranic excerpts) is itself a praying. Arabic beatiful caligraphy is used in so many places that it became an ornament.
Ornaments are another wonderful elements of Islamic culture. Ornaments reflects people's lives. A central element of ornaments is geomentry. Geometry was used in people's daily lives to find the Qibla and to determine time of the praying. Geometrical figures are used in textiles, in walls of buildings and day-to-day objects. Apart from geometry, flora and fauna are important elements of ornaments. Different plants and flowers are illustrated in textiles. They are mostly in the forms of beautiful gardens of the Heaven. Actually this figures are used to show what the Heaven is like. It is also wriiten in Quran and illustrated in Prophet's hadiths. When Prophet Muhammed was asked about the Heaven and how it looks like, he described it as a beautiful garden with multible trees, fragrant flowers and flowing rivers. This might be a perfect illustration of Heaven for Arabian people as they inhabit in deserts and plants are rare things for them. Apart from flora, fauna is also used frequently as ornaments. In Quran, Allah says: To know me, you should know my creatures". Indeed, God cannot be seen in Islam. However, Muslims' life goal is to know their Creator by reading and interpreting Quran and also by observing God's creatures. That is why plants and animals are used commanly in ornaments of the Islamic culture. Most interesting thing is that it is not allowed to paint or creat objects with eyes (animals and humans, in other word). It is a figurative art. However, we can find them in many places. According to the film, in Islam it is not allowed to draw figurative art in such places like mihrab. This is done deliberately because otherwise it might seem that people are worshipping figurative art objects. Worshipping something or someone other then Allah is considered to be as a "shirk" in Islam.
The next element is the use of colours. Muslim people mostly use dust colours. Other colours are rare things. Use of colour varies geograohically. For example blue colour is mostly used in Iran but in Western African buildings you cannot see many colours. For instance Great Mosque of djenne is brown or dust in colour. Iranian buildings are blue because of the cobalt. Cobalt is used to obtain blue colour and there are many cobalt fields in Iran.
Water is very important thing in Islam. Allah says that "all living things are created by using water". Water is life. Water is very rare in Arabian deserts. Water is also important in terms of spirituality. All Muslims must do ablution before prayings. Water cleans not only human body, but human soul too. Doing ablution nbefore praying helps Muslim people to prepare themselves morally to stand in front of Allah and do prayings. There are special jugs that are used to do ablution. Another thing is a special plate under the jug in which used waterb after ablution accumulates. This water then is used to water plants. The Prophet Muhammed left many hadith about not wasting things and especially water. It is important to not waste water. That is why there is a special plate in which even used water accumulates and then effectively used.
Lastly, another element of Islamic culture is its buildings. After Arabians started to conquer neighboring countries, they started to build mosques. Mosque is a place for prayins and it is hierarchically structured. It has a mihrab which is the side of the Qibla, minbar where Imam reads Hutbas during Friday prayers and other special places for different purposes. Mosques are build in hypostyle. Prominent example is the Great Mosque in Damascus. In the great Mosque of Djenna, which is also built in hypostyle, there are 99 columns which represents the 99 names of Allah.
In conclusion, Islamic culture and its elements are divers and rich. They represent people's mentality, thei daily lives and beliefs. Main source of Islamic culture is Quran.
- dosbolomarov
- Apr 16, 2021
Details
- Runtime1 hour 30 minutes
- Color