I owe a lot to her. She reminded me of what it was like to believe and to have faith, while at the same time doing it in what I considered a much more genuine form that I had ever lived myself. By doing all of this it was as if she had given me a nudge out the door and back onto the road again, but this time in the direction I had been meant to take all along.
Let’s talk about art for a moment. We are all affected and moved by different things and in different ways, that’s the point of art after all and its reason of being. Can it reveal something about the divine order? Can it illuminate the secrets that other modes of perception cannot and maybe bring us closer to that transcendent reality? Basically, can it help me see something I would not have seen otherwise?
The answer came to me in an almost unexpected form: architecture. I had the chance to visit Europe last summer, and actively explored everything I could, trying to absorb that charming Old World feel. Everyone knows that in Europe cathedrals are must see attractions. Now, after having visited several of them, I had begun to reflect how these places of worship were tied to the faith’s world-view and conception of God. Let’s take for instance the Gothic styled ones. There are massive pipe organs, colossal stained glass windows, and lofty vaulted ceilings that simply overwhelm and impose a feeling of smallness upon the admirer. They themselves are meant to represent the ordered universe, if you will, as their design and architecture all conform to principles of geometry and mathematics. Not only that, but the grand scale in which they are built is meant to convey that feeling of the unfathomable glory and power of God. They had their sinister side to them of course. Every cathedral is riddled with graphic warnings and reminders to all the sinners, and were clearly also meant to inspire submission and discipline. Their dizzying heights are all densely populated with leering, grimacing gargoyles, who quite often are in the process of torturing some unfortunate soul. I guess when you think about it, and if we consider what we’ve talked about regarding the western obsession with the concept of tragedy and the unattainable, it’s not too hard to detect a hint of fatalism in the world-view. It’s true though, that these are merely my own thoughts and opinions on the matter. After all, no matter how hard I try it’s impossible to fully strip myself of certain inclinations in ways of thinking. Others more knowledgeable than me in matters of Christian theology and art history might have a thing or two to say. The point however isn’t to expound on the technical or artistic merits of the Gothic for its own sake, but in regards to the idea of God that it conveys to me.
I was lucky to also visit southern Spain, and to see the few places that remain which still attest to the fact that it was once a Muslim land. It was the first time that I had seen actual Islamic art, and I must say that it made such an impression on me (and in such a different way than the ‘gothic’ had) that I resolved to learn more, because though the effect was strong I couldn’t quite place or narrow down the exact reason as to why it moved me at all. There was something in the richness of geometric patterns and attention to detail, something which was soothing yet at the same time intriguing. This fact led me to study a little about art in Islam, and since art carries with it the essence of that which inspires it, this seemingly idle exercise in curiosity ended providing me a great deal of insight into the Islamic world-view.
We all know that Islam forbids the depiction of people or animals in imagery, and that always presented a challenge when it came to building the great works of Islamic architecture. Can you imagine for instance, where all those Cathedrals would draw their power and allure from if it weren’t for the stained glass depictions and finely crafted sculptures? Would the Sistine Chapel matter at all if it wasn’t for Michelangelo’s art? Again, one thing that is constant in terms of all places of worship is that they seek to inspire that devotional feeling in the worshipper by conveying an idea of God. How did the Muslim architects do it? A big part of it has to do with the rich geometric patterns which decorate the walls of so many sacred places. If you look at them in passing and without giving them much thought, they might seem nothing more but fancy ‘wallpapers’ meant to simply add some decoration to the surroundings. I learned that as a matter of fact, the repetition of motifs and the tiled structure is a direct analogy of the Divine Order as envisioned in Islam. The key words here are Rhythm and Order. There is a clearly established order and structure in the geometry, but this in and of itself is dead and stagnant. We need Rhythm – say, in the special arrangement of certain tiles and designs – to breathe movement and life into the pattern, a life which is in turn checked and bounded by that Order because after all without it there would be nothing but meaningless turbulence and chaos. When I think about it now, as a Muslim, I realize that these decorations make up a perfect analogy for what our daily lives are like. We have after all been given a life and so many countless gifts and blessings to go along with it, but we have also been given a framework and a center point upon which that rhythm is kept in order. There is a reason as to why the daily prayers that are central to our faith have a clearly defined structure.
