Voices of Islam (193 page)

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A
RT AND
L
ITURGY

•

Titus Burckhardt

THE NATURE AND ROLE OF SACRED ART

In speaking of Islamic worship in relation to art, we used the term ‘‘liturgy,’’ and this needs further defi because it evokes
a priori
the Christian pattern of worship, which developed gradually on the basis of an apostolic tradition and by the work of the Church Fathers. In this context, the liturgy is distinguished from the sacrament, the divinely instituted rite which, in a way, the liturgy enfolds, protecting it and at the same time manifesting it, while being itself protected and unfolded by sacred art which transposes its themes into architecture and iconography, to mention only the two most important visual arts in the
milieu
of Christianity. Things present themselves quite differently in Islam, where the forms of worship are fixed, down to the smallest detail, by the Qur’an and the Prophet’s example. There is practically no liturgical borderline, so that one can say equally that the liturgy is comprised within the rite itself, that is, in the form of worship divinely instituted or, again, that sacred art assumes the role of the liturgy, and that this role consists of creating a framework to suit the rite, open to ‘‘angelic blessings’’ and closed to dark psychic infl We shall see that such is indeed the role and position of art in Islam, and it immediately explains the importance assumed in this context by religious architecture and even by architecture in general—since every dwelling is in principle a place of worship—as well as by every other art that serves to shape the environment, such as decoration, epigraphy, and the art of carpets, not forgetting the liturgical role of clothing.

Sacred art therefore fulfi ls two mutually complementary functions: it radiates the beauty of the rite and, at the same time, protects it. The fi

of these functions is legitimized in Islam by the fact that the Prophet advised his companions to chant the Qur’an, that is, to recite it in rhythmic and melodious fashion. Thus, the revealed word reverberates in the

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musical order, and this is assuredly the fi possible link between rite and art.

The notion that worship should be accompanied by beauty and, as it were, enwrapped in it is also confi by these passages from the Qur’an: ‘‘Oh sons of Adam! wear your comely garments in every place of prayer
...
who then has declared unlawful the comely garb that God has brought forth for His servants
.. .
?’’ (Qur’an 7:31–32). We shall return later to the liturgical role of clothing.

The complementary function of sacred art, that of protection, is illustrated by the traditional story (
hadith
) in which the Prophet is said to have had a cloth or curtain, which was decorated with fi designs, removed from his room because, he said, these fi disturbed his prayers. Now the Prophet certainly did not lack the power of abstract concentration, but he wished thereby to show that certain forms of art are incompatible with Islamic worship. It must not be said that he was condemning art as such, as if the rejection of certain forms did not necessarily call forth others, for we live in a world woven out of forms and we cannot avoid choosing among them.

In a certain sense, a rite is a divine art. For those who balk at this way of expressing things, let us make clear that we mean by this a manifestation, on the level of forms and according to a specifically human mode, of a reality that itself goes beyond all forms or limitations. This art cannot therefore be imitated, but it radiates; we could also say that it reverberates and needs surroundings to echo in.

The term ‘‘mosque,’’ which applies to every Muslim place of prayer, comes from the Arabic
masjid
which means a ‘‘place of prostration,’’ and this shows implicitly that canonical prayer in Islam involves certain bodily gestures or positions.

There is nothing surprising in the body’s being required to share in the act of adoration, when it is remembered that this act engages man in his totality— he must pray with his whole being and his whole awareness—and that this totality is conceived empirically only from the starting point of the body. The body’s integration into prayer demands its sacralization, and this is effected in the ablution preceding the prayer; to bring the limbs into contact with water, an image of primordial in-differentiation, serves moreover, by analogy and according to intention, as a kind of restoration to the state of innocence.

Let us note parenthetically that there is a link between the sacralization of the body, as realized by ritual purifi tions, and the Islamic conception of sexuality.

The chief positions or attitudes of prayer are the following: the upright position facing the
qibla,
in which the worshipper recites the words of prayer revealed in the Qur’an; then bowing and prostration. The signifi nce of these three attitudes, which are linked in a sequence of movements and

Art and Liturgy
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repose to the accompaniment of sacred utterances, is clear: it is in the upright position, which distinguishes man from all other animals, that the believer speaks to God, or that God speaks through him; bowing is an act of homage by the servant to what surpasses him, while prostration is the abandonment of oneself to the will of an all-powerful Lord. These three attitudes describe in space the directional segments of a cross, which esoteric science identifies with what might be termed the ‘‘existential dimensions’’ of man, namely, active and ‘‘upright’’ participation in the spirit which transcends the natural world, the unfolding of consciousness into the ‘‘horizontal’’ of existence, and, fi ly, the creature’s movement away from its divine source, a down- ward fall for which submission to the Divine Will compensates.

The actualization of these dimensions is equivalent to reintegrating them into ‘‘Adamic’’ equilibrium. And it is this equilibrium, by virtue of which man is all and nothing before God, which confers on Islamic art its plentitude, sobriety, and serenity.

THE
MIHRAB

The prayer niche, or
mihrab,
is indisputably a creation of sacred art and has become in practice a regular element in the liturgy, though not an indispen- sable one. Art historians believe that this element was introduced into mosque architecture in the time of the Umayyad Caliph al-Walid and, more exactly, when this caliph rebuilt the mosque of the Prophet at Medina. But it is extremely probable that the niche replaced a more simple form, such as a false door, which showed the direction of Mecca in primitive mosques. If the
mihrab
in the cave beneath the rock of the Dome of the Rock (
Qubbat al-Sakhra
) at Jerusalem goes back to the years during which this sanctuary was built (691–692
CE
), it is an example of this. This
mihrab
consists of an arch on small columns, carved in relief on a slab of marble. At the level of the capitals, there is a very simple inscription in Ku¯fi script across the back: the two Muslim declarations of faith. In the center of the background is a rosette with eight petals. An even simpler indication of the
qibla
must have existed in the ancient mosque at Medina; according to certain accounts, a stone slab marked the spot where the Prophet stood to lead the communal prayers.

The form of the niche may well have been suggested by the example of the apse in Coptic churches, or even by that of the liturgical niches in certain synagogues,
1
but these are no more than ‘‘incidental causes’’; what matters is that the sacred niche derives from a worldwide symbolism, and that this symbolism is implicitly confirmed by the Qur’an.

Its very shape, with its vault corresponding to heaven and its piedroit to the earth, makes the niche a consistent image of the ‘‘cave of the world.’’ The cave of the world is the ‘‘place of appearance’’ (
mazhar
) of the Divinity,

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whether it be a case of the outward world as a whole or the inner world, the sacred cave of the heart. All oriental traditions recognize the significance of this, and the exedra of Roman basilicas is simply a worldly version of it, with the emperor replacing the Divinity.
2

To establish the symbolism of the
mihrab
in its Islamic perspective, it must be related to its Qur’anic context. The word literally means, ‘‘refuge’’; the Qur’an in particular uses this word to describe a secret place in the Temple at Jerusalem where the Holy Virgin entered into a spiritual retreat and was nourished by angels. It is identified by certain Arab commentators with the Holy of Holies, the
debir
of the Temple at Jerusalem, and this interpretation, which does not appear to take into account the Judaic laws governing access to the
debir,
accords in fact with the Patristic tradition and the liturgy of the Greek Orthodox Church.
3
The inscriptions round the arch of the
mihrab
are frequently such as to recall the Qur’anic story in question, especially in Turkish mosques, starting with the
mihrab
of the Hagia Sophia, thereby confirming its dedication to the Holy Virgin. The link between the
mihrab
and Sayyidatna Maryam (Our Lady Mary) leads us again to the analogy between the prayer niche and the heart: it is in the heart that the virgin-soul takes refuge to invoke God; as for the nourishment miraculously bestowed there, it corresponds to grace.

The form of the
mihrab
—discounting its name—calls to mind another passage from the Qur’an, the ‘‘Verse of Light,’’ where the Divine Presence in the world or in the heart of man is compared to a light from a lamp placed in a niche (
mishkat
): ‘‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The symbol of His light is a niche wherein is a lamp; the lamp is in a glass, and this glass is as a radiant star. [The light] is nourished by a blessed olive tree, which is neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would all but glow though fire touch it not. Light upon light. God guideth to His Light whom He will, and God striketh symbols for man, and God knoweth all things’’ (Qur’an 24:35). The analogy between the
mihrab
and the
mishkat
is clear; it is emphasized, moreover, by hanging a lamp before the prayer niche.

Many of the oldest prayer niches are adorned with a canopy in the form of a seashell. This motif is already found in Hellenistic art, but it would not have been incorporated into the art of Islam unless it had a spiritual significance; the shell is associated with the pearl, which is one of the Islamic symbols of the Divine Word, according to a saying of the Prophet, the world was created from a white pearl. The seashell enclosing the pearl is like the ‘‘ear’’ of the heart receiving the Divine Utterance; it is, in fact, in the
mihrab
that this utterance is made.

It may seem surprising that a form such as the
mihrab,
which is, after all, simply an accessory to the liturgy, should be the focus of a particularly rich and profound symbolism. But this is implicit proof of the link between sacred art and esoterism, the ‘‘science of the inward’’ (
‘ilm al-batin
). It is on this same plane that the somewhat Christian typology of the prayer niche is