Religion & Art
Question:-
There appears to be a major distinction between the West and Islam that has seldom been mentioned. Art is much admired in the West because it represents the creativity of man and provides much pleasure. In fact, according to some people it is the only thing that makes life meaningful and worthwhile, everything else being merely a means to maintain life. Islam, however, does not appear to give much value to art at all. How is Art really seen from the Islamic point of view? How does Art fit into the scheme of things?
Answer:-
Religion and Art have certainly been linked together since the beginning of human history. The best human achievements in paintings, music, literature, song and architecture were inspired by Religion. The development of science and technology can also be regarded as having been stimulated by this Art. In fact it can be said that Civilisation in all its aspects is a product of Religion. The other aspect of life, such as philosophy, organisations, industry and commerce are also largely elaborations from organised religion and the manufacture and exchange of the artefacts. But owing to progressive development, elaboration and complication all these aspects have become gradually independent of religion and secularised.
According to Islam, and other religions that are also regarded as previous dispensations of Islam, human beings, though made of earth also have in them the divine spirit (Quran 32:7-9). This bestows on them the divine qualities of consciousness, conscience, will and makes them into Agents of God with the powers of creativity, initiative and responsibility. These ought, therefore, to be used in the service of God. They should be used "objectively" in the transformation processes of the Cosmos.
However, human beings have "Fallen" from heir state of perfection to a lower state where they function with much less than their potentialities. (Quran 2:34-37 and 95:4-6) They have formed attachments to their bodies and sense objects and this narrows down their awareness, motivates and abilities, producing habits, automatisms, obsessions, prejudices and fantasies. The result is that their actions become proportionally "Subjective" and are no longer in harmony with their own inherent nature and the Cosmic Process. This results in all kinds of physical, mental and spiritual malfunctions and diseases as well as disruptions in the social and physical environment.
A distinction, therefore, arises between three types of Art:- (a) That which is beneficial to the welfare and development of man and his environment. (b) That which is harmful for the welfare and development of man and his environment. (c) That which is neutral and does not have either good or bad effects directly but may under various circumstances lead to harm or benefits. However, even if it is not harmful such actions may waste resources, time and energy that could have been better spent in other activities.
The Islamic position can perhaps be explained best as follows:-
Human beings are part of the Universe, interact with it and are inter-dependent with it. Their welfare and development is connected with how well they adjust to the universal process and are in harmony with it. There are three Aspects of Life They receive (i) an input from the environment, (ii) processes it and (iii) produce an output. This output becomes part of the input for man to various degrees or is an input in the environment which is processed by it to produce an output that becomes an input for man. These three are interdependent. It is the nature of the human being that determines the processing and provides the motives, but it also controls the input and the output and these affect the processing and the nature of the individual.
Art refers to this output.
It does not only refer to "Art" objects that human beings produce, but also to their technology, ideas, organisation and to their behaviour and entire culture. Civilised behaviour is not the same as barbaric behaviour; delicate skills are not the same as brute force; all interpersonal relationships are subject to etiquette; and cultured or diplomatic speech is not the same crude speech. Science, though it deals in facts has to be presented in an aesthetic manner; the formulae in Mathematics are elegant and symmetrical; in schools and colleges there is an art in presentation and teaching; manufactured goods, houses, cities and gardens have to be designed aesthetically; the organisations of all kinds must be harmonious and smooth running; Civic and Public life is full of ceremonies and rituals and spectacles. In fact, Art refers to all that human beings do.
The function of Art can be any or all of the following:-
1. To make life easier, more enjoyable and more tolerable. It exists for pleasure and entertainment. This becomes necessary in proportion to the drabness and monotony of life. It relieves boredom and depression, re-energises and recreates a zest for life.
2. To be therapeutic, to remove tension, stresses and psychological, social and physical contradictions; to promote relaxation and harmony.
3. To compensate and restore. In general the sense of beauty comes from harmony with nature, both inner and outer. But human activity creates changes in nature e.g.. roads, cities and farms are built. These disrupt the harmony and causes tension. These have to be compensated for in order to restore harmony.
4. To promote smooth interactions between people through shared experiences.
5. To facilitate self-expression and communication.
6. To educate, to draw attention to aspects of nature, inner and outer, and enable us to learn and live more harmoniously with the environment and adjust to it. It coordinates action, feeling and thought and, therefore, promotes a balanced development. Art can be used in schools and colleges to create a deeper impact than mere description or instructions and to increase interest and reinforce motives.
7. To stimulate, encourage and reinforce. Art, particularly oratory, literature, poetry, song and music can be used to sooth, arouse, to make people laugh or cry, to create melancholy, sadness, joy, hope, aggression, courage, to arouse passions, lust, gentleness and love, to create discomfort or comfort, conflict or harmony. It has been used for military as well as spiritual purposes. It can be used to cause riots or to quell them.
8. Psychological development by increasing our sensitivity, consciousness, conscience and will.
Western thinkers tend to make a distinction between works of art and other human activities but also between the Artificial and the Natural and this leads to many kinds of confusion, contradictions and errors in thought. In so far as human beings are formed by the materials, forces and processes of Nature, their behaviour and actions cannot be regarded as unnatural. We do not regard the products of other organisms such as birds nests or bees hives as unnatural. Even if diseased, disease is also natural. Human activity is merely a sub-set of Natural Processes. In fact much of it is also an imitation of Nature.
But Islam requires us to distinguish between:-
(1) Allah the Creator
(2) The Natural or Created.
(3) The images, the reflection of the created in our minds.
(4) Human products or that of other organisms which could refer to (i) behaviour, (ii) produced objects, (iii) interactions and organisation, and (d) the condition or state of things.
(5) Re-productions, which could be (i) imitative, (ii) representative or (iii) symbolic, and these at various levels and with respect to various aspects of experience.
We are required to worship, serve and subordinate ourselves only to Allah and avoid things that might lead us to worship, attachment or to be controlled by anything else. That is idolatry and regarded as the greatest sin because it traps and disables the human spirit on which their consciousness, conscience and will depends and gives them significance.
It is NOT true that Islam has no Art. The Quran most certainly has an aesthetic aspect and can be regarded as containing aesthetic instructions. In fact, it is an example and the source of much art. But Islam requires us to avoid that which is harmful or can lead to something harmful. It is necessary to understand that our perception and experiences are connected with our motives and actions and these modify our nature and that our nature determines what we do. That determines the reaction of the things in the environment to our action. What happens to us, therefore, also depends partly on what we do and are, though it also depends partly on other things in the environment including the people in it who collectively modify the environment. But we affect them and they affect us.
But Art could be of three kinds depending on which of the three Aspects of Life is dominant - the input from the environment can condition them and they may simply react to it; or the inner motives and processing may dominate and it is a question of self-expression; or the output and the skills required for this may be given greater importance and the actions might be directed to producing deliberate external results in the environment that might be good or evil, true or false, useful or harmful, in harmony or not with a set of conditions. From the Aesthetic point of view this output is judged as Beautiful, positive or negative to various degrees. Experiences and Impressions can be nutritional, catalytic or poisonous.
In so far as Allah is One and all things derive from Him, Beauty ultimately refers to what is in harmony with Allah. However, as Truth also refers to what is consistent with Allah and Goodness refers to what conforms to the Will of Allah and Usefulness ultimately refers to that which serves the purposes of Allah, then these four fundamental notions are fundamentally the same. It follows that things that are not true, not morally good and not useful will not be regarded as beautiful but things may vary in the degree of beauty. These four concepts that refer to four attributes of Allah, Truth, Goodness, Power and Beauty may be regarded as 4 Fundamental Values and called the Scientific, the Ethical, the Economic and the Aesthetic Values. There are several relationships between these. For instance:-
(i) Each of these also contains the others. Science is an ethical pursuit, has economic value and is presented in an aesthetic manner. Art requires scientific materials and principles and has commercial value and produces ethical effects, good or bad. Economics requires scientific products and principles, aesthetic designs and fulfils good or bad needs and purposes.
(ii) As science refers to facts, to what is and ethics to values, to what ought to be these two may be regarded as opposites. But then science and art can also be regarded as opposites and so can science and economics and economics and ethics. They could be represented as four corners of a square.
(iii) Whereas the Economic value refers to the bridge between what exists and what we want, it is a bridge between the scientific and the ethical. The Aesthetic then refers to the overall harmony so created.
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