Islam and Art by Dr. Lois Lamya al Faruqi Published by the National Hijm Council, Islamabad 1405 A.H., 1985,236 pp. and 60 plates, $6.00

Abstract

I met Dr. Lois Lamya al Faruqi last March, while I was giving a lecture
on Arabic calligraphy at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I had
corresponded with her previously and had been impressed by her graciousness
and her insight into the complex field of Islamic art. Now, here she and her
husband were, and I was pleased to have these bright lights of the Muslim
community in my audience. At the end of my remarks, someone asked the
inevitable question, "What is the significance, the symbolism of the designs
used to highlight a calligraphic piece?" I replied that, while some Islamic
designs have their origins in the material world, they become abstracted and
stylized but do not take on additional symbolic meaning. In other words, Islamic
art, at its best, does not depend on visual symbols as clues to its meaning.
A flower Wing remains a flower drawing, no matter how abstract it becomes.
Dr. Faruqi's was interested in my interpretation and, I think somewhat amused.
As she left that evening, I saw a definite twinkle in her eye, and I felt
I had found a congenial colleague. Two weeks later, I received an autographed
copy of Islam and Art from her. I never saw her again.
I am pleased to have this opportunity to review this volume, Dr. Faruqi's
last published work. Let me make my own position clear: I am neither an
academician nor a genuine scholar of Islamic art. Rather, I approach the subject
as a practitioner; therefore, my interest in Islamic art-and in this book- is
at once personal, practical, and professional.
Why do the arts of the Muslim peoples-and by arts, I include graphic
arts, architecture, crafts, and music -develop with such obvious consistency
from people to people, and in such a straight line from their inception to the
present? This question has baffled scholars for at least a century. Dr. Faruqi's
insight guides the reader in the direction of a true answer, yet it is an answer
each of us must experience for ourselves, through study and contemplation.
In short, Dr. Faruqi's answer to this central question is that the arts of
the Muslim peoples did not develop by chance, but rather, as an attempt to
express by various media the Quranic doctrine of tawhid, the immense ...