Art challenge cliches on Islam (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Stephanie Holmes
BBC News

A new exhibition of Islamic art from across the Muslim world aims to do far more than unite unusual, luxurious and rarely-seen objects.

Organisers of the London event say that they hope the illuminated Korans, the perfume bottle carved from rock crystal and the leaf skeleton decorated with sacred text will change the way people think about Islam.

The Aga Khan, leader of the world's 15 million Ismaili Shia Muslims and organiser of the project, believes arts can become "a medium of discourse that transcends barriers".

"The essential problem, as I see it, in relations between the Muslim world and the West is a clash of ignorance," he said in a recent speech.

He hopes the objects will spark a cultural dialogue and increase understanding about Islam within the West.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6902755.stm

A "clash of ignorance" ... now there's a memorable phrase, and one that's inherently even-handed.

[Warpy]

1. "Clash of ignorance" says it all

I know doing cross cultural nursing with Muslims right off the airplane was always a challenge and required a great deal of explanation of Western ways of doing simple things like addressing strangers as opposed to acquaintances and how we show respect for elders. They were universally flabbergasted that we in the West had ways of showing these things. The possibility that we were polite in different ways had simply never occurred to most of them, and these were well educated people.

Muslim art has had a lot of things working against it, mostly tone deaf and color blind Imams who insisted on strict interpretation of many minutiae in the Quran that would seem to forbid artistic expression unless it was geometric in nature and decorated the walls of their mosques.

I compare this with the Scots preacher (whose name I have gratefully forgotten) who ordered that all the fiddles in his bailiwick be rounded up and burned. It's the same thing at work, exactly, in both cultures.

I find a lot of Muslim pictorial art to have much in common with a couple of schools of Japanese art. It's well worth the trouble to go see if an exhibition is ever nearby.

[Miss Chybil]

2. Clash of ignorance

and bombs.