UID/FIL/00183/2013publishersversionpublishe

Castello Branco, Patrícia

Dias Branco, Sérgio

Zeydabadi-Nejad, Saeed

English

New University of Lisbon's Repository

CINEMA 9 !1
EDITORIAL:
(RE)THINKING ISLAMIC IMAGERY
Patrícia Silveirinha Castello Branco (IFILNOVA) 
Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad (SOAS University of London)
Sérgio Dias Branco (University of Coimbra/IFILNOVA/CEIS20)
This issue of Cinema is dedicated to the topic of Islam and images. In proposing this topic 
we were particularly interested in discussing the philosophical understandings of Islamic 
imagery  production,  their  roots  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  the  Islamic  tradition  of 
aniconism and anti-ocularcentrism, its influences on styles and movements in the history 
of art (namely abstract imagery), their development in contemporary societies dominated 
by new technologies of the moving image, the relationships between the classical and the 
contemporary, the manual and the digital, artefacts and technologies. 
In  releasing  an  issue  on  this  theme we  aimed at  offering  an  open  debate  to  the 
academic  community  and,  mostly,  we  aimed  at  trying  to  understand  what  kind  of 
aesthetic and political bias could be found in particular images originating from Muslim 
contexts and diasporas. At the same time, we were making an effort to explore how such 
images  encompass  forms  of  visibility,  ways  of  doing  and  making,  and  ways  of 
conceptualizing the world that  can enrich our contemporary debate on aesthetics  and 
politics. Can a better understanding of Muslim traditions of visual art, old and new, that 
rely on astonishing traditions of thought, making and experiencing, function as a fruitful 
contribution within our global contemporary art and politics? We certainly believed it did.
The selection of  essays that  compose this  issue reflects  our aims and are a  direct 
response to our initial intentions, developing the topic in several directions.
The first essay, entitled “The Role of Images in al-Fārābī’s Political Thought” by Sara 
Virgi, directly responds to some of our most important aims and intentions, addressing 
the concept of image in Abū  Nasr al-Fārābī’s philosophical thought. In her essay Virgi 
carefully and consistently considers how for al-Fārābī’s  images are taken as a decisive 
instrument  for  the  legislator  and  religious  leader  to  guide  people  towards  “political 
happiness,” or the “achievement of ultimate perfection,” that is,  “the perfection of the 
community  as  a  whole.”  She  demonstrates  that  for  al-Fārābī  virtuous  images  have  a 
CINEMA 9 · EDITORIAL !2
particular  potential  to  “inspire  the  audience’s  will  to  follow  moral  values  and  obey 
political  rule,” and the way the philosopher constructs his influential  insight into this 
matter. 
Dario  Tomasello’s  “An  Unexpected  Imagery:  The  Heart’s  Vision  and  Other 
Synesthetic  Functions  of  the  Dhikr  into  the  Islamic  Tradition”  directly  addresses  the 
various layers of the complex issue of Aniconism in Islamic Tradition, questioning the 
common sense idea that Islamic Tradition operates a general denigration of images. This 
idea  draws  upon  the  Islamic  aniconistic  bias.  Instead,  Tomasello  argues  for  the 
tremendous importance of imagery in Islamic tradition, by relying on the synestesic and 
multi-sensous ritual of invocation (dhikr) and the way it encompasses a visual dimension 
that,  nevertheless, it  is neither reducible to a fixed representation of the Divine nor to 
figurative deceptions of earthly or divine realms. Drawing mostly on the Sufi tradition 
within  Islam,  Domasello  tries  and  demonstrates  how  the  Divine  is  experienced,  not 
represented, and how that experience is also strongly imagetic, favouring a crucial role for 
images as part of a global synesthesic experience within Islamic mysticism.
M. Javad Khajavi’s “Calligraphic Animation as Visual Music: A Genealogy of Islamic 
Synchronization  of  Sight  and  Sound”  traces  a  new  genealogy  line  for  visual  music 
calligraphic  animations  “all  the  way  back  to  the  relatively  widespread  comparisons 
between Islamic calligraphy and music that existed for centuries.” This article explores 
musical  analogies  used in  describing calligraphy throughout  the  history of  Islam and 
reviews some calligraphic artworks that establish a correlation between sight and sound, 
showcasing  diverse  artistic  approaches.  The  genealogy  line  includes  visual  music 
calligraphic animations contextualized in the same broad historic-cultural background. 
From philosophical and mystical insights we move on to investigate how aesthetic 
and political prejudices can be embodied in particular images. Mani Saravanan’s “Seeing 
the Unseen: The Invisible Worlds of Jafar Panahi’s Cinema” discusses how contemporary 
cinema  of  a  Muslim-majority  country  like  Iran,  mirrors  the  political,  ethical  and 
aesthetical tensions of an Islamic state, through the  “intersection of visibility and ethics” 
and,  at  the same time,  functions as  a  mirror,  reflecting Islamic  seemingly paradoxical 
attitude towards visible images in Islam. Saravanan focuses on Jafar Panahi’s exploration 
of  the  unseen  and  unseeable  in  two  of  his  docufiction  films:  The  video-essay  style 
documentary This is Not a Film (2011), and the film Taxi Tehran (2015). By drawing on an 
extensive analyses of the two films, Saravanan argues that, “Panahi’s subversion of the 
CINEMA 9 · EDITORIAL !3
visual  medium  to  seek  the  invisible  resonates  with  Levinas’  call  for  an  art  that  is 
incomplete in its completion and thus for an art that can question the certainty of the 
world within which it is set.”
The following essay, Shrabani Basu’s “The Foil and the Quicksand: The Image of the 
‘Veil’ and the Failure of Abjection in Iranian Diasporic Horror” further explores the issue 
of the unseen and unseeable, this time dealing with the complex question of the “veil” 
and fear in two contemporary Iranian diasporic “horror” films: Babak Anvari’s Under the 
Shadow (2016) and Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014). Basu’s 
argument raises several  issues related to revelation/occultation in Iranian and Islamic 
culture and approaches this topic simultaneously from an aesthetic, social and political 
perspective.
From film to  new media,  and from Islamic  culture  centred analysis  to  a  broader 
mediatic  panorama,  Taida  Kusturica’s  essay  focuses  on  the  cultural  and  ideological 
hegemony of capitalism and imperialism as constructed by digital media representations. 
In “Post-Cinematic  (Mis-)Representation of  Islam,” Kusturica further  argues that  from 
World Trade Center attacks in 2001 ”a mutual agency between digital media and religion, 
has become ever more intertwined in a re-employment of the old orientalist trope against 
Islam and Muslims.”  The essay develops  the  idea that  new digital  media  in  the  21st 
century shape and reflect  new hegemonic  forms of  visibility  that  excludes Islam as  a 
cultural and religious phenomenon.
This issue also includes an interview with Laura Marks, who has been discovering in 
the last several years an aesthetic of enfolding and unfolding, not only in classical Islamic 
artworks, but also in a body of contemporary independent film and video from the Arab 
world.  Such an aesthetic  is  also as  a  way to  understand the diverse  modes in  which 
images  can  function  and  turn  the  events  perceptible.  Marks’s  lastest  book  Hanan  al-
Cinema:  Affections  for  the  Moving  Image  (The  MIT  Press,  2015)  specifically  examines  a 
comprehensive body of independent and experimental cinema from the Arabic-speaking 
world within the particular political, social, cultural, economic, and historical contexts of 
the last 20 years.


(Re)Thinking Islamic Imagery

Repositório da Universidade Nova de Lisboa

CINEMA 9 !1EDITORIAL:(RE)THINKING ISLAMIC IMAGERYPatrícia Silveirinha Castello Branco (IFILNOVA) Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad (SOAS University of London)Sérgio Dias Branco (University of Coimbra/IFILNOVA/CEIS20)This issue of Cinema is dedicated to the topic of Islam and images. In proposing this topic we were particularly interested in discussing the philosophical understandings of Islamic imagery  production,  their  roots  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  the  Islamic  tradition  of aniconism and anti-ocularcentrism, its influences on styles and movements in the history of art (namely abstract imagery), their development in contemporary societies dominated by new technologies of the moving image, the relationships between the classical and the contemporary, the manual and the digital, artefacts and technologies. In  releasing  an  issue  on  this  theme we  aimed at  offering  an  open  debate  to  the academic  community  and,  mostly,  we  aimed  at  trying  to  understand  what  kind  of aesthetic and political bias could be found in particular images originating from Muslim contexts and diasporas. At the same time, we were making an effort to explore how such images  encompass  forms  of  visibility,  ways  of  doing  and  making,  and  ways  of conceptualizing the world that  can enrich our contemporary debate on aesthetics  and politics. Can a better understanding of Muslim traditions of visual art, old and new, that rely on astonishing traditions of thought, making and experiencing, function as a fruitful contribution within our global contemporary art and politics? We certainly believed it did.The selection of  essays that  compose this  issue reflects  our aims and are a  direct response to our initial intentions, developing the topic in several directions.The first essay, entitled “The Role of Images in al-Fārābī’s Political Thought” by Sara Virgi, directly responds to some of our most important aims and intentions, addressing the concept of image in Abū  Nasr al-Fārābī’s philosophical thought. In her essay Virgi carefully and consistently considers how for al-Fārābī’s  images are taken as a decisive instrument  for  the  legislator  and  religious  leader  to  guide  people  towards  “political happiness,” or the “achievement of ultimate perfection,” that is,  “the perfection of the community  as  a  whole.”  She  demonstrates  that  for  al-Fārābī  virtuous  images  have  a CINEMA 9 · EDITORIAL !2particular  potential  to  “inspire  the  audience’s  will  to  follow  moral  values  and  obey political  rule,” and the way the philosopher constructs his influential  insight into this matter. Dario  Tomasello’s  “An  Unexpected  Imagery:  The  Heart’s  Vision  and  Other Synesthetic  Functions  of  the  Dhikr  into  the  Islamic  Tradition”  directly  addresses  the various layers of the complex issue of Aniconism in Islamic Tradition, questioning the common sense idea that Islamic Tradition operates a general denigration of images. This idea  draws  upon  the  Islamic  aniconistic  bias.  Instead,  Tomasello  argues  for  the tremendous importance of imagery in Islamic tradition, by relying on the synestesic and multi-sensous ritual of invocation (dhikr) and the way it encompasses a visual dimension that,  nevertheless, it  is neither reducible to a fixed representation of the Divine nor to figurative deceptions of earthly or divine realms. Drawing mostly on the Sufi tradition within  Islam,  Domasello  tries  and  demonstrates  how  the  Divine  is  experienced,  not represented, and how that experience is also strongly imagetic, favouring a crucial role for images as part of a global synesthesic experience within Islamic mysticism.M. Javad Khajavi’s “Calligraphic Animation as Visual Music: A Genealogy of Islamic Synchronization  of  Sight  and  Sound”  traces  a  new  genealogy  line  for  visual  music calligraphic  animations  “all  the  way  back  to  the  relatively  widespread  comparisons between Islamic calligraphy and music that existed for centuries.” This article explores musical  analogies  used in  describing calligraphy throughout  the  history of  Islam and reviews some calligraphic artworks that establish a correlation between sight and sound, showcasing  diverse  artistic  approaches.  The  genealogy  line  includes  visual  music calligraphic animations contextualized in the same broad historic-cultural background. From philosophical and mystical insights we move on to investigate how aesthetic and political prejudices can be embodied in particular images. Mani Saravanan’s “Seeing the Unseen: The Invisible Worlds of Jafar Panahi’s Cinema” discusses how contemporary cinema  of  a  Muslim-majority  country  like  Iran,  mirrors  the  political,  ethical  and aesthetical tensions of an Islamic state, through the  “intersection of visibility and ethics” and,  at  the same time,  functions as  a  mirror,  reflecting Islamic  seemingly paradoxical attitude towards visible images in Islam. Saravanan focuses on Jafar Panahi’s exploration of  the  unseen  and  unseeable  in  two  of  his  docufiction  films:  The  video-essay  style documentary This is Not a Film (2011), and the film Taxi Tehran (2015). By drawing on an extensive analyses of the two films, Saravanan argues that, “Panahi’s subversion of the CINEMA 9 · EDITORIAL !3visual  medium  to  seek  the  invisible  resonates  with  Levinas’  call  for  an  art  that  is incomplete in its completion and thus for an art that can question the certainty of the world within which it is set.”The following essay, Shrabani Basu’s “The Foil and the Quicksand: The Image of the ‘Veil’ and the Failure of Abjection in Iranian Diasporic Horror” further explores the issue of the unseen and unseeable, this time dealing with the complex question of the “veil” and fear in two contemporary Iranian diasporic “horror” films: Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow (2016) and Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014). Basu’s argument raises several  issues related to revelation/occultation in Iranian and Islamic culture and approaches this topic simultaneously from an aesthetic, social and political perspective.From film to  new media,  and from Islamic  culture  centred analysis  to  a  broader mediatic  panorama,  Taida  Kusturica’s  essay  focuses  on  the  cultural  and  ideological hegemony of capitalism and imperialism as constructed by digital media representations. In “Post-Cinematic  (Mis-)Representation of  Islam,” Kusturica further  argues that  from World Trade Center attacks in 2001 ”a mutual agency between digital media and religion, has become ever more intertwined in a re-employment of the old orientalist trope against Islam and Muslims.”  The essay develops  the  idea that  new digital  media  in  the  21st century shape and reflect  new hegemonic  forms of  visibility  that  excludes Islam as  a cultural and religious phenomenon.This issue also includes an interview with Laura Marks, who has been discovering in the last several years an aesthetic of enfolding and unfolding, not only in classical Islamic artworks, but also in a body of contemporary independent film and video from the Arab world.  Such an aesthetic  is  also as  a  way to  understand the diverse  modes in  which images  can  function  and  turn  the  events  perceptible.  Marks’s  lastest  book  Hanan  al-Cinema:  Affections  for  the  Moving  Image  (The  MIT  Press,  2015)  specifically  examines  a comprehensive body of independent and experimental cinema from the Arabic-speaking world within the particular political, social, cultural, economic, and historical contexts of the last 20 years.

https://run.unl.pt/bitstream/10362/96749/1/Editorial_ReThinking_Islamic_Imagery.pdf

(Re)Thinking Islamic Imagery

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Repositório da Universidade Nova de Lisboa