V&A in row over self-censorship after Muhammad image is taken down
Poster removed from museum website – but scholars of Islamic art fear ‘terrible loss for shared global heritage’
Warning: this article contains the image of the prophet Muhammad, which some may find offensive.
The Victoria and Albert museum has attempted to conceal its ownership of a devotional image of the prophet Muhammad, citing security concerns, in what is part of a wider pattern of apparent self-censorship by British institutions that scholars fear could undermine public understanding of Islamic art and the diversity of Muslim traditions.
Similar images have been shown in exhibitions across Europe and America without prompting outrage, much less protests or a violent response. Made by Muslim artists for fellow Muslims, they come from a long but often overlooked tradition.
British museums and libraries hold dozens of these images, mostly miniatures in manuscripts several centuries old, but they have been kept largely out of public view. Fear of displaying them is apparently driven by controversy about satirical or offensive portraits of Muhammad by non-Muslims, despite the huge difference in form and purpose.
When the V&A was asked if it held any images of Muhammad after the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, it said there were none. A US expert later provided a link to a poster in its collection, with the inscription “Mohammad the Prophet of God”. That page in the database was deleted last week, but can still be found in a cached version. A spokeswoman said their original response was “an honest error”.
“Unfortunately we were incorrect to say there were no works depicting the prophet Muhammad in the V&A’s collection,” a spokeswoman, Olivia Colling, said in an email, adding that the image had subsequently been taken down because of security concerns. “As the museum is a high-profile public building already on a severe security alert, our security team made the decision that it was best to remove the image from our online database (it remains within the collection).”
The museum has many items that are not on display but form an important part of its educational and cultural mission. Colling declined to say whether the museum had consulted Muslim communities about who might consider the image offensive, or whether it had received any threats directly related to the poster, created in Iran around 1990.
There was not a single complaint when another contemporary Iranian image of Muhammad was included in a 2013 exhibition in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, hung next to a Christian icon, as part of an exhibition on cross-cultural encounters.
“We knew it might be controversial, but decided to take the risk because the story is important to tell,” said Mirjam Shatanawi, an Islamic art specialist and the Tropenmuseum’s curator for the Middle East and North Africa. “These images are a real eye-opener, a powerful example of Islam being different and more diverse than many imagine.
“If Muslims feel offended by images made by other Muslims out of reverence for the prophet, I’m not sure if the museum should decide not to show them. It seems like choosing one interpretation of Islam over the other. These images are not made to disrespect but – on the contrary – to honour the prophet.”
The Muslim Council of Britain declined to comment on whether it considered the images offensive, or whether it would object to their display.
Other British institutions with images of Muhammad in their Islamic art collections show some on websites, but have shied away from exhibitions. Edinburgh University Library last year celebrated a manuscript that contains many images of Muhammad [1], but none was included in the display. The university declined to say why.
“There is no artistic reason whatsoever why those folios should have been left out,” said Christiane Gruber, an expert in images of the prophet at the University of Michigan. “The paintings of Muhammad are superb and form a significant part of the manuscript’s pictorial programme. I worry that our institutions of culture and learning are muting these significant Islamic works of figural art due to a variety of fears. This is a real shame and a terrible loss for our shared global artistic heritage.”
The British Library included one image of Muhammad in its 2007 Sacred exhibition [2], but his face is veiled. None of the other UK libraries and museums that hold pictures of the prophet could provide details of any time they had been on public display.
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art features one in its Islamic art galleries, and several were shown in Paris at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 2011 with no negative response.
“As a historian of religion, I think it is very important to put such images on display. They provide valuable information about the richness of Muslim devotional life,” said Ingvild Flaskerud, an expert on Shia devotional culture at the University of Oslo. “By not displaying the images, we give privilege to certain understandings of Islam and marginalise others. This is not simply a scholastic issue; it is also a democratic matter.”
Emma Graham-Harrison
* The Guardian. Saturday 24 January 2015 20.24 GMT:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/24/victoria-and-albert-museum-muhammad-image-website
Drawing the prophet: Islam’s hidden history of Muhammad images
Ban on depictions has not always been absolute – Islam has a rich heritage of images and icons dating back to the 13th century.
To many Muslims, any image of the prophet Muhammad is sacrilegious, but the ban has not always been absolute and there is a small but rich tradition of devotional Islamic art going back more than seven centuries that does depict God’s messenger.
It began with exquisite miniatures from the 13th century, scholars say. Commissioned from Muslim artists by the rich and powerful of their day, they show almost every episode of Muhammad’s life as recounted in the Qur’an and other texts, from birth to death and ascension into heaven.
Intended as private aids to devotion and prayer, these detailed scenes were made for both Sunni and Shia worshippers, and surviving examples can be found in dozens of major museum and library collections.
They also laid the foundations for a popular, if minority, tradition of devotional and inspirational images that still exists today, from icons cherished in homes to a five-storey government-commissioned mural in the heart of Tehran and even to revolutionary street art in Cairo – although the prophet’s face is obscured in both those public drawings.
In the wake of the murder of cartoonists at French magazine Charlie Hebdo, many Muslims and non-Muslims have argued that Islam has always banned any representation of the prophet, in part because of strong warnings in the Qu’ran and other religious texts against idolatry or anything that could be seen as a pathway towards idolatry.
This position is rarely challenged, perhaps because the existence of images of Muhammad is little known and almost never discussed outside communities that create, study or buy them. But their obscurity frustrates experts who see them as a rich part of Islam’s artistic heritage and resent the misconception that the only depictions of the prophet are mocking or racist creations by non-believers. “It’s really important for audiences that have never seen the pietistic images of Muhammad to make a radical distinction between the mystical and beautiful images that have been produced over the last 1,000 years by Muslims and for Muslims, and the offensive and sometimes pornographic images [currently in the news],” said Omid Safi, director of the Islamic Studies Centre at Duke University in North Carolina.
Author of a book about the prophet’s life, Memories of Muhammad, Safi keeps an image of Muhammad in his home, which he brought from Iran when he fled as a child.
“I think people know that for me, as scholar and as an observant Muslim, this comes out of a tradition where seeing this icon reminds me of the prophet, and thinking of the prophet reminds me of God,” he said. “It’s using the senses to arrive at God.”
Safi does not tell all his Muslim visitors who the painting depicts, though: he sometimes refers to him only as a holy man, because many Islamic theologians would reject it as blasphemous.
Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, an imam in Leicester and assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, told the BBC: “Islam in general specifically forbids the usage of imagery, and when it comes to depicting the messenger Muhammad, peace be upon him, that prohibition becomes even more relevant: we are not allowed to depict him in any shape, any way or form.”
Arab Muslim countries have shunned all depictions of the human form ever since Islam swept across the region, with early leaders anxious to make a sharp break with the pagan beliefs and idols it displaced. But the same was not true for Persian and Turkish areas where Islam took root, according to Professor Christiane Gruber of the University of Michigan, an expert in depictions of the prophet in Islamic art.
The first surviving pictures from these regions date back to the mid-13th century and were not restricted to any one sect. “Some of the earliest images were created by a Sunni ruler, who wanted to counter his father’s Shiism,” Gruber said.
They may have been part of a much longer tradition, but Mongol armies commanded by Genghis Khan’s grandson sacked Baghdad in 1258 and destroyed the imperial library. “We don’t know much about Islamic book art before that,” Gruber said. “It’s possible that before that there was a tradition but we will never know anything about it or be able to fill that gap.”
Muslim leaders who commissioned the images never tried to place them in public worship areas, and mosque decorations were restricted to calligraphy or floral and geometric designs.
Instead the images were luxury items for use in private devotion by a tiny elite, who wanted to study and meditate on the prophet’s life and teachings at home.
“There hasn’t been much public discussion about images of Muhammad,” said Gruber. “We can’t blame Muslim communities for not knowing that they exist, if we don’t make them publicly available. Publishing these images is artistic restitution in the face of senseless irreverence. It would be wonderful for us to flood our eyes with those beautiful images. Muslims can be proud of them as part of a very richly textured artistic heritage.”
No sacred images of Muhammad are on public display in the UK. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, by contrast, has put one particularly beautiful depiction of the ascension of Muhammad into heaven at the heart of its Islamic art galleries [3]. A second image appears on the museum website along with an introduction to the artistic tradition behind it.
“These portrayals, while somewhat rare, are not unheard of, as there were (and still are) many different attitudes toward depicting the prophet – and human beings in general – in the Islamic world,” the website states. “An image of the prophet Muhammad at the beginning of a book endows the volume with the highest form of blessing and sanctity. Thus, illustration of him was a common practice, particularly in the eastern regions of the Islamic world.”
A recent display of sacred Islamic art, including images of the prophet, at France’s Bibliothéque Nationale drew a stream of visitors and no controversy.
From around 1500AD, in Ottoman areas, images began to show Muhammad with his face covered by a veil, or in some cases replaced by golden flames. His face was not obscured in every depiction, though, and while the tradition of depicting him in human form waned, it never died.
It is most common in Shia Iran, where until recently postcards, pictures and even carpets depicting the prophet could be found on sale, and in 2008 the government commissioned a beautiful five-storey mural of Muhammad riding towards paradise, inspired by one of the manuscript paintings [4].
It has also reappeared in largely Sunni Egypt, where a wall painting on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, created during the revolutionary turmoil of 2012, shows Muhammad on a horse, perhaps ready to ride into battle, turned away from the viewer but identified by calligraphy floating in stars above his head [5].
Nasima Begum, spokeswoman for the Muslim Council of Great Britain, said views on representations of Muhammad were uniform, and described the sacred art as a historical anomaly. “The general view about depicting the prophet hasn’t changed over time,” she said. “It is believed that he should not be depicted whatsoever. In the 12th and 13th centuries, there may well have been books producing images of the prophet, however the very fact that images of his face were covered up in the 16th century or so does show that Muslims were not happy about the depictions and therefore resulted in a veil being used to cover the face.”
She declined to comment on whether the council would object to the display of the images in exhibitions of Islamic art, or their publication. To Gruber and other scholars, publishing and celebrating those pictures is essential.
“It’s not patronising just to the heritage; to my mind it’s actually quite belittling of Muslims [not to publish them],” Gruber said. “There is a pernicious unspoken message that Muslims won’t be able to handle seeing these materials or talking about them.” She added that in over a decade of research and teaching, she has never been threatened and does not consider her work dangerous.
“If I cave in to fear, then that would mean I assume that Muslim readers are essentially or inherently inclined towards violence, and I think that’s offensive,” she said. “Every time that I have seen or held any public discussion of these respectful images, there has only been positive reaction.”
Emma Graham-Harrison
This article was amended on 15 January 2015 to remove an incorrect reference to the divinity of Muhammad. The basis of Islamic belief is monotheism – ie, that there is only one God. Muhammad is respected as a prophet of God; he is not divine.
LIFE OF THE PROPHET
570 Muhammad born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. His father dies around this time.
575 His mother dies, leaving him an orphan in the care of a powerful grandfather and, later, uncle.
595 Aged 25, he marries Khadija, a wealthy widow. They have two sons, who both die in infancy, and four daughters.
610 Muhammad receives his first revelation, in a cave on the outskirts of Mecca.
613 He begins preaching in public. He, his family and followers are persecuted.
622 He and his followers leave Mecca for the oasis town of Yathrib, later renamed Medina, where his father is buried. This marks year zero in the Islamic calendar.
630 After years of fighting, Muhammad’s followers take Mecca without bloodshed.
632 He returns to Mecca on a pilgrimage, delivers a farewell sermon, then dies in Medina after a short illness.
* The Guardian. Saturday 10 January 2015 22.16 GMT:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/10/drawing-prophet-islam-muhammad-images
UK Museum lied about Mohammed image
When the Victoria & Albert Museum in London was asked if it held any images of the so-called prophet after the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, it said there were none.
But a US expert later provided a link to a poster in its collection, with the inscription “Mohammad the Prophet of God”. That page in the database was deleted last week, but can still be found in a cached version. A spokeswoman said their original response was “an honest error”.
Reporting on this latest act of self-censorship, the Guardian showed the potentially explosive image buried a long way below these words:
Warning: this article contains the image of the prophet Muhammad, which some may find offensive.
“The V&A, it said, had attempted to conceal its ownership of the “devotional image”, citing security concerns, in what is part of a wider pattern of apparent self-censorship by British institutions that scholars fear could undermine public understanding of Islamic art and the diversity of Muslim traditions.”
Similar images have been shown in exhibitions across Europe and America without prompting outrage, much less protests or a violent response. Made by Muslim artists for fellow Muslims, they come from a long but often overlooked tradition.
British museums and libraries hold dozens of these images, mostly miniatures in manuscripts several centuries old, but they have been kept largely out of public view. Fear of displaying them is apparently driven by controversy about satirical or offensive portraits of Muhammad by non-Muslims, despite the huge difference in form and purpose.
V&A spokeswoman, Olivia Colling said:
“Unfortunately we were incorrect to say there were no works depicting the prophet Muhammad in the V&A’s collection. As the museum is a high-profile public building already on a severe security alert, our security team made the decision that it was best to remove the image from our online database (it remains within the collection)”
Colling declined to say whether the museum had consulted Muslim communities about who might consider the image offensive, or whether it had received any threats directly related to the poster, created in Iran around 1990.
Many images of the ‘prophet’ can be found in the Internet.
There was not a single complaint when another contemporary Iranian image of Mohammed was included in a 2013 exhibition in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, hung next to a Christian icon, as part of an exhibition on cross-cultural encounters.
Said Mirjam Shatanawi, an Islamic art specialist and the Tropenmuseum’s curator for the Middle East and North Africa:
“We knew it might be controversial, but decided to take the risk because the story is important to tell. These images are a real eye-opener, a powerful example of Islam being different and more diverse than many imagine.”
“If Muslims feel offended by images made by other Muslims out of reverence for the prophet, I’m not sure if the museum should decide not to show them. It seems like choosing one interpretation of Islam over the other. These images are not made to disrespect but – on the contrary – to honour the prophet.”
The Muslim Council of Britain declined to comment on whether it considered the images offensive, or whether it would object to their display.
Other British institutions with images of Mohammed in their Islamic art collections show some on websites, but have shied away from exhibitions. Edinburgh University Library last year celebrated a manuscript that contains many images of Mohammded, but none was included in the display. The university declined to say why.
Said Christiane Gruber, an expert in images of the prophet at the University of Michigan:
“There is no artistic reason whatsoever why those folios should have been left out. The paintings of Mohammed are superb and form a significant part of the manuscript’s pictorial programme. I worry that our institutions of culture and learning are muting these significant Islamic works of figural art due to a variety of fears. This is a real shame and a terrible loss for our shared global artistic heritage.”
The British Library included one image of Mohammed in its 2007 Sacred exhibition, but his face is veiled. None of the other UK libraries and museums that hold pictures of the prophet could provide details of any time they had been on public display.
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art features one in its Islamic art galleries, and several were shown in Paris at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 2011 with no negative response.
Said Ingvild Flaskerud, an expert on Shia devotional culture at the University of Oslo:
“As a historian of religion, I think it is very important to put such images on display. They provide valuable information about the richness of Muslim devotional life. By not displaying the images, we give privilege to certain understandings of Islam and marginalise others. This is not simply a scholastic issue; it is also a democratic matter.”
Ivan Bailey & Trevor Blake
* http://freethinker.co.uk/2015/01/25/museum-lied-about-mohammed-image/