A Reexamination on Relation between the Islamic Arts and Mysticism on the Historical Evidences

Subject Areas : The Journal of Islamic History and Civilisation

مهرداد  قیومی بیدهندی ¹ (ندارد)

Received: 2010-09-11 Accepted : 2010-12-02 Published : 2011-02-20

Keywords: Islamic art, Islamic Mysticism and Sufism, dhikr, mystic&#x0D, &#x0D, cycles,

Abstract :

Many scholars have suggested that, in the Islamic culture, there was afirm and deep relation between the arts and the Islamic mysticism. Asthe Sufi poets tried to present their mystic intuitions in poems, theIslamic artisans and craftsmen tried to realise their mystic findings inthere are works artefacts, buildings, calligraphy, paintings, music, etc.Such an assertion is based on two premises:(1) The non-modernIslamic milieu was full of spirituality in spite of many reports aboutvillainous acts in it;(2) The art works which we have inherited fromthe non-modern Islamic culture are of spirituality enough to lead us tosomehow contending the spiritual character of their creators, or, atleast, the spiritual milieu and the context in which they were created.But in fact the efforts for showing reliability of the premises are notenough. We know that a good number of the Islamic artists were Sufibut all of them were not so. Hever the less we can also find manyhistorical instances showing that the milieu was full of mysticism aswell as the prominent effective artists were Sufi or, at least, had Sufitrends. Moreover, in the Islamic society, the men who had publicacceptability, i.e. the moral leaders, were Sufi or had somehowrelation with Sufism and mystic cycles. In this article, the presentauthor introduces many instances from the Persian literature andhistoric texts to show the relation between Sufis and art, as well as therelation between the Iranian Muslim artists and mysticism.