Art, Aesthetics, and Islamic Mysticism

During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Islamic mysticism, or Sufism, spread extensively throughout Western society, with Sufi teachings permeating all spheres of society. The increasingly powerful and pervasive presence of Sufi popular religiosity and aesthetic traditions in the West has also engendered new cultural forms. Contemporary art has not only greatly expanded the traditional boundaries of aesthetic material culture; it also draws on a far more diverse range of bodily and sensory experiences. Drawing on recent methodological trends inspired by the aesthetic turn, this book explores contemporary perspectives on art, aesthetics, and Islamic mystical experience, with a focus on sensory synesthesia. The authors seek to contribute not only to the study of postcolonial and decolonial ways of thinking about Sufi performances, artworks, and visual expressions, but also to the development of a transcultural Sufi-inspired aesthetics.

The first study of contemporary Islamic Aesthetics Explores and Islamic mystical experience with a focus on sensory synesthesia Contributes to the study of postcolonial and decolonial ways of thinking about Sufi art

Autorentext

Sara Kuehn is a researcher, writer, and lecturer, presently teaching at the Department of Islamic Theology, University of Vienna, working at the interdisciplinary juncture of (art) history, anthropology, theology, philosophy, religious and cultural studies.

Klappentext

This exciting volume accomplishes something both new and necessaryit offers a window into Muslim theories and practices centered on beauty, especially within the context of Sufism. The articles respond to almost any imaginable aesthetic practice that Muslims value, treated with exceptional erudition. This is a very welcome addition to the study of Muslim praxis, the Islamic arts, Sufi aesthetics, and embodied Muslim subjectivity.

Cyrus Ali Zargar , Al-Ghazali Distinguished Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Central Florida

During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Islamic mysticism, or Sufism, spread extensively throughout Western society, with Sufi teachings permeating all spheres of society. The increasingly powerful and pervasive presence of Sufi popular religiosity and aesthetic traditions in the West has also engendered new cultural forms. Contemporary art has not only greatly expanded the traditional boundaries of aesthetic material culture; it also draws on a far more diverse range of bodily and sensory experiences. Drawing on recent methodological trends inspired by the aesthetic turn, this book explores contemporary perspectives on art, aesthetics, and Islamic mystical experience, with a focus on sensory synesthesia. The authors seek to contribute not only to the study of postcolonial and decolonial ways of thinking about Sufi performances, artworks, and visual expressions, but also to the development of a transcultural Sufi-inspired aesthetics.

Sara Kuehn is a researcher, writer, and lecturer, presently teaching at the Department of Islamic Theology, University of Vienna, working at the interdisciplinary juncture of (art) history, anthropology, theology, philosophy, religious and cultural studies.

Inhalt

Ch 1: Introduction: Living Sufi Aesthetics. Art, Performance, and Devotion in Motion.- Part 1: Embodied and Inscribed Devotion.- Ch 2: Bodily Sensations of a Whirling Dervish Dancer: The Art of Synesthesia in the Work of Ziya Azazi and Its Veiled Aesthetics of an Islamic Mysticism.- Ch 3: A Rite of the Crane: Aesthetics and the Transformation of Ecstatic Experience Through an Alevi Ritual Form.- Ch 4: Al b. Ab lib and the Camel that Carried his Coffin.- Ch 5: The Gracious yet Disobedient Calligraphy of Yelimane Fall.- Part 2: Resonance and Remix, Continuity and Transformation.- Ch 6: 'Problematic yet Insightful: The Unaddressed Issue of the Perennialists and Their Contemporaries' Interpretation of Islamic Art'.- Ch 7: Spiritual Journey and Its Outward Forms: Islamic Authority, Hip Hop, and Aesthetics in London's Faya Tijniyya Sufi Community.- Ch 8: Total Surrender: Sufi Elements in Contemporary Kathak between Pakistan and India.- Part 3: Rupture, Resistance, and Decolonial Interventions.- Ch 9: Humans, Nonhumans, and the Malmatiyya.- Ch 10: Appropriating the Slikn's Journey: Sufi Aesthetics Between Politics, Art, and Popular Culture in Post-Arab Spring Egypt.- Ch 11: Discursive and Aesthetic Dimensions of Pain and Suffering: Naqshbandîs and Qâdirîs in the Kurdistan Region-Iraq.