Sohail Nakhooda from Kalam Research & Media was, on 18^th May 2010, invited to speak at a symposium on social harmony at the Sharjah Art Museum as part of International Museums Day. The symposium was organised by the Sharjah Museums Department in cooperation with various museums in Sharjah. Other speakers at the symposium included Majid Abdulla Rashed (Secretary General, UAE Disabled Sports Federation Governing Board), Dr Samia Rab (College of Art, Architecture and Design at the American University of Sharjah), Jamal Al Falasi (Environmental activist, Knowledge and Human Development Authority), Rashid Al Kous (General Coordinator of “Knowledge without borders” project), and Fatima Musharbak (Education Specialist for Community and Accessibility Services at SMD). Below is the text of my presentation.Sharjah Art Museum as part of International Museums Day. The symposium was wonderfully organised by the incredibly creative team at the Sharjah Museums Department in cooperation with various museums in Sharjah. Other speakers at the symposium included Majid Abdulla Rashed (Secretary General, UAE Disabled Sports Federation Governing Board), Dr Samia Rab (College of Art, Architecture and Design at the American University of Sharjah), Jamal Al Falasi (Environmental activist, Knowledge and Human Development Authority), Rashid Al Kous (General Coordinator of “Knowledge without borders” project), and Fatima Musharbak (Education Specialist for Community and Accessibility Services at SMD).

Below is the full text of the speech.

The Relevance of Art and Culture to Inter-Faith Relations

‘Social Harmony Symposium’

Tuesday 18th May 2010, Sharjah Museums Department

In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Since the political theorist, the late Samuel Huntington, raised the spectre of a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ in an article he wrote in 1993, there has been an uneasy feeling of an impending clash between the Islam and the West—a clash between a religious tradition and a geographic location, as some have cynically referred to it. As improbable as this theory may seem, however, the changing fortunes of war and politics in the period following the tragic events of 9/11 and the no less tragic events of the war on terror and its aftermath in the Middle East and elsewhere—has led a growing number of policymakers, religious leaders, and the ordinary public to believe that such an apocalyptic conflict between two civilisations was indeed possible. Some have even transmuted the conflict to one between religions, between Islam and Christianity.

Such a state of mind is borne out not just by anecdotal evidence, but also by surveys and statistics. A growing body of data alerts us on the continuing rise of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiments around the world. Ignorance and fear of the ‘other’ is actually on the rise. This is all the more puzzling, as we live in an seemingly ‘global village’ but yet prejudice, tension, conflict, fear, are all on the up.

We do not live in a golden age. Our world is changing, and at such a staggering pace that even we have difficulty keeping up with it and even less internalizing it—whether at the individual or at the societal level. The promises of industrialization, urbanization, and scientific progress have not lived up to its promises but ended instead creating new, and more intractable problems. We now live in a world that is increasingly typified by three complex conditions: 1) Complex disparities: We have extreme disparities in income, health, education, social customs, age, access to employment and opportunity; 2) Complex interdependence: breathtaking developments in technology, travel and communication have revolutionized interaction between individuals, communities and societies; and 3) Complex ignorance: ignorance and fear of the ‘other’ pervades communities. Islamophobia is on the increase and so are other forms of xenophobia, extremism and exclusivism.

The factors that have given rise to this situation are complex and we cannot unpack them here. There are theological, political, social, cultural, economic, and even technological reasons. But at the heart of it all, I feel, is an individual’s complete ignorance of the ‘other’, whether the other is someone you only see (or ‘meet’) depicted in your television, or read about in a newspaper, or even if that ‘other’ happens to be your very neighbour or your work colleague. The fact of the matter is that what we know about each other is less than we think.

This is a puzzling phenomenon that we must come to terms with. Cultural illiteracy among the adults, thirty-somethings, teenagers, and the young, is particularly worrisome. Such illiteracy has robbed the mooring of identity in one’s civilisation and heritage and has instead led to an inability to relate to or understand the spiritual and aesthetic idiom of one’s heritage. More concretely, I mean about the postmodern situation where a young Turkey, having grown in a city as artistically rich as Istanbul, has little or no knowledge of Ottoman history and culture; or a young, middle-class and educated living in Cairo is unable to decipher the historical and spiritual texture of this ancient city. This malaise is deeper than just a generational gap.

Societal institutions such as the family, mosque, the church, the temple, the school, the university, the library, have the capacity to trigger a way out of this morass. And one particular civic institution that has a key role to play is the museum.

Museums act as bridges for cultural understanding by providing a shared, and safe, space for preservation, understanding, dialogue and engagement. Museum collections preserve the magnificence of one’s own civilisational patrimony and those of others. They bring together seemingly disparate arts, crafts and sciences and synthesize them into a historical, visual and interpretative narrative. They teach us who we are; they help form our identity; they reconnect us to our past. Without a connection to our past we cannot authentically live the present or meaningfully move forward to the future. It is precisely this lack of connectedness to our past, to our heritage, and the lack of awareness about others and their pasts, that is at the root cause of why we marginalise, de-humanise, fear, and even hate the ‘other’.

So museums fulfill two vital roles: one is the dialogue within oneself, which is related to one’s identity; and the other is a dialogue with the traditions and cultures of the world. Museums enable both processes to occur through the treasures they display and which cut across time and geography. Both are equally urgent.

The great religions of the world, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhist and others, have all evolved and developed sophisticated civilizations in their wake and infused them with theological, spiritual and moral values unique to each. Each civilisation is in turn buttressed with myriad cultures that reflect a synthesis between faith and the local landscapes. Each culture has in turn given rise to a distinguishing art that materialised into tangible and intangible productions and artifacts that express the fusion of art, technique and wisdom.

Islamic civilisation too gave rise to an aesthetic peculiar to its own theological and spiritual temper, one that characterised unity in diversity. Its art spans over fourteen centuries and cultures varied and numerous, yet displaying an inherent aesthetic coherency and intricacy that was indellibly Islamic. Our ancestors were aware of the hadith—‘God is beautiful and loves beauty’—and endeavoured, through the sheer ability, spiritual depth and humility, to transform their living space into one that reflected God’s eternal beauty and majesty rather then their own egos. The museums here in Sharjah and in the other emirates, and the great Muslim living cities of Baghdad, Isfahan, Bukhara, Samarqand, Fez, Cordoba, and countless others, are such visual testaments and repositories that continually entice and engage our senses and frequently challenge and often shatter our preconceived attitudes.

The Islamic civilisation gave rise to a flowering of the art of penmanship, or calligraphy, illumination, book binding, papermaking, architecture, ceramics, pottery, woodwork, biomorphic design, metalwork, carpets and textiles, and even cuisine. Advancements in physics, alchemy and chemistry, geology, botany, geometry, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, navigation, agriculture, and also in philosophy, geography, literature, poetry and music. Muslim achievements in these and other fields helped pave the way for the European Renaissance and what followed. But few in the West seem to know of the debt they owe to Islam and to Muslim culture. Ask an ordinary passerby in London or in New York or in Paris or in Rome where did the first university originate, or who invented algebra. Most would not think that Islam and Muslims or Arabs had anything to do with such key turning points in human achievement.

The image of the Muslim and the Arab as backward, bloodthirsty and lascivious, is surprisingly still common currency and it is this narrative that plays in the subconscious of ordinary people in their perceptions of who we are. Orientalism, colonialism, and distorted media portrayals have fed and still feed on the stereotype and a lack of a balanced historical narrative imparted in schools that often neglects the Muslim and Arab contribution to their nation’s history.

When I was growing up in Portugal, I vividly remember my history teacher skipping the entire period of Muslim presence in Iberia until the Reconquista. He said that these were Iberia’s dark period and nothing was to be gained from it. And I thought that it must have been so; that lasting Muslim influence and presence in Portugal must have been only a phenomenon of the wave of immigrants in the 1970s. What changed this perception, for me at least, was when I visited the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon and saw the incredible legacy of Muslim artistic heritage that had its provenance in Portugal.

The same is true for Muslim influence in Europe and North America and other parts of the world. It is this history that must be unearthed and retold anew and with robustness so that Muslims and Arabs are not perceived as aliens but as people with whom they have shared identities.

The role of education in promoting social harmony and the spirit and attitude of respect for difference cannot be emphasized enough. School, and madrassa I should add, curricula must incorporate a more diversified historical and cultural narrative that allows young people to learn and appreciate cultural variety. This must be done in conjunction with museums and libraries, so that the visual, sensory, and tactile experience is deployed to full effect. It is one thing, after all, to read about the grace, fluidity and grandeur of Arabic calligraphy, and quite another to actually see it, or to feel the textures of a Persian rug as opposed to reading about it in a Sotheby’s catalogue! Children, particularly, must learn to feel, taste and touch, and art can help unlock latent creative talent that is vital for rejuvenating our sense of beauty, diversity and also the sacred. A linear view of progress and the constant demands of a consumer society, has led schools in the region to often neglect the teaching of art and culture.

In Sharjah, under the leadership and wisdom of His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan al-Qasimi, art and culture are playing a significant role in the development of an Arab and Islamic identity that is at once at home in its heritage and open to creative development. It is not often that one finds an institute, for example, devoted to Islamic calligraphy with permanent workshops and studios for calligraphers to practice and teach their craft. If the Muslim and Arab civilisation is to flower once more such patronage will be vital. Art cannot survive without it, its a long term investment.

The challenges facing us are tremendous but the sheer scale of the resources that we have at our disposal today, in order to develop a sound pedagogical approach that breaks stereotypes and nortures respect, should give us renewed hope.

We have major new museums in the Muslim world with significant Islamic art collections such as the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation; the Islamic Arts Museum in Malaysia (which has significantly enhanced our appreciation of the influence of Islam in South East and Far Eastern countries); and the new Museum of Islamic Art in Doha; not to mention the Topkapi and IRCICA in Istanbul. We also have burgeoning Islamic art collections at leading museums such as the Jameel Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum; the British Museum; the Louvre; New York’s Metropolitan Museum; Russia’s State Hermitage Museum and others. We also have extensive private collections such as the Saqib Sabanci collection; the Nasser Khalili collection; and the Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Owais Islamic calligraphy collection, among others. We also have the development of creative educational visuals tools such as the 1001 Muslim Inventions (its superb mini film won several awards in New York) and also the online virtual museum of Museum Without Frontiers. We have a whole host of publishers around the world producing academic and coffee table and educational books on all aspects of Islamic culture, history and art. We also have the establishment of Islamic art institutes such as those in Amman at the Institute of Traditional Islamic Arts and Architecture; at VITA in London; the Mimar Sinan University for Islamic Fine Arts in Istanbul; and also, rumour has it, in Abu Dhabi in the near future inshallah. They train the future generation of artists, artisans, and craftsmen. Finally, the presence of living masters and practitioners of Islamic art act as repositories and transmitters of a living artistic tradition.

The meeting of religions—of faith and the faithful—will bring with it challenges and opportunities. Each religious tradition carries attitudes about the ‘other’, and these attitudes will be challenged and confronted in the modern world when they come face to face with others who do not share what they hold so dearly. Dialogue therefore will have to develop at several levels and engagement must take place at several levels.

There is the theological level, where the faithful of each tradition will engage with the other in theological and scriptural dialogue to understand and reason with each other. The Common Word initiative, the Alliance of Civilisations and the Charter of Compassion are key efforts in this front. There is also the existential level, where communities negotiate, in urban cities, the daily challenges of existence and living together be it employment, housing, school, healthcare, etc. And there is the spiritual, cultural and artistic level that engages the spiritual and creative resources of each community as it shares, engages and even fuses with the culture around.

Dialogue centered around art and culture is extremely powerful. Art (and I also include architecture here, a wider definition) has the ability to speak to the ‘other’. This is not a verbal speaking but one that moves the heart, the senses, and is at once evocative as it is positively disturbing. Art, when authentically conceived through the rigours of skill, discipline, and spiritual humility, has a transformative capacity. And it is this transformation or prejudices and attitudes that we seek when we speak about the importance of art and culture for inter-faith dialogue. Art has the inherent ability to give us insight which neither argument of history nor analyses of social or economic circumstances can capture. How many an ignorant tourist has visited the Alhambra or the Taj Mahal or entered the Suleymaniyye Mosque, or equally has seen the Pieta of Michaelangelo or the Cathedral of Chartres or Notre Dame and been transformed in understanding and appreciation for what was hitherto alien and foreign to one? The truth of art speaks a universal language.

The Islamic civilisation was typified by peace, diversity, compassion and beauty. Its art is a mere reflection of these principles, held together by the belief in the veritable oneness of God. It promotes ‘ecologies of peace’, a term developed by my colleague Aref Nayed, to extol the language of compassion at the heart of the Muslim experience of the divine and of the world.

Declaring war on an abstract noun, i.e. the war on terror, will not bring about lasting peace. Instead we need to focus on winning hearts and minds through genuine and peaceful dialogue and learning; through sharing and collaboration across theological, spiritual, political, economic, and above all cultural and artistic spheres, for a harmony and diversity that is genuinely transformative of our innermost and deeply felt attitudes—without ever losing sight of who we are.

Thank you and assalam alaykum.

Sohail Nakhooda , Kalam Research & Media, Dubai.