Blindspot!
From Issue: 700 [Read full issue]
Faith Needs Art
Everywhere, in all cultures and civilizations, from the oldest to the most modern, the arts have always expressed and conveyed humankind's common aspiration to remain upstanding, to try to understand, and to tell the meaning of their lives, of their sufferings, of their loves, and of their deaths. Those works are invaluably rich and the various societies' cultural heritages must be studied from within. All that a culture produces is not always satisfactory from an artistic or ethical standpoint and it is important to adopt a critical approach that manages to be both inclusive and selective. Innumerable works produced by non-Muslim cultures and artists by no means contradict Islam's ethical goals: those varied forms of art, literature, or music must, in the name of universality of principles, be integrated into the shared cultural and artistic heritage of societies and, more generally, of humankind.
There are higher ethical goals in art, as in any other human activity. Preserving the common good, dignity, and welfare is, of course essential, as is the importance of dignity, creativity, and diversity. In addition to celebrating those higher goals, it should be possible to discuss tensions, doubts, grief, and suffering, not to nurture them morbidly but to come to terms with them in a quest for balance, peace, contemplation, and sincerity that can never be fully achieved.
The Universe of art is a Universe of questions rather than answers, and it should not be reduced to conveying only religious answers. Artistic expression precedes such answers and the accompanying norms: it seeks to reach and convey the essence of emotion and meaning, and any attempt seeking to reduce it to a strictly religious or Islamic message would naturally leave people unsatisfied. Art asks questions, faith supplies answers: it is important for faith to allow the heart a space where it can express with freedom and dignity its simple, human, painful questions, which may not always be beautiful but are never absolutely ugly. Moreover, faith needs it, for such a experience enables it to gain depth, substance, and intensity.
Compiled From:
"Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation" - Tariq Ramadan, p. 202