Categorizing Cultures and Histories: The Problematic Nature of Islamic Art as a Historical Category
Overview
This paper examines the concept of 'Islamic art' as a historiographical category created in the 19th century, arguing that the term is overly broad and problematic in its application. The author contends that Islamic art generalizes all artistic work created in Islamic-dominated regions regardless of the artist's faith or the artwork's secular or religious nature, thereby obscuring individual and indigenous identities and contributions.
What this essay covers
- Definition and historical origins of Islamic art as a 19th-century historiographical construct
- Critique of the term's breadth and its conflation of religious and secular art across multiple faiths
- Discussion of the loss of individual and indigenous identities through universalist categorization approaches
- Proposal for diachronic and dynasty-based classification methodologies as alternatives
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CATEGORIZING CULTURES AND HISTORIES
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Islamic art is a concept created by historians in the 19th Century used to describe artistic work made under the Islamic people by artists whose main religion was Islam.[1] The problem with the term 'Islamic art' is that unlike other religions such as the Christian religion, which only claims the religious arts, it generalizes all the artistic work that has been created in a Land where Islamic religion is dominant as being Islamic art. Islamic art also claims all the artwork done by patterns of other faiths such as Christians and Jews living in Islamic areas. Due to its broad nature, we face issues when categorizing an artwork as either being Islamic or not. Since it includes religious and secular art, some secular art made in the Islamic lands Could be forbidden by some Islamic theologians if it is categorized as Islamic.
Furthermore, there is a lack of acknowledgment of other religions' individuals for their work since it's categorized as Islamic work. The shortcoming of the universalist way of looking at artwork is the lack of recognization of different identities and indigenous groups. Through universalism, several indigenous groups and individuals will lose their work's essence since they cannot claim artistic creation as their own. Dealing with an art historically will help categorize artwork to not fall under such a broad category. The diachronic approach will categorize one period's art in a particular region whereby Islamic art will be viewed as another religious art.