Aniconism

General aspects

Religions monotheists - the aniconism is based in the religions monotheists by theological considerations and historical contexts. It is conceived like a corollary of the statute of God like holder of the absolute capacity and the need to defend it face has external and internal candidates - the pagan gods and the human critics. The idolatry is a threat with unicity, and a way of fighting its reality which the prophets and the missionaries chose, was the prohibition of the representations. The same solution was applied against the claims of human to hold the same capacity of creation as God (from where their banishment of the Paradise, the destruction of Babel and the Second Command).

the aniconism, a construction - a number of contemporary researchers joined together, for their particular fields of study, of materials showing as in the case of many cultures their alleged aniconism is a intellectual construction, promoting specific interests and historical contexts, rather than a fact of tangible reality (Huntington for Buddhism, Clément for Islam and Bland for the Judaism - to see the lower references).

Various cultures

According to Tacite the Germains took care not to produce images of their idols:

"In addition, they do not find worthy of the size of the Skies has to bequeath the Gods on the walls of temples or to depict them under the features of the humains."

Christianity

See Byzantine Iconoclasme
Iconoclasme of the Protestant Reform

Islam

The aniconism in Islam varies according to whether one considers Coran, the mosques, the laws or the practices. Coran represents the base of the religion, the mosque is material space where the religious normative capacity is exerted, the laws result from historical evolutions of interpretation, finally the practices are varied according to the spheres of Moslem companies.

Coran

The divine message does not contain any explicit injunction against representations. It is restricted to throw the opprobrium on the idolatry called Shirk. Being given the importance for the idolâtres crowned objects, in particular statues worked by the human hand, the verses referring are often used to it to argue in favor of the aniconism. Here examples:

“Abraham known as with his/her Azar father: will you take idols for gods? You and your people you are in an obvious mislaying. ” “And put in parts idols, except largest, so that they were caught some with it what arrived” (6: 74, 21:59)

“O believers! the wine, the games of chance, the asnam statues” or “stones drawn up” according to the translations and the fate of the arrows are an abomination invented by Satan; abstain you-in and you will be happy. ” (5: 92)

The Coran affirms also the creative power of God, question of importance for the treatment of the figurative representations:

“He is creative and formative God. ” (59: 25)

“Jesus will say to the children of Israel: I come towards you accompanied by signs by the Lord; I will form mud the figure of a bird; I will blow above, and by the permission of God, the bird will be alive. ” (3: 43)

Mosques

The Mosquée S are the places where the absence of illustrated representations is constant through the Moslem companies. Being what there is of more official and public for the religion, they constitute a model, which confers the capacity to them to reflect beyond their own walls their aniconic nature. The aniconism of the first mosque, the house of the Prophet to Médine, is due to its character impromptu and with a certain number of concrete factors like empties it left by the expulsion of the idols of the space of prayer achieved by Mahomet. The later mosques perpetuated the original characteristics, except for the introduction of vegetable and geometrical reasons. Those were also adopted in this extension of the mosque which is the book of the Coran.

Interpretations

One counts around 200 Hadith S having milked with the representation. They do not have all the same importance, are repeated on a reduced number of events, were generally collected a long time after the death of the Prophet (what poses problems of authenticity), and, especially, are too related to particular contexts of its life to be generalized without need for interpretation. It is only about the 9th century that one sees appearing interpretations of theologists prohibiting the representation. But the opinions are not unanimous on its definition: are they only the living beings? paintings as well as the statues? prohibition T it in little exposed spaces applies, a such corridor? only if they are with the detriment of the religion? etc

In addition to the individuals there are alternatives according to the legal schools, the rites and the branches. The chi' ism is not dyed same virulence iconophobe as that which could develop in the treaties of the medieval sunnism; the mystics did not embarrass themselves to divert the penmanship in order to make of them figurative images integrated into their religious practices; finally, certain movements base their control on only Coran, other than hadith, like the Soumis currently. Concomittants with them are the Wahhabites, the Salafistes or the Talibans, for which the figurative representations are to be banished. The legal and theological corpora elaborate during the medieval periods have being amended at the time contemporary allowing the use of modern technologies of reproduction, which require a religious opinion to be licit. Except arriving at contradictions, the diversity of positions guarantees against their telescoping in a single point of view.

Moslem companies

Vis-a-vis the diversity and with the limits of religious precepts in the practices of the Moslem companies a aniconic tendency, which gained a statute panislamic, in parallel of more local figurative expressions develops, mainly under Byzantine influence, then Mongolian and turco - Persian, and finally of the western world and modern. Chronologically modernity represents a massive introduction of figurative representations into the Moslem companies, at the point to make them essential to their operation. Examples for various social spheres follow.

Symbols of the capacity - So today the banknotes and the currencies of many Moslem countries carry the effigies of controlling and of personalities, Moslem coining was during the Middle Ages largely limited to the C-W communication, except for part of the production Omeyyade and of some later dynasties of less scale. Flags, blazons and seals are also aniconic - note nevertheless the figurative blazons of the first Mamelouks, the lion of the imperial sign Persian and the flag C-W communication of the Saudi Arabia. Official portraits become current under the Othoman , the Safavides and the Moghols and spread with the arrival of the photography, of which many kings were filled with enthusiasm, and who nowadays became a means of propaganda and opposition for all the confused Moslem tendencies.

Practical popular - It is the chi' ism - which is not summarized with the Iran - which offers the example more striking of a major integration of the figurative image in the Moslem religious practices. The portraits of Ali and Husayn are omnipresent, of pendentive out of plastic and the sticker on a windshield of truck, until more baroques paintings swarming with details on the life of the two martyrs whom the fabrics of the popular theater depict ta' ziyye , draperies of travelling storytellers or frescos of restaurants. It is in addition a shi' ite, large the Ayatollah Sistani of Najaf, which declared in a Fatwa the manufacture of the images of Mahomet allowed, if that is done with the largest respect. With the difference of tombs sunnites the burials shi' ites can post the image of the late one. At the same time a mistrust in front of the image - to see, to post it or let take its portrait - is a phenomenon spread in all the social layers. However, the reactions caused by the images would be far from being all ascribable with precepts of the religion.

arts - See: Representation illustrated in arts of Islam. About the contemporary art let us note the presence of schools of the fine arts everywhere in the Muslim world, which leads as well to a production of figurative painting and cinema, as with sculpture. A hybrid style - between painting and penmanship original and not-figurative acquired an international success. Let us add the presence of figurative creations in popular arts, the martyr of Husayn mentioned above, or the epopee of “Antar, source of inspiration for a painting annealed glass in Syria. A puppet theater is practiced since the Middle Ages (written at Mamluks; the Othoman karagöz). The art of State is also to mention, and appears in public murals with the memory of wars or for the glorification of controlling. The national spirit, or the Arabism, also materializes with the crossroads, in statues: here Tal' At Harb, there a equestrian Saladin, elsewhere the president himself.

Other fields - astronomy, medicine, mechanics, constituted fields where the representation of the living beings was important (zodiacs, portraits of Greek philosophers, dissections, automats, etc). Military handbooks, in particular mamluks and Maghrebians are also sometimes figurative, as sometimes the decoration of weapons and effects military. In the administrative domain the passport photograph became a bureaucratic part impossible to circumvent, just like it - and it video - is for the transmission of information and the culture (written press, television, cinema).

Vis-a-vis the images of not-Moslems

The Moslem tradition reports that the day of the rendering of Mecque, Mahomet destroyed 360 idols contained in the Ka' Ba. It would have left only two images there: that of Abraham and that of the mother of Jesus. Other acts of destruction of pre-Islamic idols are mentioned in the Tabaqât of Ibn AD.

With the catch of Constantinople in 1453, the sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror, filled with wonder by the magnificence at the basilica Basilica Holy-Sophie, immediately made cease the destruction of the mosaics, to which had started to deliver its soldiers, and decided to transform it into mosque. The mosaics were covered with plaster. However the Othoman sultans made sure that they were periodically removed the plaster and restored before being again hidden with the eyes of the faithful ones.

In 2001, calling upon sovereign Islam and their rights, and in spite of the dissension of the community known as " internationale" just like that of many Moslem religious leaders of the rest of the world, the Afghan Taliban S destroy with the gun on the Bouddhas of Bâmiyân and ransack pre-Islamic collections in the National museum with Kabul.

Judaism

Golden calf

See too

Iconoclasme, icon, Idol
Censure
Caricatures of Mahomet of the newspaper Jyllands-Posten

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