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ABSTRACT
The contemporary visual culture of the Islamic societies of Pakistan in general, and the Milad festival (birthday celebrations of the Prophet Muhammad) in particular, reflects another genre of visuality in which the images that represents the name ‘Muhammad’, as per Arab-Persian/Urdu script, through textures, on a variety of surfaces, resulted out of certain biological, ecological, botanical and other natural phenomena, often popularly deemed miracles. This paper is an ethnographic case study of such an event that provokes certain questions such as: how a miracle becomes itself and its meanings are made and by whom? And how and why the ‘modern sense of visualizing the divine’ is created through miracles? It establishes this evolving sense with special reference to the emergent new cult images of the relics or symbolic representation of the Prophet, in conformity with the Islamic stricture on the figurative representation of human being.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. As per tradition, this festival has been celebrated through the ages into two ways: Milad, the birthday celebrations of the Prophet Muhammad, and the Barah Wafat, the death anniversary of the Prophet.
2. Ahmad Reza Khan (1856–1921), a Sufi scholar, who took stand against the hardliner Wahhabi puritanical ideology and was able to introduce a new doctrine based on ‘shrine-centered devotion’. Presently, his followers are popularly known as ‘Sunni Barelvis’, simply because he was a resident of the town of Bareilly in Rohilkhand, Utter Pradesh in India. His movement is also called the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jamaat (Followers of the Tradition of the Prophet) or the Ahl-e Sunnat. For further detail of the Sunni Barelvi doctrine see, Usha CitationSanyal, Devotional Islam and Politics in British India: Ahmad Reza Khan Barelwi and his movement, 1870–1920 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996).
3. The study uses the terms Shia, Sunni, and Wahhabi abundantly. Indeed, these are the names of three well-known contemporary factions of Islam, and reflect a trinity of hostile relationships amongst each other. The study uses the term ‘Wahhabi’ or ‘Wahhabism’ in general to indicate collectively Wahhabis, Deobandis, Ahl-e Hadis, Tablighi Jamaat and the modern Salafis. This is as per popular understanding in contemporary context due to their hostile behavior towards the popular practices of Islam in South Asia. However, the term ‘Sunni’ is specifically used for the Sunni Barelvi faith.
4. Tablighi Jamat (Society for Spreading Faith) – A non-political society aimed at calling Muslims and their Islamic practices back to the pristine purity of Islam. This religious movement was instituted by Muhammad Ilyas al-Kandhalvi in 1927 in the Mewat region, in north India. It is an offshoot of the Deobandi movement. The movement was initially restricted to the region of its birth, but it started to expand within South Asia immediately after the partition of India in 1947. Currently it is present in all over the world. Interestingly, the movement avoids the use of electronic media to communicate its message, and has emphasized a personal communication for proselytizing.
5. Dawat-e Islami (Invitation to Islam) – A non-political and purely religious organization belong to Sunni Barelvi faith, founded to encounter and to save Sunnis from influences of renown Tablighi Jamat of Deobandis. This movement was founded by Indian religious scholar Arshad Al-Qadri in 1981, aiming to proselytize Muslims into pure Sunni Barelvi faith, so that they could follow the traditions of the Prophet. It was launched from Dar al-Ulum Amjadia Karachi, and Muhammad Ilyas Attar Qadri was appointed its first Amir (commander). Today Dawat-e Islami seems to be very active and using the electronic media to achieve its required goals. Since 2009, it is running an independent Madni TV in order to project its message globally like QTV and a chain of Peace TV channels. For further detail see, www.dawateislami.com.pk.
6. Gachi – A Punjabi word meaning the fine clay of light gray color, a replacement of white lime, used to give whitewash to decorate interior and exterior of houses in the countryside of the Subcontinent. The students at primary level also use it traditionally on takhti (a small wooden tablet) as base for writing practices, nowadays in Pakistan.
7. A particular policy of enlightenment/secular was promulgated after 9/11 by the Government of General Pervaiz Musharaf in Pakistan. Following the policy, almost all public and private TV channels broadcast certain programs through which various religious issues were reviewed and discussed in a rational manner.
8. According to the Islamic tradition, the hadiya is a kind of offering or present made to someone against religious services. In other words, it is a sophisticated way to sell religious services in the name of hadiya or present rather than remuneration or fee.
9. The ‘medieval sense of visuality’ may be defined from two different perspectives: one, the elite, and the other, popular. Muslim monarchs introduced the Prophet Muhammad’s footprint and his other relics, the sacred objects of individual piety into public regime for their certain religio-political concerns, but in popular arenas, these were welcomed by the Indian Muslims due to the pre-existing local traditions of veneration of relics. As a result, the ‘sense of visualizing the divine’ with special reference to the relics of the Prophet was cultivated, which prompted new ways of veneration of a deity in the realm of popular devotionalism in Sunni Islam in India. This sense is not peculiar to the Sunni devotionalism and may be found in popular Shia devotion too, as the footprints of Ali and some other relics, attributed to Ahl-e Bayat (Prophet’s family), are revered greatly and may be found in Hyderabad (both in Deccan and in Sindh), Srinagar, Lucknow, Ahmadabad, Khambat, Delhi, and in many other cities all over South Asia. For detail see, CitationAbbas, Ghulam. ‘A Comparative Study of the Visual Cultures: Islamic Festivals in Lahore and Delhi.’ Diss. Jawaharalal Nehru U, 2014. Print .
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Notes on contributors
Ghulam Abbas
Ghulam Abbas is an Associate Professor at the School of Fine Art, Design and Architecture at the GIFT University, Gujranwala, Pakistan. He holds a multifaceted academic background as he did BFA in Textile Design from the University of Peshawar, MA (Hons.) in Visual Art from National College of Arts, Lahore, and during his High School he learned the traditional art of Khattati (calligraphy). His areas of research are in traditional arts, Muslim devotional arts and the popular visual Islamic culture of South Asia, which he formalized in his PhD (2014) on this subject from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has taught different subjects related to fine art, design and cultural studies. He has presented papers at conferences both home and abroad, published papers and articles in newspapers and journals, and authored a book entitled Tazias of Chiniot in 2007. He is also the member of a literary body known as the Progressive Writers Association of Pakistan as he developed his interest in writing poetry and short stories during his college days.