Material Culture of Religion: New Approaches to Functionality in Islamic Objects

Abstract

Religious artefacts are usually evaluated in the light of good-old symbolism rather than functionality. This makes these artefacts perceived as objects alienated to the contemporary paradigm of design in its classical sense the outcome of the formula ‘form follows function’. However, symbolism is not sufficient to explain the material culture of religious objects, because they mostly refer to specific practices and rituals. In this situation there is a strong need to go beyond purely symbolic patterns and have a fresh look at the issue of functionality and design.

This paper aims to discuss the historical origins and sociological perspectives of material culture of religion, with a specific reference to Islam and Sufism, interrogating religious objects with a view to focusing on their functionality. All these discussions are structured on the three basic categories of function, namely; techno-function, socio-function and ideo-function.

Keywords:

• functionality
• mobility
• religion
• design
• Sufism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This article is inspired by ethnographic research conducted in Turkey on sociability and technology, which is a part of a larger research project initiated by Intel in 2007. For this research, Islam was identified as an important component of Turkish culture because Turkey has been highly influenced and shaped by Islam through the ages, from the reign of the Ottoman Empire to modern Turkey. Since one of the key ideas being explored in this project was technology, it focused on the people and their relationship with their technological objects. In addition to interviews conducted with the people on the street, fieldwork was done in religious districts such as Eyup Sultan mosque in Istanbul and the bazaar located in this area. These neighbourhoods were selected on the basis of the dominant material culture that is part of the religious practice in these areas. During this study, it was observed that objects centered on the culture of religion in its modern context of Turkey are highly dominated by the influence of technology in one way or another. These objects, rather than bounded to tradition in a static way, flourished in time by the changing opportunities of technology. One example of this can be an interviewee from the ethnographic study conducted; it was an imam who used PowerPoint slides with a projector in his Friday sermons. The number and variety of all kinds of devices specialized on different functions such as counting prayers, finding the direction of Kaaba, etc. were also inspirational in the initiation of such a paper.

2. The second category can be exemplified by automata, which had their most advanced form in this period of Islamic development:

‘The making of automata in Greece, in Islam, and later in Europe was one of the factors that led men to develop a rationalistic, mechanistic explanation of natural phenomena, an attitude that has been immensely fruitful in the development of modern science. Moreover, much of modern technology has evolved from automata, particularly in the field of delicate mechanisms and scientific and scientific instrumentation. For this reason the mechanisms that actuated the automata are the greatest significance’ (Hogendijk and Sabra, 2003: 236).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hümanur Bağlı

Hümanur Bağlı graduated as an industrial designer from METU, receiving her masters degree from Hacettepe University, Department of Graphic Design and PhD from Istanbul Technical University, Department of Industrial Design. She worked as a design researcher in the project called ‘Sociability and Technology’ with Intel corp., also as a visiting scholar in City Design Center, UIC, Chicago. Currently teaching as Associate Professor in ITU, Department of Industrial Design. Her academic interests are basic design, graphic design, design ethnography, semiotics, product semantics and sufi culture.