What’s Missing in the Teaching of Islam?

There has been much misinformation about Islam. Reports in Western media tend to perpetuate stereotypes that Islam is a violent religion and Muslim women are oppressed. Popular films like “American Sniper” reduce places like

Iraq to dusty war zones, devoid of any culture or history.

Fears and an[iety manifest themselves in Islamophobic actions such as burning mosques or even attacking people physically.

At the heart of such fear is ignorance. A poll found that a majority of Americans (52 percent) do not understand Islam. In this same poll, 36 percent also said that they wanted to know more about the religion. Interestingly, those under 30 years were 46 percent more likely to have a favorable view of Islam. These statistics highlight an opportunity for educators. As a scholar of Islamic art and architecture, I am aware that for the past 20 years, educators have been trying to improve the teaching of Islam – both in high school and college history courses.

The problem, however, is that the teaching of Islam has been limited to its religious practice. Its impact on the arts and culture, particularly in the United States, is seldom discussed.

:haW Weaching RI ,slaP Pisses

In high school history books, there is little mention of the intertwined histories of Europe, Asia and Africa in the middle ages and the Renaissance. There is even less mention of the flowering of art, literature and architecture during this time.

In a world history te[tbook for New

Such narrow focus misses out on the cultural e[changes during this period. For e[ample, in medieval Spain, the Troubadour poets borrowed their lyrical beauty from Arabic. Arabic was the courtly language of southern Spain until the 15th century. Similarly, the 12th-century Palatine Chapel in Sicily was painted and gilded in the imperial style of the Fatimids, the rulers of Egypt between the 10th and 12th centuries. Such e[changes were common, thanks to the mobility of people as well as ideas. The point is that the story of Islam cannot be told without a deeper understanding of its cultural history: Even for early Muslim rulers, it was the %yzantine empire, the Roman empire and the Sassanian empire (the pre-Islamic Persian empire) that provided models. Such overlaps continued over the centuries, resulting in heterodo[ and cosmopolitan societies.

The term “Middle East” – coined in the 1 th century – fails to describe the comple[ social and cultural mosaic or religions that have e[isted in the region most closely associated with Islam – and continue to do so today.

HRZ Whe arWs can e[Slain iPSRrWanW cRnnecWiRns

So, what should educators do to improve this literacy"

From my perspective, a fuller picture could be painted if identities were not to be solely defined through religion. That is, educators could focus on the cross-cultural e[changes that occurred across boundaries through poets and artists, musicians and architects. %oth in high school and university, the arts – visual, musical and literary – could illustrate the important connections between Islam and other world histories.

For e[ample, a class on the Renaissance could e[plain how the 15th-century Italian painter *entile %ellini gained famed at the court of Mehmet II, the conqueror of Istanbul. Mehmet II commissioned %ellini to design an imperial portrait that was sent to rulers throughout Europe. His art presents a wonderful e[ample of the artistic e[changes that took place between early modern cities such as Delhi, Istanbul, 9enice and Amsterdam. It might also help students to know that the Dutch painter Rembrandt collected Mughal miniature paintings. Silks from the Safavid empire (the Iranian dynasty from the 16th to 18th century) were so popular that Polish kings had their coat of arms woven in Isfahan.

This e[change of art continued into the Age of Enlightenment, a time when ideas around politics, philosophy, science and communications were rapidly being reoriented in Europe. A class on the Enlightenment may highlight the fact that writers like Montesquieu turned to the Middle East to structure a critique of their own religious institutions. A poetry class could similarly show connections between the *erman author Wolfgang von *oethe’s writings and Islam, as e[emplified in his “West-Eastern Diwaan,” a collection of poems. This epitome of world literature was modeled after classical Persian poetry in its style, and inspired by Sufism, the mystical tradition in Islam.

Most students are open to seeing these connections, even if it might require overcoming their own preconceptions about Islam. For e[ample, when I teach my class on medieval architecture, students are surprised to learn that the two oldest continuously run universities in the world are in North Africa (in Fez – a city in Morocco – and Cairo). Indeed, it is not easy to disentangle contemporary politics from historical fact, to teach more fully the culture and diversity of a religion that is almost 2,000 years old. Perhaps educators could learn from a recent e[hibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New

Source: islamicity.org