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Chapter 4 - Seeing with the Heart

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2019

Wendy M. K. Shaw
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
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Summary

Chapter 4 examines how the Quran informs perception outside of the parameters of art. It traces an ontology of perception rooted in the heart emerging from a hierarchy of the senses implicit in Quranic passages. It contrasts the complex ontology of the Quran as representation of the divine tablet as simultaneously writing and sound, always complete and always immanent, with secular interpretations of its material history. The Quran emerges less as a book than as a sonic image of the divine continually present in all its parts. The second part of the chapter examines how internalized perception of the Quran gave way to extensive discourses of love, the composite senses, and the metaphor of the heart-as-mirror as central to sensory and imaginary experience. The emotive response to Quranic beauty reverberates with discourses of the heart, the imaginary, and the contemplative faculties in Islamic thought. The discussion suggests that the aesthetics of the Quran reflected and promoted existing norms of inward mimesis. Drawing out connections with Greek and Buddhist philosophy inherited through Sasanian and Abbasid policies of translation, the chapter belies later European appropriations of antiquity as exclusively ‘Western.’

Type
Chapter
Information
What is 'Islamic' Art?
Between Religion and Perception
, pp. 104 - 130
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Seeing with the Heart
  • Wendy M. K. Shaw, Freie Universität Berlin
  • Book: What is 'Islamic' Art?
  • Online publication: 27 September 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622967.005
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  • Seeing with the Heart
  • Wendy M. K. Shaw, Freie Universität Berlin
  • Book: What is 'Islamic' Art?
  • Online publication: 27 September 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622967.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Seeing with the Heart
  • Wendy M. K. Shaw, Freie Universität Berlin
  • Book: What is 'Islamic' Art?
  • Online publication: 27 September 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622967.005
Available formats
×