From Hamline University to the Buddhas of Bamiyan

During an online art history class on October 6, a lecturer at Hamline University displayed an image of a painting that depicts the Prophet Muhammad receiving his first Quranic revelation from the Angel Gabriel. The 14th century painting was commissioned by a Sunni king and is considered a masterpiece of Islamic art. Nevertheless, cognizant of the fact that some students might find any depiction of Muhammad to be contrary to religious precepts against idolatry, the instructor provided written and verbal content warnings in advance of the presentation.

What followed is both disturbing and depressingly familiar. A complaint was filed, the presentation was characterized by senior administrators as “undeniably” Islamophobic, and the lecturer (who did not have the protections of tenure) was fired. A letter by the chair of the religion department defending the instructor and providing context for the classroom exercise was published by the student newspaper, but then scrubbed from the paper’s website after two days.

There are three pieces worth reading on this incident: Christiane Gruber’s discussion of the painting in its historical context, Amna Khalid’s perspective as a historian and a Muslim, and the aforementioned letter by Hamline’s Mark Berkson, which is a very thoughtful look at the consequences of defining Islamophobia (and hate speech more generally) in careless and over-inclusive ways.

Gruber is an art historian, and points out that the painting in question is “far from unique within the history of Islamic art… it belongs to a corpus of depictions produced mostly in Persian, Turkish and Indian lands between the 14th and 20th centuries.” These works of art “were made, almost without exception, by Muslim artists for Muslim patrons in respect for, and in exaltation of, Muhammad and the Quran. They are, by definition, Islamophilic from their inception to their reception.”

“Through conflation or confusion,” argues Gruber, “Hamline has privileged an ultraconservative Muslim view on the subject that happens to coincide with the age-old Western cliche that Muslims are banned from viewing images of the prophet.”

Amna Khalid endorses and expands upon this view:

It is the ultimate betrayal of the promise of education when institutions of higher learning begin endorsing ignorance. In the end, it is the students who pay the highest price… In choosing to label this image of Muhammad as Islamophobic, in endorsing the view that figurative representations of the Prophet are prohibited in Islam, Hamline has privileged a most extreme and conservative Muslim point of view… flattened the rich history and diversity of Islamic thought… [and] revealed its reductive and simplistic view of Islam, Islamic societies, and Islamic art. In an age when administrators are eager for faculty members to decolonize their syllabi, Hamline’s position is a kind of arch-imperialism, reinforcing a monolithic image of Muslims propounded by the cult of authentic Islam. What administrators at Hamline fail to realize is that in privileging this particular version of Islam, which looks to theology for sanction, they have reinforced the very version that is the product of colonial codification.

In some ways, this case is easy to adjudicate—if the painting in question is Islamophilic in origin, and if those who still wish to avoid seeing it are adequately forewarned, there seems to be no basis at all for punitive action against the instructor.

But what about more difficult cases? Should The Satanic Verses be excluded from syllabi on Anglo-Indian literature? Or The Last Temptation of Christ from courses on theological cinema?

In thinking about such questions, the letter from Mark Berkson is extremely helpful, and it is really fortunate that a copy remains available online.

Since some Hamline administrators labeled the showing of the painting Islamophobic… my question for those who use that word is: Exactly where does the Islamophobia lie? Islamophobia is often defined as fear, hatred, hostility, or prejudice against Muslims. The intention or motivation behind the act would seem to be essential here. In this case, the professor was motivated only to educate students about the history of Islamic art. The professor tried to ensure that Muslim students who have objections would be able to avoid seeing the images. So, when we look at intention, we can conclude that this was not Islamophobic.

Another possibility is that the very act of displaying an image of Muhammad is itself Islamophobic. But if this were the case, there are a number of very disturbing implications. First, it would mean that anybody who showed these images in a classroom, a book, or on their wall, would be an Islamophobe. Any scholar who wrote a book about Islamic art and included these images for discussion or analysis would be an Islamophobe. Even Muslims (and, as we will see, many Muslims throughout history have created and enjoyed these images) would be Islamophobic if they did this. Second, it would mean that these images could never be seen by, or shown to, anybody. In effect, it would require an erasure of an entire genre of Islamic art.

Should no student be able to see this art? And what would it mean for a liberal arts institution to deem an entire subject of study prohibited?

This last question really goes to the heart of the matter. The Hamline administration may not say so explicitly, but they have taken the view that depictions contrary to one person’s religious precepts should be seen by no persons at all.

This is precisely the reasoning that led to the banning and burning of The Satanic Verses, and more recently to the selective removal from Netflix libraries of The Last Temptation of Christ (in Singapore) and an episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj (in Saudi Arabia). More ominously, it is precisely the same reasoning that led to the destruction of the magnificent Buddhas of Bamiyan under orders from Mullah Omar in 2001. The Taliban were not the first to want these structures destroyed, they were simply the last. Among many precursors, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb tried and failed to have them destroyed by artillery in the 17th century.

The illiberal instinct to deny to all what is offensive to some, once commonplace, is making a resurgence in some unexpected places. To call attention to this is not to argue that the suppression of artistic objects in classrooms is always off-limits. In an earlier post, I discussed an essay by Salman Rushdie that toyed with—but ultimately backed away from—the idea of sacralizing artistic freedom itself. As Rushdie put it: “We must not become what we oppose.” There may arise instances when a general prohibition on a creative product may be warranted, even if it has artistic value. But this is a line that we ought to be very, very reluctant to cross.