Ahmed Moustafa creates arresting images from a masterly fusion of
classical European painting techniques and the exacting discipline of
Islamic calligraphy the rich visual vocabulary provided by this innovative
interpenetration and synthesis of two contrasting traditions gives the work
of Ahmed Moustafa a universal appeal. While much of his work is derived from
sacred Qur'anic texts and is the embodiment of his own deep Islamic faith,
the startling visual impact of his scriptorial palettes, which go far beyond
decorative inscriptions, makes them Immediately accessible as numinous
images, irrespective of whether the texts can be read or not.
On seeing this art for the first time, many people who cannot read
Arabic, and who know little or nothing whatever about Islam or Islamic art,
are immediately touched by it on some level.
Some respond to it on an essentially aesthetic level as "abstract" art in
the Western tradition, citing Ahmed Moustafa's composition Nocturnal journey
(1 984) as a work which, to them, most clearly fits this category. While
this painting is based on a Qur'anic text (chapter 17, verse 1)1 celebrating
an event of great importance to Muslims, the Prophet's mystical experience
of the "Night journey" (isro') from Mecca to Jerusalem, and his subsequent
"Ascension" (micrcj) to heaven, it can nevertheless be appreciated purely
for its composition, colour, energy and rhythm. Here, the ebullient
proliferation of intensely dynamic, swerving, upright alifs and lams, which
to those unfamiliar with Arabic may not even be identified as Arabic
lettershapes, can nevertheless be seen and felt by anyone with an open eye
and heart as expressing transcendent joy and leaping rapture. One viewer
said that he felt almost "physically uplifted" by the ecstatic eruption of
these flaming upright strokes.
Others respond to it on a metaphysical or spiritual level, sensing that
the paintings speak to them of universals which transcend cultural and
religious boundaries, for, as Michelangelo said, "Good painting is nothing
but a copy of the perfection of God."
A Roman Catholic, on seeing the paintings for the first time without any
introduction, spoke with great reverence of their "sacred" quality. This
intuitive response reflects the profound significance of an exhibition of
Islamic art at the Vatican in building bridges between the Christian and
Muslim streams. Given the historical misunderstandings and even open enmity
between these two traditions, and signs of a fresh hardening of attitudes in
the complementary growth of religious fundamentalism and "isiamophobia",
this exhibition is both singularly appropriate and timely. This is not only
because there are clear parallels between Islamic and Renaissance art, for
both are centred on a tradition of belief and, in both, the harmonizing
visual vocabulary, whether abstract or figurative, supports that tradition
of belief by pointing to universal laws beyond the visible. Neither is it
only because Ahmed Moustafa is an Egyptian artist who has lived and worked
in London for many years, and who is both a master of painting in the
classical European style and a master scribe in the tradition of Islamic
calligraphy. The wider significance of this exhibition lies in the fact that
it implicitly invites us to rediscover that common stream of mystical
experience which underlies the diversity of 011 religious traditions. All
mysticism expresses the same essential truth, that our purpose on earth is
to become pure in heart in our love for God through the comtemplation of the
Unity of all Creation and the Oneness of Being.
In particular, this exhibition invites us to rediscover the common origin
of the religion of all "People of the Book", who share a common monotheistic
and Prophetic tradition going back to Abraham. This fact of common origin is
hardly surprising to Muslims, for it is explicitly acknowledged in the
Qur'an: "Believers, Jews, Sabaeans or Christians -whoever believes in God
and the Last Day and does what is right - shall have nothing to fear or
regret" (2:62). It is, however, not generally known amongst Christians that
the same truth is acknowledged in the statement of Vatican Council 11 that
Muslims share "the faith of Abraham" and "with us adore the only God, the
merciful, the future judge of men at the Last Day." It may come as a huge
surprise to people brought up on ancient misconceptions about Islam as
predominantly a "religion of the sword", that it is "the merciful" aspect of
God which is absolutely central to true Islam. A striking historical example
of this fact is "The Islamic Assurance of Safety" granted to the people of
Jerusalem by the second Caliph, Umar: "He has granted them safety for their
lives and possessions; their churches and crosses... and for the rest of its
religious community... They wiII not be forcibly converted, nor anyone of
them harmed." A chapter (surah) of the Qur'an entitled Moryam is based on
the story of Jesus and Mary, both of whom are revered by Muslims. Jesus,
often referred to in the Qur'an as "son of Mary", is "a symbol (ayah) unto
mankind, and an act of grace from Us" (19:21).The Qur'an also confirms the
Gospel account of the Immaculate Conception of Jesus, for "God creates what
He wills" (3:47) and this and other miracles are acknowledged as an
expression of His limitless power.
Other people, again sensing universals in their response to Ahmed
Moustafa's art, receive intimations of that divine harmony and order which
pervade the created universe, most obviously in paintings such as Landscape
in Due Measure and Proportion (1 997) and Still Life of Qur'onic Solids (1
987), in which the planes of the solid shapes are determined by the text,
"Behold, everything have We created in due measure and proportion"(Qur'an
54:49)
The concepts of perfect harmony, congruity, proportion and order in
creation are collectively expressed in the Names or Divine Attributes, AI-Khaliq
(the Creator), AI-Bari (The Producer) and AI-Musawwir (the Fashioner).The
attribute AI-Bcri is also associated with the Name Ar-Rahman, the
All-Merciful, for the perfect harmony invested in all things emanates from
the One who wills infinite mercy and good for all creation. "My mercy covers
everything" (Qur'an 7:156). Speakers of Arabic may be able to identify these
names as three of the ninety-nine names written in square Kufic on the
clustered cubes of The Attributes of Divine Perfection (1987). The Prophet
is reported to have said in a famous hadith (tradition), "God has
ninety-nine names, one hundred minus one. Whoever enumerates them enters
Paradise." While the absolute perfection of the names belongs to God alone
and is beyond the reach of man, nevertheless, by reciting and contemplating
the names, and by embodying them as far as possible in his actions, the
devout Muslim strives to remember God and draws near to Him, and with God's
grace makes them part of his own being, without which full knowledge is
impossible. There is also a tradition that the hundredth name, the name of
God's Essence, He has kept for Himself and hidden in the Qur'an.
The Attributes of Divine Perfection is a breathtaking example of the way
Ahmed Moustafa makes concrete images of sacred texts. Why are the 99 names
represented as cubes opening out of a larger cube or box? The answer
provides a key to the way Ahmed Moustafa works, always searching for
integral relationships between image and text. On one level, the larger cube
which houses the interlocking faces of the 99 names could be associated with
those other cubes in his work, such as Landscape of the House of God (1980),
The Three Dimensions of Light (1997) and Interior in the Exterior (1987),
all strongly reminiscent of the Kacbah, the black cube which was erected by
Abraham and which is the most holy shrine of Islam and the focus of all
Muslim prayers.
Symbolically, the cube is squaring the circle, the expression of the
immutable, immaculate and infinite in utterly solid and stable earthly form,
the intersection of heaven and earth. Aristotle compared the good human
being to a faultless cube, and, on a more mystical level, the emptiness of
its interior symbolizes the empty heart of the Friend of God, the infinite
interior which alone can encompass Him. Whether the Arabic can be read or
not, the integral structural relationship between cube and script leaves the
viewer with an indelible impression of the divine power and perfection of
revealed text. In The Three Dimensions of Light, the three visible faces of
the cube represent the last three short chapters of the Qur'an, stating that
our final refuge is the Oneness of God.
However, the relationship between image and text in The Attributes of
Divine Perfection is more sharply focused. than either the general symbolism
of the cube or its more concrete embodiment in the Kacbah. In fact, Ahmed
Moustafa has revealed a startling property of cubes which gives a solid
geometric rationale for his depiction of the 99 names, In short, he
discovered that if a cube is constructed of sides measuring ten units, and
within this cube are envisaged interlocking smaller cubes of sides measuring
one unit, when the structure is opened from any angle to reveal the
clustered cubes of the interior, they number 99.
It is typical of Ahmed Moustafa that the harmony of his visual
"solutions" is always based on a committed search for an underyling
rationale which uncovers an authentic relationship between text and image.
While there are clearly many layers of knowledge which inform and
illuminate Ahmed Moustafa's art, such knowledge, whether exoteric or
esoteric, whether scholarly, linguistic, religious or mystical, is not the
starting point for an appreciation of its essential impact. So vividly does
he translate verbal material into visual images which palpably represent the
meaning of the texts that he opens a door into the inner realities of the
Islamic revelation, and, by extension, the essential truth hidden in the
diversity of all religious experience, a door through which anyone can enter
by the exercise of intuition alone, for intuition is innate in all human
beings. It is that faculty or organ, otherwise called "creative
imagination", "imaginal understanding", "symbolic thought" or "archetypal
awareness", resident in the heart and beyond discursive reason, which
reflects a basic urge towards mystical experience shared by all humanity.
When the mirror of your heart becomes clear and pure
You'll behold images which are outside this world.
You will see the image and the image-maker.2
(Jalauddin Rumi)
The work of Ahmed Moustafa activates this faculty, making it more
conscious in all of us. He invites us to view his work with the
unconditioned eye of the child, with that primordial simplicity and
sincerity unclouded by preconceptions, cultural prejudices, aesthetic poses
and affectations, doctrinnaire fundamentalism, or scholarly erudition
divorced from inner understanding .
The response of people from widely diverse cultures to Where The Two
Oceans Meet amply demonstrates this intuitive level of lnterpretation. The
original of this painting, a product of the artist's fully mature style, was
presented in 1 997 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth to the nation of Pakistan
to mars< the occasion of Pakistan's fiftieth anniversary and to act as a
cultural bridge of mutual respect and understanding. It is based on verses
from the chapter- of the Qur'an entitled Ar-Raham(in (The Most Merciful):
"He has given freedom to the two great bodies of water, so that they might
meet: [yet] between them is an isthmus (barzakh) which they may not
overpass. Which then of your Sustainer's powers can you disavow?" (S5:1
9-21).Without any explicit knowledge of this text, nor of the intricate
technical work involved in tailoring the space so as to create a harmonious
image of its many layers of meaning, all who look upon this painting with an
open heart see something which touches common ground in us all, and which
points to a level of Reality which reconciles all differences.
This depiction of the "isthmus" (barzakh) is itself a superordinate
symbol of all Ahmed Moustafa's work, and, indeed, the work of all makers of
(ars sacra, which acts as a bridge between God and man, displaying in
beautiful and harmonious forms the world of the soul, that intermediate
reality which connects the luminous world of the spirit to the denser and
darker corporeal regions. In effect, as lbn al-Arabi says, for those who
have eyes to see there is nothing in existence but barzakh, for all things
are symbols (ayat) which point to what is beyond form. Like sacred art, the
sensory symbols of nature also provide a barzakh, though perhaps more remote
and less human than that of art. Of all the English poets, Wordsworth has
perhaps most closely captured the power of nature to act as a bridge between
man and God:
"And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
and the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
I And rolls through all things."
I (from "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey")
It would be hard to describe better the nature of imaginal understanding,
this ability to 11 read" the isthmus, than in Wordsworth's phrase,"a sense
sublime of something far more deeply interfused."
The human being, too, is an isthmus or barzakh, standing between two
oceans - God an.d the cosmos. Because human beings have the potential to
embody in their lives the totality of divine attributes, and because they
are uniquely endowed with free will, only they can fully display the "hidden
treasure" by mediating and establishing perfect harmony between God and His
creation. Such a view of the function of man is completely in accordance
with the High Renaissance depiction of man as the microcosm embodying
universal geometric proportions and ratios - "as above so below" - and is
echoed in modern science in the idea of the hologram. Of course, he can
always subvert that equilibrium too through the portrayal of ugly,
discordant and corrupting images, and we would do well to acknowledge how
the art of any civilisation (and the wider propagation of imagery through
all types of media) is a touchstone for evaluating its psychic wholeness and
its relationship to the divine.
Ahmed Moustafa strongly holds that the Islamic artist, and, it might be
said, the true artist in any tradition, should not shirk his responsibility
to act as a persuasive tool of ethical and spiritual guidance. Such an
artist helps us to bring back the dispersed elements of our souls to a point
of unity. He points always to the Real, to the immutable essence behind the
successive layers or veils of secondary phenomena. By displaying beautiful
and harmonious forms, the artist awakens the heart, for, as Kashani writes,
"Like an isthmus (barzakh), it [the Heart] became the intermediary between
the sea of the spirit and the sea of the soul. It stood at their meeting
place... Wherever the Heart sees beauty it clings to it, and wherever it
finds loveliness it embraces it. It is never without an object of gaze, a
beloved, a heart's ease."3
Where The Two Oceans Meet expresses the Tao of Islam, the harmonious
coexistence of complementary opposites and the creative tension between
them. In Compatibility (1987), the text explicitly relates this theme to
seed and earth, the active masculine and receptive feminine principles. At a
time when fundamental misconceptions exist about the status of women and the
valuation of the feminine in Islam, this composition reaffirms the true
message of the Qur'an and the hadith, in which men and women are equal
before God, and all forms of oppression and compulsion are discountenanced.
In this gentle dance of mutual attraction, balance and interdependence,
there is no confrontation between the two lines of text, and no sense that
the upper line, by virtue of its position in space, has a "superior"
function. As in all Ahmed Moustafa's work, the visual harmony of the
composition precludes any one-sided or distorted interpretation of the text.
