Islam is Peace

 By Faris Aqra

The title of my artwork is “Islam is Peace” and is depicted by the placement of the words “Islam is Peace” in place of where the star should be, in relation to the crescent.

I made this artwork in three steps. 

The first step was to draw the background of the project. The background is inspired by the shapes of the Arabic alphabet letters along with the calligraphy styles we learned in class. To have the background show up as it did, I had to overlap the picture 4 times in order to have the proper density as shown in the project.

The second step is to print out the figures of the armed men on both corners along with the faceless lady wearing the hijab and make somewhat of a collage of the photos on an A4 paper. The A4 paper was then scanned onto the computer and I digitally added in the crescent and the “Islam is Peace” statement.

Finally I added in the pictures on each side of “Peace” along with the crescent and peace symbols onto the main image.

The art form is a mixture of a collage and a digitally made image. The techniques used were the same as the ones used in the second field trip to FN Designs. Creating a collage of different images put together to form a new meaning and I also added the calligraphy aspect of things into the image by the background/drawing.

“Islam is Peace” is pretty self-explanatory; as the image is meant to depict Islam overcome the stereotypes that are intertwined with word itself (Islam). The two pictures of armed men on either bottom corner are there to represent the idea of terrorism and vulgarity and the woman in the middle wearing the hijab depicts the suppressed connotation that the western world view Islamic women in. The woman has stereotypical words in place of her face in order to represent the incorrect thoughts that people have towards women who wear the hijab.

The picture the hands along with the Arabic word “Allah” in the peace symbol shows that when a person does that act, there should be a peaceful connotation attached to it, rather than have people look down upon them for being Muslims.

On either side, the two images of “Peace” would represent Islam’s openness towards other religions and accepts others. Islam does not seek harm on people of other religions, but the rest of the world believes it does due to the media brainwashing them. The crescent depicts symbolizes Islam and is the main focus of the image, as shown by the lighting in the whole artwork. “Islam is Peace” in place of the star portrays the true meaning of the religion.

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I am in my senior year at the American University in Dubai studying management and I come from Palestinian origins.