لنتعايش

By Haneen Al Ayed

My name is Haneen Al Ayed, I’m from Saudi Arabia. My major is Economics. The reason I chose economics is because I love drawing graphs, analyzing economies, and building my own Economics models. I am a senior, and this is my last semester. My future dream and goal is to open my own bakery. 

Moving to the art project, we had to use any form of art to describe the relation and link between Islam and peace. The style I chose for my art project is square Kufic calligraphy. I was influenced by the square Kufic workshop session we did in class. I was fascinated by the style and technique we used. Also, I enjoyed doing it even though it was my first time. The reference I used for my art project is the square Kufic tutorial that was posted on Blackboard by Professor Pamela. I used this reference specifically because at the end it shows the way to write letter. I used it to learn how to write the letters I used in my project. The technique I used in this project is dividing the word into half and placing them under each other. The reason I did that is that in square Kufic all the letters and words need to be proportionate to each other. Adding to that, the entire art needs to fit and be within a square.  My art project has an Arabic title, and it’s called “لنتعايش”. The English translation to my title is “Lets Coexist”. 

Personally, I link Islam and peace by this specific word. Nowadays, people discriminate each other based on religion, nationality, gender, and many other factors. Adding to that, there are some stereotypes about Muslims and women who wear scarfs. People can be treated badly based on those assumptions and stereotypes. Similarly, there are some stereotypes about Christians as well, and that also leads to them being treated badly based on those assumptions. Not only that, but it reached to the extent that there are even differentiation and discrimination between Muslims themselves. There are Shite, Sunni, and many others. If everyone regardless of what religion they practice, who they are, or even where they come from learned to live together in harmony, peace would be the resolution. People should learn to accept each other based on their personalities, not based on any other factor. The prophet himself had a Jewish neighbor and he used to cause him harm, yet he accepted him and visited him when he got sick. We should all do the same. 

My message is that we should all learn to accept people for who they are, not for the religion they practice or any other factor. Also, I saw an Egyptian movie after I chose my word and message. The movie made me extra sure of the message I want to portray. The story behind the movie is that there’s a Muslim guy pretending to be Christian for political reason. Also there’s a Christian guy pretending to be Muslim for the same reason as well. Both men have families and they all treat each other well because each thinks that the other practices the same religion. Once they discover that they are not, they start fighting, arguing, and refuse to live together anymore. The idea behind the movie discusses an important issue that occurred in Egypt. Adding to that, it is considered to be a great example of the message I am trying to convey in my art project. The colors I used in my art all symbolizes and portray a message. The background is entirely black; this is to show and represents the discrimination that’s happening around the world and peace does not currently exist. The word and title is in Gold to show that this is a message is gold and valuable. To emphasize that if people truly believed this word, lived by it and practiced it peace would happen. People would live peacefully with each other. People would spend their lives living together, rather than spending their lives fighting each other.