We believe in Peace! Islam and Peace Art Workshop

Islam and Peace Art Workshop with my MEST 329 Islamic Art and Architecture at the American University in Dubai, April 2017.

Voices of Peace from Dubai to Odense - Dr. Pamela Chrabieh presents at Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies conference

AUD School of Arts and Sciences Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies Dr. Pamela Chrabieh attended the 10th Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies ‘Formation of Middle Eastern Subjectivities, Cultural Heritage, Global Structures and Local Practices’ conference at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense from September 21-24, 2016.

The Nordic Society is an independent and non-profit association for researchers in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway) working on the Middle East and covering subjects in the humanities and social sciences, from antiquity to the present day. The associational conference takes place every third year in one of the four Nordic countries.

In September 2016, the Centre for Contemporary Middle East Studies at the University of Southern Denmark hosted the conference in Odense. “In the past decades, the exploration of the formation of modern subjectivities has developed into a core field of the humanities and social sciences. This strand of research is asking for social practices and codes; it investigates competing bodies of knowledge, social performances and emotions; interprets textual and visual forms of discourse; analyzes the interrelations of social practices with material artifacts and means of communication; observes individual forms of subjectivity as well as the interaction in social fields and classes.”[1]

Dr. Chrabieh presented a paper on the Gulf panel entitled “Voices of Peace through Arts in the UAE: Middle Eastern Studies’ students perceptions of Islam.” She introduced the audience to the preliminary results of her ongoing qualitative research at the crossroads of Peace Education, Sciences of Religions and Art History on perceptions of Islam as it relates to Peace by 160 university students enrolled in Middle Eastern Studies courses at the American University in Dubai. The results of this research were compared to those of a previous academic inquiry Dr. Chrabieh conducted from 2007 to 2014 in three Lebanese universities with 3000 students.

According to Dr. Chrabieh, Art has an important role to play in the pursuit of peace, and is an amazing way to channel a sense of collective urgency such as through the Peace Art in Dubai project she implemented at the American University in Dubai. “As a result of various activities - art workshops and events, online exhibition, outdoor agoras -, students have been able to create individual and shared spaces and expressions through various media and art techniques that helped them debunk stereotypes of Islam, better understand each other’s beliefs and practices, and become active agents of peace.”

The Peace Art in Dubai project is an application of Dr. Chrabieh’s Peace Education approach which aims to cultivate the knowledge and practices of a culture of peace. So far, her Peace Art in Dubai bloghttp://peaceartdubai.blogspot.ae/ features more than 160 artworks. She adds, “Students’ positive feedbacks at the end of every semester encouraged me to pursue this project, as well as the recent changes to the federal government ministries in the United Arab Emirates, including the establishment of a Ministry of Tolerance with a clear message calling citizens and expatriates to be agents of peace and to help the government in its task, first internally, and second, in exporting the model outside of the Emirati boundaries. Hopefully these new measures will contribute to call attention to the importance of peace education initiatives already taking place and open the door to the establishment and officialization of peace education programs in schools and universities.”
 

---

[1] Conference Webpage: http://thenordicsociety.se/conference-2016-denmark/

-----------------------------------

SOURCE:

American University in Dubai NEWS: http://aud.edu/news_events/en/view/1360/current_upcoming/voices-of-peace-from-dubai-to-odense#sthash.Wb912hOI.dpuf

 

Equality in Islam

By Mohammed Al Falasi

50 inches x 60 inches

Canvas/ acrylic colors

Technique & style:

I used small and medium brushes, medium brushes for filling the surface and small brushes were used for details.

In the background, I used different shades of green and painted it in a circular motion to give the blurry background effect.

I also added the well known sentence in Islam (Besm allah alrahman al raheem) to make it noticeable that this painting is reflecting an image about Islam.

For the people, I used the abstract technique. Also, I used different shades of brown and beige to show that they are of different races. I added a lot of colors to their clothes to add some enjoyment and happiness to the painting.

Statement (message):

Racism is not allowed in Islam, for the Quran speaks of human equality in the following terms:

 O mankind, we have created you from a male and a female and have made you into nations and tribes for you to know one another.  Truly, the noblest of you with God is the most pious.2  Truly, God is All-Knowing, All-Aware. 

Islam rejects certain individuals or nations being favored because of their wealth, power, or race.  God created human beings as equals who are to be distinguished from each other only on the basis of their faith and piety.

One of the major problems facing mankind nowadays is racism.

In my drawing I represented how Islam ends this racism.

Inside the mosque, everyone is equal, no one bothers if you're a wealthy person or not, if you're black or white, African or Asian.

Islam forces everyone inside a mosque to stand side by side and follow the words of an ordinary Imam (and sometimes a poor Imam), forgetting about each other's races.

When there is equality, there is peace 

A Cold Night in Istanbul

 

BY MUHAMMED BERA ALAN

In the city of the world's desire

The night covered the lonely streets

With the rain ever falling

Visibility was a distant dream

Little Aleksandr cold and scared

Nothing to shield him from the cruel night

He strides on forward unprepared

Almost dragging himself with despite

Ever since father left

No happiness found little Aleksandr

Orphaned in foreign lands

Where Oh where would little Aleksandr go?

As the street loomed on forward

A distant light was shining at the end of the street

A translucent ray of hope

Little Aleksandr could do naught but stride on forward

The light stirred closer with every step

A blinding ray of hope

Cutting through the cruel night

The light stirred ever closer

The source was a building

A center, A center of hope

The sign on the side read 'Darulaceze'

On the other side read 'All is welcome'

-----------------------------------------------------------

The inspiration for this poem comes from a complex in Istanbul called Darulaceze, established in 1895 by Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to help the city cope with the influx of citizens migrating from former Ottoman lands. Today, it continues to be a shelter for Turkey's elderly and impoverished in a multicultural/interreligious setting. Residents are provided with a place to worship in peace. Its garden houses side-by-side a mosque, church and synagogue. 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Image source: http://www.worldbulletin.net/haber/127085/darulaceze-sheltering-societys-weakest 

لكنه لا يصدق ان البشر سواسية كالهواء كالماء خارج مملكة الخارطة

Najah Jaroudi

On March 13, 1941 Mahmoud Darwish was born in Al Birweh, Palestine, into a land-owning Sunni Muslim family. During the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, his village was destroyed and his family fled to Lebanon. They returned the following year, secretly re-entering Israel.

As a young man, Darwish faced house arrest and imprisonment for his political activism and for publicly reading his poetry. He joined the official Communist Party of Israel, the Rakah, in the 1960s. In 1970, he left for Russia, where he attended the University of Moscow for one year, and then moved to Cairo. He lived in exile for twenty-six years, between Beirut and Paris, until his return to Israel in 1996, after which he settled in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Mahmoud Darwish is from a Palestinian Muslim family.in my opinion; I never got the impression that he is religious. He didn't see himself different from Palestinian or Arab Christians, but he did value his heritage. He also emphasized that as a Palestinian with Palestinian history, he was a Canaanite, a Greek, a Hebrew, a Turk, and an Arab. He was against Christian and Islamic extremism and the extremism of the Zionism that leads to ethnic cleansing. His heritage is Islamic as the last name Darwish indicates, but he was open to other traditions and cultures and a Leftist, socialist.

Getting inspired by Mahmoud Darwich’s poems, he has a poem which is calledخطبة “الهندي الأحمر. In this poem Mahmoud Darwich illustrates the American’s perspective toward the Redskins and their notability and arrogance towards others. As we know that the white Americans colonist took the land from the Redskins and killed millions of them. Not to forget that they treated them as slaves. Knowing that everyone has the right to live freely, a person has the right to work in their land, live freely, and be provided with a secured life. All the international organizations still protect these rights. In Islam all kinds of human are equal no matter what their skin color or their race. Based on that, Mahmoud stated a quote which I loved to use is that “ولكنه لا يصدق ان البشر سواسية كالهواء كالماء خارج مملكة الخارطة “which mean that “But he does not believe that human beings are equal as the air like water outside the Kingdom map”.

 One of the Prophet’s hadith explores these equalities “يقول رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «لا فضل لعربي على عجمي، ولا لأبيض على أسود إلا بالتقوى» and    وقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم" الناس سواسية كأسنان المشط لا فرق بين أسود ولا أبيض ولا بين غني لا فقير إلا بالتقوى" . The above hadiths state that there is no difference between any person. All the people are the same, we can't differentiate between the skin color, poor nor rich. God only can differentiate between the people by the amount of pity towards God.

Emphasizing that God states that people must be treated equally and not be dominate on each other, God stated that also in the Qur’an {يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ مِنْ ذَكَرٍ وَأُنْثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوباً وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ}[الحجرات: 13] . In the above verse God wants us to understand that he created many kinds of people so that we can be introduced and know each one. God created us into many different types of people men, women, rich, poor, black skin color, white skin color, different families from different countries and having different languages to be introduced to them and get familiar with them. As Mahmoud Darwich mentioned in his poetry that people of all kinds are supposed to live equally, breath from the same air, and drink from the same spring water. God only can differentiate between the people due to their amount of pity towards God.                             

Another verse mentioned in the Qur’an "ان الله يعذب الذين يعذبون الناس في الدنيا"  strongly states that what goes around comes back around. Because the White Americans treated the Redskins as slaves, one day the White Americans will taste what the Redskins tasted.  God will never forget any person. One must treat all the other people well and equally because none of us are better from each other. Whoever treats others well in al dunia will be treated well in al akhera, and whoever treats others bad in al dunia will be treated bad in al akhera.

Mahmoud Darwich was born on March 13, 1941, Al-Birwa and died on August 9, 2008, Houston, Texas, United States. May his soul rest in peace.

ولكنه لا يصدق ان البشر سواسية كالهواء كالماء خارج مملكة الخارطة

I chose to write the above quote using the Thuluth font. Thuluth is a script variety of Islamic calligraphy invented by the Persian Ibn Muqlah Shirazi, which made its first appearance in the 11th century CE. The straight angular forms of Kufic were replaced in the new script by curved and oblique lines. In Thuluth, one-third of each letter slopes, from which the name comes. It is a large and elegant, cursive script, used in medieval times on mosque decorations. Various calligraphic styles evolved from Thuluth through slight changes of form.