I went to the Met three months ago and felt like I couldn't turn around without bumping into a hijabi or a beardie. Srsly, it was irritating to me. A friend who was with me, also a former Muslim, remarked on it as well. Part because it was like 'Can I never get away from Muslims?' and part because when I was a hijabi and trying to take the deen seriously, the idea of going to an art museum would have been firmly in the area of 'highly dubious activities that we will cluck our tongues at you for doing' what with all the sculpture and tasweer and nudes and all that. I guess standards have changed or relaxed more since my time, which is good, I s'pose. But for me, it was just another example of hypocrisy and double standards in Islam.
It's been at least 6 years since I've been to the Met. If things have changed and there are muslims (especially the kids) who are going there, and to other museums and places of culture, then it is definitely a good thing. Hopefully the next generation of Muslims, at least in the U.S., will grow up more constructively, creatively engaged with the larger world than their parents' generations.
Regarding women in niqab and dad in shorts, don't be too quick to judge the dad. I've met more than a few sisters who are into jilbab or niqab and wear them even against their husband's wishes or daughters who wear jilbab against their parents' wishes.
You're right. Now, as I get older, I understand the built in misogyny of Muslim women more deeply. Back then, we're talking about 10 years ago, I was a lot more naive in my understanding of the self-defeatist human/female psychoses.
If your whole life is that the highest rank you attain is as a mother and a worshipper of Big Al who worships at home, so circumscribed, which even my life was ( by Islam itself) in a sense even though I worked and all that, then you seek to rebel and make your mark through other means, and I think a lot of women choose jilbab and niqab and being extremely devout.
That's interesting. So you're saying that for some niqabi women, their niqab is a sign of rebellion? Against whom? The big bad west or someone/something else?
I always found Islamic art to be terribly boring.
Yeah, tell me about it.
There are only so many ways you can write arabic and try to make it look like every emotion known to mankind.
I like calligraphy as much as the next art lover, but that's all that's ever around in Islamic art. I mean, their religion really screws out any potential for artistic expression. There's amazing persian, south asian, egyptian art, but it's all from the pre-Islamic cultures that existed there.
if you think it is somehow 'haram' to look at it, then what does the museum offer you? Limited options alongside the limited world your religion demands for you.
So sad, ain't it.
Aside from the fact, anyway, that Muslim cultures in general place very little value on artistic expression at all. Rare is the parent who encourages their child to seek their artistic vision, but so common is the Muslim parent who pushes their child to achieve in medicine and engineering.
Yup. I think this is so because of at least a couple of reasons:
1: Art, especially with any kind of human forms in it, is frowned upon in Islam: like music, and laughing too much, art distracts the muslim from thinking of god, or leads to a kind of high, and we can't have that, of course. Allah gets lonely very easily.
2: Muslims who migrate to the west want their kids to be financially independent (most parents want this anyway), but for muslims it's because usually, the older parents are expected to be supported by their kids and because as immigrants, they generally know how harsh life can be for someone without money/contacts etc. So they push their kids into getting the education that they think will make them "steady" money (jobs).
Topic: Muslims in Museums, a rare sight.