The Praiseworthy One: The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Texts and Images. By Christiane Gruber. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018. Pp. x, 395, with bibliography and index. ISBN: 9780253025265 (cloth).
In light of recent controversies over figural representation of the Prophet Muhammad, Christiane Gruber’s book provides a timely analysis of the history of both textual and pictorial depictions of the Prophet across Muslim cultures. Her purpose is not to delineate the historical Muhammad, but rather to understand him as the devotional heart of Muslim piety through his representation in Islam’s rich literary and artistic heritage.
Chapters are arranged thematically, corresponding roughly to chronological periods, and focus primarily on Persianate and Turkish cultures. Beginning with the earliest known figural representation of the Prophet in the thirteenth century, Gruber demonstrates how depictions of him evolved with changing spiritual concerns and political realities. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, an emphasis on the Prophet as an enthroned king reflected the long tradition of iconography of divine sovereignty in Persian visual arts and served to legitimize contemporary rulers. Alongside this image, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw the influence of Mongol culture, intense polemical debates, and the growing importance of Sufism transform the Prophet’s biography into a heroic epic that emphasized miracles and featured an iconography drawn from Eastern Christian art.
The continuing evolvement of Sufism led to depictions of mystical visions of the Prophet that drew on the miʿrāj and majlis motifs. Sectarian polemics were reflected in the choice of personages portrayed in these images, such as the first four caliphs or the founders of the ṭarīqah’s lineage. The Sufi concept of nūr Muḥammad influenced the development of a more allegorical and abstract imagery, in which the Prophet’s face was concealed by a veil to hide the brilliance of his light or was replaced by a flaming nimbus. Both sectarian polemics and the nūr Muḥammad came to the fore in depictions of the Prophet under the Safavids and the Ottomans. In Safavid art, the Prophet’s son-in-law ʿAli was represented as sharing in the nūr Muḥammad and occasionally supplanted the Prophet, while under Ottoman influence, in addition to sectarian messaging, the appreciation for the Prophet’s relics led to further abstraction in which depictions of relics served as substitutes for figural portrayals.
Gruber argues that although there have been varying levels of acceptance of pictorial representations of the Prophet throughout the history of Islam, the modern dominance of iconoclastic sensibilities in the Muslim world has resulted from the long development toward abstraction as well as the more recent ability to mass produce images. Even modern Iran, where versitic depictions influenced by nineteenth-century European art continued well into the twentieth century, is seeing a movement away from figural representation of the Prophet.
This is a well-made book, with images of manuscripts and other illustrations beautifully reproduced in color. The bibliography is extensive and reflective of the wide chronological and geographic range of material. Romanization forgoes diacritics, which is helpful to those readers not familiar with Arabic script. This book is best suited to an academic library, and while not geared towards specialists, basic knowledge of the Prophet’s life and Muslim culture would be helpful in order to fully appreciate the analyses and conclusions.
Denise Soufi
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill