While a number of studies have tackled the question of iconoclasm in Islamic traditions, paintings of the Prophet Muhammad reveal that the practice of viewing and responding to images in Islamic traditions are more varied and complex than previously thought. Pre-modern pictorial evidence increasingly suggests that there existed a range of different motivations behind viewers’ engagement with and manipulation of pictorial images. Such interactions highlight the potential confluence between emotive and visual expressions during both the inception and afterlife of a painted image.
This presentation aims to explore the various affective interactions between viewers and images of the Prophet through a detailed examination of extant visual evidence, in particular illustrated manuscripts made in Persianate spheres between ca. 1300-1600. From newly inserted iconographic devices to the performance of symbolic destruction, it becomes clear that “iconoclastic” engagements act as pictorially articulated responses in both devotion and defense of the Prophet.
Christiane Gruber is Associate Professor of Islamic Art at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has authored two books on illustrated Mi‘rajnamas and has edited a number of volumes on Islamic ascension texts and paintings, books arts, and visual culture. She is currently finishing her third book, entitled The Praiseworthy One: The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Texts and Images.