Learn it in her Banished substack publication; this is an excerpt, although the entire thing is way value studying:
In selecting to label this picture of Muhammad as Islamophobic, in endorsing the view that figurative representations of the Prophet are prohibited in Islam, Hamline has privileged a most excessive and conservative Muslim perspective. The directors have flattened the wealthy historical past and variety of Islamic thought. Their insistence that figurative representations of Muhammad are “forbidden for Muslims to look upon” runs counter to historic and up to date proof. As Christiane Gruber, a professor of Islamic artwork on the College of Michigan at Ann Arbor, reminds us, Muslim artists because the 14th century have depicted Muhammad visually — photographs that have been painted “by Muslim artists for Muslim patrons in respect for, and in exaltation of, Muhammad and the Quran.” Such photographs have been, “by definition, Islamophilic from their inception to their reception.” Removed from being forbidden, many Muslims, even in the present day, respect such figurative representations. Whereas extra frequent amongst Shia Muslims, even Sunnis are identified to have made such photographs. (In reality, the portray the professor confirmed was commissioned by a Sunni king within the 14th century.)
In dismissing the trainer for alleged “Islamophobia,” Hamline has revealed its reductive and simplistic view of Islam, Islamic societies, and Islamic artwork. In an age when directors are longing for college members to decolonize their syllabi, Hamline’s place is a sort of arch-imperialism, reinforcing a monolithic picture of Muslims propounded by the cult of genuine Islam. What directors at Hamline fail to comprehend is that in privileging this specific model of Islam, which appears to theology for sanction, they’ve strengthened the very model that’s the product of colonial codification.
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