The prohibition of images, calligraphy, geometric ornaments – when it comes to Islamic art, many people still think of these things first. In its multi-part interview series with the same title, the AIWG Project Workshop „Beauty and Islamic Theology“ is now shedding light on the diverse relationships between theology, art and aesthetics in the Islamic world. The kick-off is on Architecture Day, 26 June 2021.

What is the nature and significance of beauty in Islamic intellectual culture and theology? To what extent did theological, philosophical, and mystical ideas inform the production and reception of Islamic material culture?

For this series of interviews, Dr. Bilal Badat, art historian and archaeologist based at the Centre for Islamic Theology at the University of Tübingen, conversed with distinguished international scholars of Islamic theology, history, philosophy, and anthropology as well as the history of Islamic art. Among them are the art historians Professor Wendy Shaw from the Free University of Berlin, Professor Christiane Gruber from the University of Michigan and Dr. Valerie Gonzales from SOAS University of London.

Architecture Day is the starting shot of the series

On the Day of Architecture, Saturday 26 June, the Project Workshop is now publishing its first interview.  Prof. Samer Akkach from the University of Adelaide talks to Dr. Bilal Badat about „Cosmology and Islamic Architecture“. The opening talk of the series also deals with the Kaaba in Mecca, which can be considered a significant example of the interplay between cosmology and architecture.

 

Dates and topics

The other episodes of the interview series will be published every two weeks on Thursdays at 6 pm on the YouTube channel of the Project Workshop. Topics of the series include:

• Islamic Aesthetics
• Beauty and Islamic Poetry
• Islamic Calligraphy
• Aesthetics in Arabic Thought

Click here to go to the channel of the Project Workshop

Here you can download the flyer for the interview series.

About the Project Workshop

The interview series concludes the one-year AIWG project workshop „Beauty and Islamic Theology“, a joint research program of the Centre for Islamic Theology at the Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen and the Chair of Islamic Religious Studies at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg.

With its research project, the project workshop focuses on a „theology of aesthetics“ within Islamic theological research in Germany. The aim is to shed light on the nature, value, and theological significance of aesthetics from an interdisciplinary perspective.