Moderation and the Performing Arts in Contemporary Muslim Societies

Art plays an important role for politically engaged Muslims and promotes moderation (wasaṭīyah). Moderation has a civilizational mission: to buttress an open society that recognizes its inhabitants’ diversity so that they can freely and skillfully express their own cultural identity and thus contri...

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Autor principal: Joseph Alagha
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Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: International Institute of Islamic Thought 2015
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/904109155b5b4f74bbb64a2ce0d611a6
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:904109155b5b4f74bbb64a2ce0d611a62021-12-02T19:41:38ZModeration and the Performing Arts in Contemporary Muslim Societies10.35632/ajis.v32i3.2702690-37332690-3741https://doaj.org/article/904109155b5b4f74bbb64a2ce0d611a62015-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/270https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3733https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3741 Art plays an important role for politically engaged Muslims and promotes moderation (wasaṭīyah). Moderation has a civilizational mission: to buttress an open society that recognizes its inhabitants’ diversity so that they can freely and skillfully express their own cultural identity and thus contribute to enhancing the overall Islamic cultural sphere by endorsing the performing arts. The wasaṭīyah authors discussed below reject the notion of “art for art’s sake” and employ a specific genre of Islamic art commonly referred to as “purposeful art” or “art with a noble mission.” Purposeful art is “clean art” that portrays good deeds, as distinguished from bad deeds that characterize indecent or “lowbrow art.” It deals with socio-political issues as well as the themes of justice, jihad, sacrifice, and patriotism. Moderation is the norm, since “Islam is the religion of the golden mean” between excess and deficiency. From the stance of graduality, moderation affords a novel reading of the maxims of Islamic jurisprudence (qawā‘id al-fiqh), whereby the performing arts promote benefits (maṣāliḥ) and avoids harm (mafāsid). Joseph AlaghaInternational Institute of Islamic ThoughtarticleIslamBP1-253ENAmerican Journal of Islam and Society, Vol 32, Iss 3 (2015)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Islam
BP1-253
spellingShingle Islam
BP1-253
Joseph Alagha
Moderation and the Performing Arts in Contemporary Muslim Societies
description Art plays an important role for politically engaged Muslims and promotes moderation (wasaṭīyah). Moderation has a civilizational mission: to buttress an open society that recognizes its inhabitants’ diversity so that they can freely and skillfully express their own cultural identity and thus contribute to enhancing the overall Islamic cultural sphere by endorsing the performing arts. The wasaṭīyah authors discussed below reject the notion of “art for art’s sake” and employ a specific genre of Islamic art commonly referred to as “purposeful art” or “art with a noble mission.” Purposeful art is “clean art” that portrays good deeds, as distinguished from bad deeds that characterize indecent or “lowbrow art.” It deals with socio-political issues as well as the themes of justice, jihad, sacrifice, and patriotism. Moderation is the norm, since “Islam is the religion of the golden mean” between excess and deficiency. From the stance of graduality, moderation affords a novel reading of the maxims of Islamic jurisprudence (qawā‘id al-fiqh), whereby the performing arts promote benefits (maṣāliḥ) and avoids harm (mafāsid).
format article
author Joseph Alagha
author_facet Joseph Alagha
author_sort Joseph Alagha
title Moderation and the Performing Arts in Contemporary Muslim Societies
title_short Moderation and the Performing Arts in Contemporary Muslim Societies
title_full Moderation and the Performing Arts in Contemporary Muslim Societies
title_fullStr Moderation and the Performing Arts in Contemporary Muslim Societies
title_full_unstemmed Moderation and the Performing Arts in Contemporary Muslim Societies
title_sort moderation and the performing arts in contemporary muslim societies
publisher International Institute of Islamic Thought
publishDate 2015
url https://doaj.org/article/904109155b5b4f74bbb64a2ce0d611a6
work_keys_str_mv AT josephalagha moderationandtheperformingartsincontemporarymuslimsocieties
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