An Analysis of "between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan,

An analysis of "Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum,"

In "Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum," Finbarr Barry Flood expresses many ideas concerning Islamic iconoclasm. His focus was on the ."..iconoclastic practices of Muslims living in the eastern Islamic world, especially Afghanistan and India." Flood discusses issues with traditional patterns considering Islamic iconoclasm and the "many paradoxes" that "complicate" our understanding of Islamic iconoclasm. Throughout this essay we become familiar with "essentialist conceptions of Muslim iconoclasm" as well as "political aspects of what has largely been conceived of as a theological impulse." These points later provide a basis for analyzing the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha by the Taliban in March 2001. "It will be argued that their obliteration indexed not a timeless response to figuration but a calculated engagement with a culturally specific discourse of images at a particular historical moment."

Flood explains the origin of Islamic iconoclasm through a quote by K.A.C. Creswell stating, "the inherent temperamental dislike of Semitic races for representational art" and believes iconoclasm is contested among Muslims as well. The Hadith, which is the narrative of the Prophet's life forbids "all representations that have shadows (whose defacement is obligatory), and some schools of thought go so far as to liken artists to polytheists." Although the impact of iconoclasm depends on the time and place in which it occurred, the Hadith definitely helped to promote "the eschewal of figural imagery" and "the destruction or mutilation of existing figural imagery." In 696-697 figural imagery was repla...

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...mphasizes and confuses the reader. Literally having to decipher the information he presents, one must really take hold to what he is trying to express as the author. He provides wonderful examples of medieval Islamic iconoclasm, yet at times he provides too much information and his point becomes lost within the body of the essay. Toward the end of the essay Flood begins to link the information about iconoclasms Islamic past to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. This part of the essay is the best because one finally understands what Flood's position is. We see that there really is no correlation between the two because the Taliban was quite obviously sending a message to the Western institutions of cultural hegemony.

References

Flood, Finbarr B. "Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum." The Art Bulletin (2002): 641-655.