This original book untangles fundamental confusions about
historical relationships among Islam, representational images, and
philosophy. Closely examining some of the most meaningful and best
preserved premodern illustrated manuscripts of Islamic
cosmographies, Persis Berlekamp refutes the assertion often made by
other historians of medieval Islamic art that, while
representational images did exist, they did not serve religious
purposes.
The author focuses on widely disseminated Islamic images of the
wonders of creation, ranging from angels to human-snatching birds,
and argues that these illustrated manuscripts aimed to induce
wonder at God's creation, as was their stated purpose. She tracks
the various ways that images advanced that purpose in the genre's
formative milieu--the century and a half following the Mongol
conquest of the Islamic East in 1258. Delving into social history
and into philosophical ideas relevant to manuscript and image
production, Berlekamp shows that philosophy occupied an
established, if controversial, position within Islam. She thereby
radically reframes representational images within the history of
Islam.
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