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Art Fatwa: Open Letter to Mystical Warriors Everywhere (Art War III) by Don iphanb L'Air
The 'Art Fatwa', in defense of Islamic art, a 2001 manifesto and performance piece by Doniphan Blair. illo: D. Blair
NOTE: The 'Art Fatwa' was written shortly after 9/11/2001 and first performed on November 10, 2001, A Media Studios, Oakland
In the beginning was metaphor. God is a metaphor. Language is a metaphor. Art is a metaphor.
THERE IS NO WAR BETWEEN GOD AND ART.
Muhammad said, "Verily, God is beautiful and loves beauty." Muhammad himself did not like romantic poetry or imagery or wine. But the great sages of Islam's Golden Ages—Ishmail, Saladin and Khayyam—all did. Indeed, they revelled in creation and its vast multiplicity.
EAST AND WEST ACTUALLY DO MEET.
in the minds of moderate Muslims and mystical Westerners.
ISLAM WAS WESTERN CIVILIZATION FROM 650 TO 1250.
To revive this indispensable mind body connection, I call upon Rumi, Blake, the Miniaturists, Picasso, al-Ma'arri, the Mu'tazila, Miller, the Secret Brethren, Burroughs, Avicenna, Averroes, Shakespeare and metaphor masters everywhere to issue an
ART FATWA (ART WAR III): IN DEFENSE OF ISLAMIC ART
Radical mystics blasphere Islamic art, science, romance, invention and civilization when they allow no difference between mosque and state, metaphor and fact, spirit and flesh, male and female, when they claim all is one.
ACTUALLY ONE IS ALL.
Allah/big bang produced all planets, peoples, nature, mind, love, art, laughter.
Radical mystics blaspheme Islam when they call for the assassination of art, the murder of authors, the dynamiting of sculptures, the amputation of musicians, the stoning of lovers, the termination of female laughter.
BEAUTY/GOD IS IN THE MIND OF THE BEHOLDER.
Religion that denies other religion or the metaphor of art abrogates its theological contract.
We are not animals or objects: We are metaphor makers.
Radical mystics blaspheme the greatness of the metaphor of god when they say Allah/evolution created us wrong.
I CALL ON ALL ARTISTS, MUSICIANS, FILMMAKERS, POETS, STREET CHALKERS, BALLOON PUPPETEERS, PERFORMANCE ARTISTS, ETC
AND ALL WOMEN
(by the way, female snickering is a secret weapon against macho mystics)
TO CHALLENGE ALL METAPHORS THAT DENY OTHER METAPHORS.
Art creates, art beautifies, art entertains, art helps us sexually select the next generation and art assists our spiritual evolution.
THE MYSTICISM OF ART BURNS HOT.
Muhammad's words were brilliant for 7th century Arabia. The words of Voltaire and Rousseau, Jefferson and Lincoln, Witman and Melville, Roth and Bowles, Dylan and Ginsberg, were brilliant for later centuries. Thus, art fructifies while Muhammad's genuis lies fallow.
ISLAMIC ARTISTS RISE UP.
For one thousand years your mystical brothers have been slaughtering you. There is no war with the West; the crisis is between moderate and radical Islam; the Sufis accepted all sects, religions, genders.
The day Muhammad died, the majority Sunni and the Mystical Shi'a began their struggle. A millennia later, they have jihaded to a draw. The moderates maintain extreme represssion to control the mystics; the mystics maintain extreme terror to control the moderates.
ONLY THROUGH KNOWLEDGE WITH ISLAM RENAISSANCE,
not through war on art, religious hatred, gender aparthied or crowning the holy warrior king.
Resolving the Sunni Shi'a split requires free press, civic society, rule of law, democracy—in short, America.
Resolving America requires ending isolationism, a functional foriegn policy, multicultural capitalism, evolving democracy. We must reject assissination, carbarous attacks, racial profiling, restriction of freed and repression of victemless drug use, all of which mimicks mideval Islam.
It is no coincidence that Al Qaeda chose ancient Afghanistan to ressurect the Caliphate superstate. We are in the last battle of the Middle Ages. Osama bin Laden is a disciple of the Assassins. Hassan-I-Sabbah, their guru, said, "Everything is permitted and nothing is real."
Creating beauty is hard work. Going to work is hard work. Dealing with life's setbacks is hard work Enjoying differences is hard work. Hatred, slaughter, annihilation is infinitely harder.
THE ACTUAL MYSTIC LOVES LIFE AND DEATH IN PERFECT BALANCE.
We can balance mosque and state through democracy. We can balance mysticism and science through string theory, deconstruction and parapsychology. We can balance humanity through love, first of self or the metaphor of god and then of all creation.
WE CAN BALANCE THE BRAVE NEW WORLD BY CREATING METAPHORS BRILLIANT ENOUGH TO SOLVE THE OLD METAPHORS.
East and West did meet in 1971 in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan: (lft-rt) David Winterburn, Doniphan Blair, Darko Radonivich and Jimmy Hanson near Tehran, Iran. photo: courtesy D. Blair
D. On Iphanb L'Air
Art Director/Postmodern Mystic
A Media, Oakland, California
Issued All Hallowed Eve, 2001