Islamic Art Expert to Discuss Muhammad in Contemporary Iranian Culture
Christiane Gruber, Ph.D., to Speak March 26 at Ohio Wesleyan University
Christiane Gruber, Ph.D.
DELAWARE, Ohio – Christiane Gruber, Ph.D., associate professor of Islamic Art at the University of Michigan, will discuss “Prophetic Products: The Prophet Muhammad in Contemporary Iranian Visual Culture” March 26 at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Gruber will speak at 7:30 p.m. in Room 312 of the R.W. Corns Building, 78 S. Sandusky St., Delaware. Her free public presentation represents Ohio Wesleyan’s 2015 Merrick Lecture, sponsored by the Department of Religion.
Gruber was featured in Newsweek in January when, following the shootings at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo magazine, she was invited to discuss whether images of Muhammad are banned in Islam.
“The short and simple answer is no,” Gruber wrote in her commentary, “The Koran Does Not Forbid Images of the Prophet.”
“The Koran does not prohibit figural imagery,” she continued. “Rather, it castigates the worship of idols, which are understood as concrete embodiments of the polytheistic beliefs that Islam supplanted when it emerged as a purely monotheistic faith in the Arabian Peninsula during the seventh century.”
She concluded, however, by encouraging people to “celebrate this global artistic patrimony by flooding our eyes with beautiful images instead of unseemly cartoons[.] In so doing, such images will invite us to ponder, at least to a small degree, all that connects us as visual human beings, regardless of creed and conviction.”
During her Ohio Wesleyan presentation, Gruber will discuss modern images of Muhammad in contemporary Iran.
“[S]uch images have been produced en masse in Iran in recent years and thus are diagnostic of an entire sphere of political, social, and religious consciousness,” Gruber said. “Sold as posters, postcards, stickers, and wall hangings, prophetic products visually reinforce government-approved narratives about the ascendancy of the Shi‘i faith, the legitimacy of Islamic governance, and the value of martyrdom within the larger religious and political landscape of post-revolutionary Iran.
“Moreover, much like religious objects made and consumed elsewhere in the Islamic world, images of Muhammad often are associated with acts of worship, their power to cultivate and direct religious feelings in humans strengthened in large part by their eventual removal from the commodity situation,” Gruber said.
At the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, she also serves as director of graduate studies. Her primary field of research is Islamic book arts, paintings of the Prophet Muhammad, and ascension tales and images. She has authored two books and edited a volume of articles on Islamic ascension texts and paintings. Gruber also pursues research in Islamic book arts and in modern Islamic visual culture and post-revolutionary Iranian visual and material culture. She is currently completing her third book, “The Praiseworthy One: The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Texts and Images.”
Ohio Wesleyan’s Merrick Lecture Series was founded by Frederick Merrick, professor and second president of the university. The series began in 1889 and is Ohio Wesleyan’s oldest running lecture series. Merrick Lectures are in the area of “experimental and practical religion.” Learn more about the OWU Department of Religion at https://www.owu.edu/academics/departments-programs/department-of-religion/.
Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers 86 undergraduate majors and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Ohio Wesleyan combines a challenging, internationally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities to connect classroom theory with real-world experience. OWU’s 1,750 students represent 46 U.S. states and territories and 43 countries. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the latest President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.