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Title: The aesthetics of
faith
Author: Saeed Naqvi
Publication: The Indian
Express
Date: December 3, 1999
The news that a mosque
is to be built in Nazareth saddened me. Unless you have been to Nazareth,
Bethlehem, walked by the side of the sea of Galilee or gone up Via Rosa
in Jerusalem you will not be able to see things the way I do.
Nazareth is quintessentially
a Christian town in its ambience and historical echo. Every cobbled stone
is bound inextricably with the myth or the reality of Jesus Christ. There
is much more of the New Testament in Nazareth than there is, for instance,
in that very Mecca of Christendom the Vatican city which I associate much
more with the genius and the eccentric faith of Michaelangelo. In my framework
there is room for a mosque in either Nazareth or the Vatican. Just as there
is no room for a church or a temple in Mecca. But mosques in Ayodhya, Varanasi
and Mathura? I shall come to that later.
It is argued that the
demographic composition of Nazareth has changed over the years, that the
majority now is Muslim. This is true. The Christian population preferred
the land of milkand honey across the Atlantic than proximity to the Church
of the Annunciation, the site where Angel Gabriel is believed to have appeared
before Mary and told her that she would give birth to the messiah.
In other words, Nazareth
is also today a West Bank town in a politically tempestuous region of the
world. The contest, exemplified by the controversy, is between its status
as an important, dynamic urban centre in the new Palestinian state or a
holy city, a centre for Christian pilgrimage, much more in the public focus
as Jesus's 2000th birthday approaches.
The case for building
a mosque in Nazareth is, actually, quite attractive. ``One more place of
worship will only enhance its holiness.'' Moreover, this place of worship
is likely to be used by a majority of the town's residents.But this innocent
sounding argument actually disguises a deeper plot. As the Palestinian
state is in its birth throes, the secularists and the militant Islamists
are vying with each other to determine the character of the newstate.
There is a faulty impression
that the Palestinian struggle has, somehow, been primarily Islamic in character.
George Habash, Hannan Ashrawi and one of the great thinkers of our time,
Edward Said, are all Christians. I have attended midnight mass at Bethlehem
(where Jesus was born) when Yasser Arafat and his Christian wife, Suha
Arafat, were the principal guests at the service.
It is nobody's case that
the Islamists will be deemed to have been defeated if the mosque is not
built in Nazareth. Quite the opposite might happen. Thwarting the mosque
might fuel an Islamist agitation.
But politics and general
philistinism alone must not inform discussion on whether or not a Christian
pilgrimage centre can accommodate another place of worship to cater to
its new Muslim majority.
Town planning and architectural
additions to an ancient holy site cannot be divorced from considerations
of aesthetics.
Every great religion
generates its own culture which manifests itself in architecture, literature,
musicand painting. Thus the great cathedrals of Europe, Michaelangelo,
Bach, Handel, Milton are only some of the enduring gifts left behind by
that great religion. In my book they represent the very distillate of that
which came to be known as western civilisation.
The majestic dome and
measured spirals of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the mosque in Isfahan,
the Jama Masjid of Delhi, the thought and poetry of Jaluddin Rumi, the
dance of the dervishes in Konya, the devotional music of Amir Khusro, all
represent freedom, amplitude and aesthetic pleasure derived from the faith.
The frescos in the exquisite
temple in Tanjore, depicting every known movement in Bharatanatyam, the
incomparable detailing in stone at Halibed, the granite grandeur at Shravanbelagola,
poetry of Sur and Tulsi and the Kritis of Thyagaraja, are the highest aesthetic
expression of Hindu civilisation. Tirupati, Rishikesh, Ayodhya, Mathu-
ra and Varanasi are, according to me, towns and cities which are as Hindu
as Mecca is Muslim or the Vaticanis Christian.
A temple or a mosque
in the Vatican or a church in Mecca would militate against the sheer aesthetic
harmony of these places. Should it then be difficult to realise that mosques
in the heart of the most prominent temples in Varanasi, Ayodhya and Mathura
would be aesthetically revolting for any Hindu?
Unka jo kaam hai who
pehle siyasat jaane
Mera paigham mohabbat
hai Jahan tak pahunche,
(Let those with a political
axe to grind carry on with their business; mine is a message of love and
let it carry as far as it can.) History of invasions and the crusades is
replete with the destruction of places of worship. Europe never really
forgot the hurt inflicted by the Ottomans on the Christian world by transforming
the St Sophia Church in Constantinople (today's Istanbul) into a mosque.
Ataturk softened the wound by shutting down the mosque and restoring St
Sophia as a museum.
Have you ever visited
the mosques in Varanasi, Ayodhya and Mathura? I did and I did not like
what I saw. Any Hinduwould be hurt.
That such things happen
in history is true. The history of civilisation is also the history of
their eclipse by decay or conquest.
In many instances cross-civilisational
contact leads to enrichment.
Ironically, cities in
the eye of recent storms, Sarajevo, Mostar and Pristina, were once the
pride of what I call composite culture. A magnificent Ottoman bridge in
Mostar provided the backdrop for the steeples of churches in Mostar. Orthodox
Churches and the slim, thermometer-like minarets of Sarajevo are arranged
side by side, almost in direct ratio to the populations of the two communities.
What followed recently was an unspeakable monstrosity.
We too lost our balance
in the heat of politics when the Babri Majid was pulled down. But that
irrational act apart, the fact of the matter is that the mosque in Varanasi
and Mathura are, aesthetically, as incongruous as the one in Nazareth will
be, if it ever is built. Like the mosque in Varanasi, and Mathura, it too
will be divisive mosque.Yes, mosques must be built if there are worshippers,
but not imposed or accepted in spaces where they violate the aesthetic
ambience of these places.
