Study – The Significance of Stars in Islamic Art

Oh my goodness I haven’t posted anything for more than two weeks! I guess I was really occupied with things to do during Ramadhan and what’s with irregular working hours  I have to put up with….it has been a tiring but pleasant Ramadan so far. So to restart the blog, here is a brand new article for you.

As you may know, if you follow this blog from the start, you would notice that Islamic art such as Zellige or Geometric art features heavily on stars. One must wonder why does Islamic art features stars and star shaped motifs, and why it is almost  a definition of Islamic art itself.

In Islam, Muslims are forbidden of drawing animate beings and objects thus figurative art that features human or animal figures were underdeveloped, for the fear of idolatry. Although in the course of the history of Islam and its empires some exceptions are made for example, in Islamic Persia where miniatures flourished and became a significant part of Islamic art in Persia, as it is already has been before the coming of Islam. To go around this restriction, Muslim artists express their creativity in a different way – they turned to geometric art and specifically those which featured stars.

Following are some theories on why Muslim  artists selected star geometric art to convey their creativity  –

1. Representation of Light – In Islam, God has no image ; meaning that unlike other religions such as Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism, Islam does not take any image to represent their God. The only thing that described God in Islam as in imagery is that God is light, as the Al-Quran proclaims- “God is the light of the heavens and earth”.  Stars produced light in the heavens, so it is not as surprising that Muslims chose stars to represent light to decorate sacred buildings as well as illumination for sacred texts.
2. Stars are Guides in the Desert – The first Muslims were desert-dwellers and relies on the stars for guidance as in navigation through the deserts or the sea. Besides being the navigational help, stars also play a role in pointing out and deciding the direction of the Qiblah or the direction of the Kaabah, where every Muslims face during their prayers. Thus, stars bears a significance in the early Muslims daily lives and became a part of the Islamic aesthetic.
3. The Repeating Geometric Patterns are a glimpse into the Spiritual World and Perfection – Geometry has been associated with metaphysical properties long before Islam. For example, the Greeks had contemplated the perfection of Geometry and came to associate it with divine properties. The Muslims, who studied the Greeks mathematical works, amongst other, agreed and integrated Geometric art as a spiritual gate to the divine plane.