[Reader-list] Popular religious art of the Muslims: posting 3

[Yousuf Saeed]

Sarai Fellowship 2004, posting No.3: Syncretism in
Muslim Religious Posters in India: Iconic Devotion in
an Iconoclastic Religion

Community and Gender Stereotyping in Religious Posters

Like many other forms of popular art found in urban
India’s public spaces - advertisements, print
magazines, television, cinema hoardings, popular
cinema itself – the religious posters too participate
actively in what can be called the stereotyping of the
image of certain communities and of the genders. To
explore these typecasts, we need to first examine some
broad differences between the content of various types
of posters. 

The posters with clearly Hindu and Muslim themes
differ, mainly, in the variety of subject matters they
depict, and the purpose they fulfill in a devotee’s
life. Most Hindu posters portray deities, gods, and
goddesses, their attributes and myths – utilizing
narratives that have been followed since the ancient
times, even though the painting/art styles may have
changed. In practice, a two-dimensional image of a
Hindu god or deity serves the same purpose for an
average devotee which an idol or statue does, that is,
the worship or dhyana (though the classicists may
somewhat disagree). There are specific day-to-day
purposes – goddess Lakshmi bringing the wealth, and
Saraswati, the knowledge, and so on. In a Hindu
devotional image, there is absolutely no hesitation
about the use of figurative icons as well as the
plurality of gods. In fact, iconography and polytheism
are the most important sources of a Hindu devotee’s
religiosity. Hence, an artist’s liberty to interpret
and use the representative icons results in Hindu
devotional images that candidly reflect her/his own
faith, as well as a collective/folk memory about the
myth.

South Asia’s Muslim iconography, on the other hand,
carries some distinct differences from the Hindu
images - even though some of it does seem like
entering the realm of polytheism and icon-worship.
While some artists/producers of the Muslim posters are
extremely sensitive about Islam’s iconoclasm, and
consider it a taboo to portray any figurative image
(humans, living organisms), some others have less
inhibition and draw freely the portraits of saints and
holy men. But on the whole, one does notice a sense of
reluctance in the iconography in most Muslim
devotional images – not to mean that the diversity of
visuals and ideas are limited in them. [Islamic
iconoclasm and (despite that) the tradition of
Iranian/Turkish miniature artists depicting Prophet
Muhammad, other prophets, angels, and mythical beasts,
is something that deserves a larger discussion for
this project, and would be taken up in my subsequent
postings]. 

An absolute (or partial) iconoclasm forces an artist
to find more creative ways to illustrate a concept or
folklore, without representing the taboo figures. It
also provides (a Muslim iconographer) an almost
unlimited scope for choosing the subject matter and
innovative symbols. One cautious poster, for instance,
simply shows a large dense knot of a rope, with a
Qur’anic text at the bottom saying, “Hold on tight to
the rope of the God’s message…and do not disperse…” It
also has other icons, such as a rosary, a rose plant,
a setting sun and some flying birds in the backdrop,
probably to enhance the mundane sight of a knotted
rope. Another poster shows six namazis (praying men)
standing in a row (presumably inside a mosque) saying
a collective namaz, wearing a wide variety of dresses
– some in fine expensive robes while others in soiled
rags – stressing on human equality in Islam. Such
broad range, from iconoclasm to iconography, also
exists, probably, due to the market’s demand. 

When a Muslim iconographer (not necessarily a Muslim
by faith), explores new subject matters to draw a
poster, or to make innovative variations of Mecca,
Medina or the Qur’an, the first thing he/she recalls
are the clichéd images of the community itself – cute
little girls with scarves reading the Qur’an, innocent
boys in skullcaps hugging each other after the Eid
prayers, beautiful and pious young women with raised
hands from which a translucent dupatta (scarf)
cascades down, all this with the essential backdrop of
Kaaba and the green dome of Medina. One poster that
epitomizes the typecast image of the community in the
popular parlance has a little boy sitting
cross-legged, about to turn the page of a Qur’an,
wearing a white sleeveless vest (Sandow banian), a
green check lungi or mundu (printed loin-cloth), a
little metallic talisman case in a necklace, and the
embroidered skullcap. Not to miss the rosary, the
incense-sticks, the prayer mat, and the
crescent-n-star encircling Mecca and Medina in the
backdrop. The child may just walk out, one imagines,
into a noisy Muslim mohalla (locality) and chew a paan
or enter a butcher’s shop.

While examining these stereotypes in popular art, one
cannot ignore the non-religious posters and calendars
of the early print era, especially the ones depicting
India’s freedom fighters, nationalism, patriotism,
agrarian reforms, and other secular themes, which
evolved along with the devotional images. While the
‘national integration’ calendars show the
representatives of all faiths in their characteristic
costumes under the shadow of mother India, certain
other posters distinguish various professions by
assigning them different genders. So, if men and women
have different roles in the family and society, they
would also practice their religious faith differently.
While most men follow the rituals rigidly by the book
– sticking to the code of conduct or prayer as given
in the Shari’at or the Shastras, women stress more on
a private and emotional relationship with the divine,
and believe in many superstitions.

Such role models often come across, albeit
subconsciously, in the devotional posters. Men
offering their namaz in a military like row, while
women cloistered in their scarves, intimate with the
Qur'an and the Ka'ba. A typical devotee to a saint’s
tomb is usually a woman, with her jholi (scarf) held
out in a posture of ‘asking’. Thus a line from a
qawwali “Bhar do jholi meri ya Muhammad/Laut kar mein
na jaaonga khaali” (Do fill my sack Oh Muhammad/Will
not return empty handed) perfectly characterizes this
scenario. In one poster, the mausoleum of Shaikh Abdul
Qadir Jeelani in Iraq is visited by a beautiful female
devotee wearing a distinct Punjabi dress and facial
features. While the women are an embodiment of
extraordinary beauty, stuffed with gold jewelry and
expensive clothes, the portrayal of men (except the
saints) is realistic and stiff. Men of importance are
shown dressed in long embroidered robes and turbans,
whereas the ordinary men folk wear white kurta pajamas
and Gandhi caps as seen in other nationalistic
calendar art. 

The ‘pious women’ depicted in some posters seem to
come straight from the community stereotypes that were
sowed in the public memory by the 20th century Hindi
cinema - Mughal-e-Azam, Chaudhvin-ka-chand, Mere
Mehboob, and so on. The big chunk of moviegoers, the
crowd that likes to see a blockbuster several times,
and revels in its images and music, also happens to
buy the devotional posters – no wonder a cinema genre
called the ‘Muslim Social’ pervaded the Bombay film
industry for almost three decades in the 20th century,
and contributed largely to the stereotyping of the
Muslim community. It would not be surprising if the
artists who drew the roadside hoardings for such films
were also the original iconographers of some of the
Muslim religious art. Some of the printing presses
churning out the movie posters, no doubt, also
produced the cheap religious images. Some (amongst
Muslims) who may have hesitated putting up the poster
of a film actress on their wall due to family or
social pressure found legitimacy in a picture that
combined the Ka'ba or the Qur’an with an attractive
lady who looks like Madhubala or Surayya. This twin
purpose of providing the religious devotion with the
sensuous pleasure seems to be a selling point of most
successful popular devotional art.

Indian cinema and television continue to strengthen
the community stereotypes in the popular culture. Many
film producers wait for the Eid or Diwali to release
their blockbusters, not so much for the auspicious
day, but for the holiday and the savings the working
class would spend on cinema. On last Eid in a Muslim
locality, I found a surprise at a poster shop – a
colour photograph of the actor Salman Khan in typical
Muslim attire, doing a courteous aadab (Muslim
salutation) with his naughty smile, and Eid mubarak
printed at the bottom - it was obviously a movie
poster, but selling briskly among the religious ones.
Need one explain how many genres of popular culture
and stereotyping did it represent?


[Examples of the posters referred to in this write-up
can be seen at the following site:
http://www.alif-india.com/popart/gallery.html 

Yousuf Saeed
New Delhi, India
ysaeed7 at yahoo.com

For those who missed the first and second posting:
this project seeks to collect the contemporary
religious posters and calendar art, depicting Muslim
themes, mostly in north India, and analyze their
content, focusing on the symbols of multi-faith or
composite culture, besides studying briefly the
industry and the artists who manufacture and sell
them, the devotees who buy them, the milieu where they
are adorned, and the reverence they evoke.

This posting is only a section of the research and may
not represent the holistic picture or the
chronological sequence of the findings. More details,
updates and a colourful poster gallery of the project
can be seen at: www.alif-india.com/popart





	
		
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