
Ruhr University Bochum, 9-10 November 2017
Venue: Beckmanns Hof, Room Tokyo
Based on its doctrinal and historiographical foundations, the Muslims’ relation to the Prophet Muhammad was and still is strongly articulated in the spheres of literature, arts, and also in the modern media. Along with the rise of Prophetic piety since the 12th century, the literary and artistic focus on the Prophet equally gained in importance as a medium of orientation towards him, a process that has continued ever since and became a central element of Muslim culture in the early modern and modern periods. Literary and artistic forms of representation of the Prophet expanded in various temporal, spatial and cultural contexts, creating a wide range of literary, calligraphic, iconographic and media-related forms of expression. With their different cultural, communal and sectarian coloring, and with the fierce contestations that have sometimes gone along with them, the highly variegated literary and artistic expressions of Prophetic piety still lack a comparative framework of study. [ read more]
PROGRAMME
Thursday, 9 November 2017
Morning
9.00-9.30 Welcoming Coffee and Opening of the Workshop
Session I: Poetical Approaches to the Prophet
9.30-10.00 Ève Feuillebois-Pierunek: Praising the Prophet in Niẓāmī’s Quintet (12th c.)
10.00-10.30 Brigitte Foulon: The Praise Poems Composed by Lisân al-Dîn Ibn al-Khatîb (d. 1374) for the Celebration of the Birth of the Prophet (al-mawlidiyyât)
10.30-11.00 Discussion
11.00-11.15 Coffee Break
11.15-11.45 Francesco Zappa: Praising the Prophet in West African, especially Malian Islamic Literatures and their Current Mediated Performances: A Preliminary Survey
11.45-12.15 Rüdiger Seesemann: “The Splendid Jewel in Praise of the Most Eminent Beloved”: Glimpses from the Diwan of Shaykh Ibrahim b. Sidi Muhammad al-Tijani (d. 1999, Darfur, Sudan)
12.15-13.15 Discussion
13.15-14.45 Lunch Break
Afternoon
14.45-15.15 Torsten Tschacher: Another Rama? Modern Responses to the Depiction of the Prophet in Tamil Devotional Poetry
15.15-15.45 Gianfranco Bria: Reinvent and Translate the Islamic Tradition in Contemporary Albania: The Mevlud Between Community Demands and National Aspirations
15.45-16.00 Coffee Break
16.00-16.30 Stephan Milich: Prophecy and War: Images of Saddam Hussein in the Poetry of ʿAbd al-Razzāq ʿAbd al-Wāḥid
16.30-17.00 Discussion
Friday, 10 November 2017
Morning
Session II: The Prophet in Calligraphy and Art
9.00-9.30 Tobias Heinzelmann: Visualizing the Prophet – Rhetorical and Graphic Aspects of Three Ottoman-Turkish Poems
9.30-10.00 Christiane Gruber: The Prophet as a ‘Sacred Spring’: Late Ottoman Hilye Bottles
10.00-10.15 Coffee Break
10.15-10.45 Hiba ʿAbid and Francesco Chiabotti: The World of al-Qandūsī (d. 1861): Calligraphy and Prophetology in 19th-century Fes
10.45-11.15 Discussion
11.30-13.00 Lunch Break
Afternoon
Session III: The Prophet in Music
13.00-13.30 Ines Heinrich: Ḥabīb – Ṭabīb – Shafīʿ (Beloved, Healer, and Intercessor): The Creation of Muḥammad’s Qualities through Contemporary Chant in Syria and Lebanon
13.30-14.00 Sajida Fazal: Image of Prophet Mohammad and Female Representation in Sufi Performing Arts, ‘Qawwali’ in Pakistan
14.00-14.30 Discussion
14.30-14.45 Coffee Break
Session IV: The Prophet in Audiovisual Media
14.45-15.15 Max Stille: Auditive Dimensions of Prophetic Presence and Divine Compassion in Bengali Wa’z Mahfils
15.15-15.45 Dilek Sarmis: The Recent Diffusion of the Film “The Message” in France: Debates on the Web on an Indirect Representation of the Prophet
15.45-16.45 Discussion and Conclusions