The advent of ‘Metamodernism’, a much better description of post-postmodernism, began with a discussion on art, as evident in Vermeulen’s and van den Akker’s foundational exposition “Notes on Metamodernism”. Many thinkers since this essay’s publication have been working diligently to wonder what a metamodern approach to religion and religious studies looks like? It should not be surprising that a conversation on art would pave the way to rethink faith and spirituality in the present day and age, for it is human art (e.g., Sistine Chapel, pyramids, Islamic calligraphy) that stands as a marker of premodern religiosity and spiritual expression.
But while it’s common knowledge that ‘religious art’ has been an inseparable aspect of religious practice throughout human history, what is less appreciated is the harmony between the ‘creative process’ and ‘mystical experience’ and how each movement sustains the other, calling us to reflect on the creative dimensions of spirituality and sacred contours of creativity. In my work, A Nostalgic Remembrance: Sufism and the Breath of Creativity, I present the creative and mystical experiences as mirrored movements, defining both as ‘translating the ineffable into the tangible’ and ‘making connections where none seem possible or exist’.
But what does the creative process actually entail, so that we might excavate its presence in the mystical experience? Essentially, it is a ritual attempt at bricolage, of making something new from a limited and familiar set of tools. Consider that every poem and novel in any given language has been written using the same alphabet that has elsewhere bored us on countless occasions. It is the specific arrangement of these letters, less so to create entirely new words or sentences and more so to position familiar terms in uncanny opposition/apposition that creates a silent wonder in text, moving us to wander beyond grammar and ink on paper.
The same can be said about painting or music, each of which genre speaks in the same hue and notes that chisel new experiences in our psyche. Art and the creative process is all about lingering in the barzakh or a ‘space between’ complete familiarity and unfamiliarity. It is precisely what Vermeulen and van den Akker describe as the metamodern call to paradoxically linger simultaneously between opposing poles. Like heroes and villains of ancient mythology, art thrives not in complete fragility or awesome suprahuman strength, but in the meeting between the two. Rather, in the latter despite the former.
All of this returns us to mysticism and the call to view religion as art. How can scripture be read creatively? What does it mean to read every word of the Qurʾan as one would experience a painting in a museum or listen solemnly to music in a concert hall? These are questions that reside beyond fiqh (jurisprudence) and the debates regarding the permissibility of or comparing Quranic recitation to music. Rather, we are attempting to decipher a meta conversation or narrative at the periphery of the arts, whereby the creative process as a spirit animating the body of artwork can speak beyond the boundaries of craft and into a universal conversation about being human.
This is the spirit of the discourse in A Nostalgic Remembrance, where I propose to regard the three quintessential components in Sufism: shariʿa (law), tariqa (path) and haqiqa (reality) as mirrors of an artist’s growth in their craft. Therefore, if attaining the haqiqa of any art form is a summit of mastery and sainthood in that craft, then Jack Lemmon’s realization that he needs to ‘do nothing’ in front of the camera is ‘nothing’ but another rendering of fanaʾ (annihilation) unique to filmmaking. Inversely, the camera as a theophany of God’s twin names al-Raqib (The Ever-watchful) and al-Qarib (The All-Near) – both of which are anagrams – overflows from the world of film onto the reel of reality.
And so, how can artistic and mystically-hearted Muslims approach an august occasion like Eid creatively? The mystic, like the artist, always looks for signs in the mundane, in names and signifiers. This is why the Andalusian Sufi saint Ibn ʿArabi always begins his spiritual excursions from language, in the dance of etymology and linguistic relationships. The word eid, Ibn ʿArabi tells us, is from ʿawda (return), since it is a holiday (holy day) that returns annually, but more importantly because it signals a return to human fragility and our need to eat and drink. In this regard, Ramadan was a divine ceremony to honor human beings who are elevated for 30 days to the rank of angels, also abstaining from physical sustenance in all forms.
But it is during eid that we celebrate the acknowledgment of our fragility and need for this physical nourishment. Aside from the prayer, nothing we do on eid is out of the ordinary. We eat the same food and satiate our thirst with the same drinks that we enjoy outside of Ramadan. However, as we stated above, it is the creative apposition of the expected in exceptional circumstances. We engage with the alphabet and tools of food, drink and dress after deprivation to witness the mundane with a new wit! To be able excavate the sacred performance within the profane.
If this is how the creative process can invigorate our celebration of eid, we also bask in the eid of many returns in our crafts and journeys as artists. It is a universal advice from masters in various genres of art that one often needs to leave a work before returning to it with a new perspective. But instead of simply regarding this ritual as leaving in order to leaven, we can alternately describe it as a movement from fasting to feasting on a novel, painting, song, play or film. We let go, for a short while, acquiescing that the work was in better divine hands beforehand and will be delivered again in due time. For on the canvas of prayer and prayer of canvas, God’s Will will be done.
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