Forging Islamic science

September 18, 2018 11:48 AM

Fake miniatures depicting Islamic science have found their way into the most august of libraries and history books. How?

As I prepared to teach my class ‘Science and Islam’ last spring, I noticed something peculiar about the book I was about to assign to my students. It wasn’t the text – a wonderful translation of a medieval Arabic encyclopaedia – but the cover. Its illustration showed scholars in turbans and medieval Middle Eastern dress, examining the starry sky through telescopes. The miniature purported to be from the premodern Middle East, but something was off.

posted by standardasparagus (11 comments total)

I wouldn't say that the colours would be the giveaway. Some of the gouache miniatures in the Aga Khan Museum are hundreds of years old, yet are super bright.

A local artist has been working in this style, and has depicted some of her friends in the court miniature style. My favourite one has a grand young gentleman, royally attired and sitting on an impossibly detailed cushion, sending texts on his iPhone.
posted by scruss at 12:18 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]

A local artist has been working in this style, and has depicted some of her friends in the court miniature style. My favourite one has a grand young gentleman, royally attired and sitting on an impossibly detailed cushion, sending texts on his iPhone.

Omg, I love this idea. Do you have a link?
posted by WidgetAlley at 12:43 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Wikipedia had a huge problem with a single editor- Jagged 85 who made 87,000 edits involving the "undue promotion of Islamic and other non-European scholarship".
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Islam_Science_and_the_Problems_at_Wikipedia
posted by bhnyc at 12:52 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

Great link, thanks!
posted by ogorki at 12:58 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

The zeal of zealots--whoever and whatever they might be.
posted by rmhsinc at 1:20 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Sorry, WidgetAlley - I can't find it. I'm pretty sure it was via (or even by) Unaiza Karim, a Toronto/Oakville artist who taught me the basics of manuscript illumination. The pieces were tiny: facial details painted with home-made squirrel brushes with only 2-3 hairs
posted by scruss at 1:33 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

This seems like a "Simulacra and Simulation" type of thing where the simulations are actually harmful to the originals in a sense.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:00 PM on September 18, 2018

RationalWiki seems to view WikiIslam with a bit of skepticism. It is run by ex-Muslim's with an apparent agenda (to be biased against Islam). That particular article may have merit, but I'd be cautious about viewing it as a reliable source in general.
posted by el io at 2:41 PM on September 18, 2018 [7 favorites]

Games Workshop wouldn't have tolerated this sort of thing.

Wait, what?
posted by hyperbolic at 2:57 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Was linking RationalWiki as a source to undermine the reliability of a wiki like some kind of a metajoke on the overall reliability and bias of wikis as sources of information? Because *ahem* that particular article may have merit, but I'd be cautious about viewing it as a reliable source in general...
posted by Krawczak at 8:44 AM on September 19, 2018

Omg, I love this idea. Do you have a link?

If you look for contemporary miniature art from Pakistan, you'll probably find things in a similar vein. I'm blanking out on artists' names right now, but there's a long tradition of miniatures at the National College of Arts here and in the last twenty years some really interesting pieces that juxtapose modern life with the traditional Mughal miniature aesthetic and techniques have regularly popped up.
posted by bardophile at 1:38 AM on September 20, 2018