Urban Art: Images, the Quran, and “Our Lady of the Underpass”

Last updated on: April 22, 2005 at 1:54 am by Ibrahim Abusharif

Urban Art: Images, the Quran, and “Our Lady of the Underpass” 2005-04-22T01:54:00-04:00 Ibrahim Abusharif

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We see what we want to see

The same week that Rome announced a new Pope, headlines appeared in the Chicago press about a sighting of Mary, Mother of Jesus. Motorists saw her image, they say, on a discolored wall of the Fullerton Avenue underpass of the Kennedy Expressway. With a tilt of the head and liberal imagination, one can make out what looks like a rough draft of a medieval artist’s conception of Mary, which has become the canonized image familiar to most Christians, especially Catholics. To the left of the likeness, an inscription reads, “Satan Loves U,” composed beneath a pentagram associated with the occult.

In swift fashion, men and women crowded before the water stain, to stare, light candles, weep, supplicate, thumb their rosaries, take pictures with their cell phones, and drop flowers before fractured concrete and some interesting graffiti.

It is true that religion does not fare well when confined to an abstraction. We are charged to believe in the Unseen, not the unfelt. Whenever religion alights someplace, religious culture and art usually follow. In the Islamic tradition, however, this art shies away from depictions of humans, relying on what is arguably a more powerful and authentic spiritual effulgence: the voice, architecture, calligraphy, intricate patterns (with symmetry and without), poetry, interior design, gardening, and the like. Islam, in general, has a problem with human depictions and the customs that lead people to find solace in them. One suspects that the issue exceeds concern about idolatry. Rather, Islam attaches greater importance to the inner habiliment of spirituality, often referred to as the “inner eye,” that is meant to engender degrees of certitude that stand like oaks. Images of humans (even spontaneous ones) and their role in spirituality have presented problems in the past because people ultimately depend on them and their ephemeral natures, thus impairing the more rewarding and durable qualities hidden within us all.

The Quran presents narratives of past saintly and prophetic figures, told in a single passage (as with Joseph) or presented in separate “revelatory” treatments that highlight different aspects of the same story. The narrative of Mary and Jesus, especially in the 19th sura (or chapter) of the Quran, is conclusively powerful. It proffers an amazing “image” of this great woman by mapping indelible words to persona.

In Mary’s time, religion had been calcified by hairsplitting debates on Sacred Law and its manipulation for political sway. The whole point of revealed religion seemed to have been lost. A spiritual connection with God and active remembrance of Him became things for fools. Certitude was orphaned by indifference, its methods disregarded and forlorn. In such a petrified context, it would take suspensions of the natural order to bring people back to their senses, while never once violating the primordial truth, namely, God is God, everything else is not, was not, nor ever will be to any degree.

Of Levitical lineage, the preeminent priestly line of the Children of Israel, Mary devoted herself from a very early age to the patient art of prayer and contemplation, of constant remembrance of God and the study of the sacred. It was in her prayer chamber that an intruder startled her, an angel who appeared to her in the form of a full-fledged man. Barely able to speak, she attempted to scold him and at last reminded the intruder of God’s might. She appealed to him that he fear God, if such fear would ever occur to someone with the audacity to violate the Holy House and enter into the secluded company of a virtuous woman chosen to serve the spiritual needs of her people. The intruder then spoke. His voice and demeanor, his noble countenance and comportment, were not of a man inclined toward evil. He apprised her of his true identity and then announced a shot of words that troubled the young woman, but would also polarize the world.

“You will have a son!” Angel Gabriel told the virgin. The matter was done: a boy, a human being of flesh and intelligence, of insight and mission, would grow in her, though no man had ever touched her. In her prayer chamber, she had lived most of her life, spending her days and nights contemplating and learning of things that can only be learned in such a manner, with such immersion. Wholesome food, drink, and out-of-season fruit simply appeared in her chamber at God’s command, signs that amazed the guardians of the faith. She would see purpose and portents in God’s creation and peer beyond veils that otherwise cover the vision of those dedicated to play and the trivial.

Though the conception of her son was miraculous, the normal trials and pains of delivery would not bypass her. In time, the contractions bore down on the young woman, driving her to take shelter beneath a date-palm. Right there, beneath the withered tree, did she give birth to Jesus. Grief-stricken and depleted, Mary heard a voice calling out to her, telling her not to sorrow or desire annihilation. A streamlet appeared before her with fresh and pure water. She was then told to shake the trunk of the date-palm. She managed to stand up and shake the tree with her trembling arms; she worked with ordinary forces of nature to have dropped upon her a miraculous bunch of ripened dates as if the date-palm had been the most fertile plant on earth. Her mind and body were replenished.

She now was prepared to take her infant to her people. Against the visible shock of her kinfolk and their accusations and demands for an explanation, she simply pointed toward baby Jesus. Defense of her chastity and honor would be as marvelous as the babe now reclined in a cradle. The biology of procreation hamstrung the good thoughts that her family had held out for Mary. They were vexed, in fact, that she expected them to hear from a newborn. Their anger dropped a veil between them and the fact that everything belongs to God, every biology and miracle, the explainable and the inexplicable, whether it is the creation of Adam from clay or the conception of any given child of two parents. It is all the same to Him; all of it easy.

Only days old, the child spoke. He exonerated his virgin mother, stunning the crowd with speech that only adults are capable of. He declared himself as a worshipper of God and as God’s apostle to the Children of Israel. His terms were clear, as they would be throughout his life. Such was the limpid discourse of all the prophets and messengers. There was triumph in Mary’s faith, a victory that was won not that day, but in the days of her life before.

Jesus would be most excellent to his mother, never insolent, always gentle and kind. He would be a sign to the worlds and a friend of the blind, whose dead eyes would come to life with the wave of a hand. The leper, with a compulsory bell around his neck, also found relief, perfectly cured of a dreadful disease that consumes the skin, devours distal limbs, and cordons off its victims from a normal life. A clod of clay would suddenly flitter in Jesus’ hands and fly away as a live bird. A decaying corpse would abruptly inhale, and live blood would color its flesh, quicken its sinews, revitalize putrefied organs, and awaken the mind. All of this, Jesus would insist, is by God’s permission, signs from the Giver of Life�signs for those given life that they should never doubt the possibility of a Resurrection.

Mary and Jesus would become in years to come, well beyond their earthly lives, the center of a tumultuous religious dispute. A faction will strive to impute Mary with evil designs and questionable morality, and insist on biology as their proof. They would attempt to strip her of her station as a spiritual master and declare her son a zealous renegade. Others will develop a theology of their own in the crucible of a full clash between the religious establishments in such ancient centers as Alexandria and Constantinople, a struggle of how to negotiate a formidable pagan milieu. A world civilization, complex art, and distinct culture will be founded on the dogma that God was a man and a man was God incarnate: God as flesh, bone, and muscle; God as marrow, hair, and glands; God subjected to the Roman authority, men whom He Himself created from nothing. For centuries, people will depend on the arguments of this incredible schism for their faith and thought life.

As a Muslim would say, however, a decisive Word would come down in the desert to a son of Ishmael. Centuries before, Jesus spoke to his disciples of him, calling him “Ahmad,” a name phonetically similar in Aramaic and its sister tongue, Arabic. Revealed to the unlettered man, a Book will preserve the important accounts of the distant past, including the awesome story of a virgin, her son, and a date-palm.

In the end, the brevity of our lives demands an explanation. If we were to live forever on earth, there would be no point to any theology or explanation. It is the emergency of our mortality that drives us to seek answers, even if it takes some people on a pilgrimage to a Chicago viaduct. We may differ about images and their importance, but we are clear about the necessity of seeking answers and transcendence. It is intuitive and unmistakably alive.

Ibrahim N. Abusharif is the editor of Starlatch Press. He may be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
//’;l[1]=’a’;l[2]=’/’;l[3]=”;l[26]=’\”‘;l[27]=’ 109′;l[28]=’ 111′;l[29]=’ 99′;l[30]=’ 46′;l[31]=’ 108′;l[32]=’ 105′;l[33]=’ 97′;l[34]=’ 109′;l[35]=’ 116′;l[36]=’ 111′;l[37]=’ 104′;l[38]=’ 64′;l[39]=’ 104′;l[40]=’ 99′;l[41]=’ 116′;l[42]=’ 97′;l[43]=’ 108′;l[44]=’ 114′;l[45]=’ 97′;l[46]=’ 116′;l[47]=’ 115′;l[48]=’:’;l[49]=’o’;l[50]=’t’;l[51]=’l’;l[52]=’i’;l[53]=’a’;l[54]=’m’;l[55]=’\”‘;l[56]=’=’;l[57]=’f’;l[58]=’e’;l[59]=’r’;l[60]=’h’;l[61]=’a ‘;l[62]=’= 0; i=i-1){
if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ‘ ‘) output += “&#”+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+”;”;
else output += unescape(l[i]);
}
document.getElementById(‘eeEncEmail_DwKtgXNOzu’).innerHTML = output;
//]]>
You may visit his blog at http://fromclay.blogspot.com.

Commentary

Ibrahim Abusharif

Previous Post

April 22, 2005

Homeland Security: Muslim Americans sue for answers to border detentions

Next Post

April 25, 2005 Hollywood history lessons: “Kingdom Of Heaven” sparks more crusades than jihads

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 2012 Elections 30 Dayd 30 Writers (2017) 30 Days 30 Writers 30 Days 30 Writers (2015) 30 Days 30 Writers (2016) 30 Days 30 Writers (2018) 30 Days 30 Writers 2017 Ali Asadullah Ali Eteraz Alper Bilgili Arthur Richards Asides Asma Uddin Black History Month Briefings Charles Turner Commentary Cyrus McGoldrick Eman H Aly Fatimah Popal Hajj Hajj and Dhul Hijjah Hesham Hassaballa Hisham Hellyer Ibrahim Abusharif Inas Younis Irfan Yusuf Jalal Baig Junaid Afeef Laila Alawa Laila Alwala Mas'ood Cajee Muqtedar Khan Nakia Jackson Newsmakers Parvez Ahmed Podcasts Rabia Chaudry Rafia Zakaria Ramadan Reviews Safiyyah Ally Saud Inam Shahed Amanullah Svend White The Opinionated Oncologist Visions Wajahat Ali Zahed Amanullah Zahir Janmohamed Zainab Khan

Select a Month November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was a biblical measurement of a span?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Half a cubit Full cubit Third of a cubit Quarter cubit