Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to analyse the function and social impact of different kinds of art works in past and present societies. The museum offers three cases from Islamic history where writing served a purpose, in sacred texts, on coins and on city walls; present-day cases come from your class. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B2.1 analyse the function and social impact of different kinds of art works in both past and present societies […]
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
Who is the work speaking to?
For each record, name the people who would have seen the work and the places where they met it. Say what the maker or patron wanted them to do or feel, and mark what is only your guess.
What is an art work's job, and does it change?
Sort the three cases by function: sacred, official, commemorative or another. Then ask which of those jobs a work of art still does today.
Go deeper
Read the gates of Cairo as one scholar does. Bernard O'Kane lists the inscriptions of the gates Bab al-Futuh, Bab al-Nasr and Bab al-Tawfiq among the works of Badr al-Jamali 2 3 4 5. He notes that on these gates Badr's titles take up much more space than those of the caliph al-Mustansir, "a nod to the real holder of power" 5. He adds that the fourth line at Bab al-Nasr is carved on the voussoirs of the relieving arch and is longer than the three lines above, evidence of a hasty afterthought 5.
Often misunderstood
The word "propaganda" sounds like praise sent down from a ruler. The Doha booklet's definition is wider: its propaganda coins could be put into circulation officially by the sultan or ruler for an occasion, or unofficially by the elite or the public, secretly or openly, according to their political stance toward the state 6. Their form was not fixed, and they could carry a text, an image, a mark or a symbol expressing a favourable or hostile idea 6.
How do we know?
The gates are read through one chapter, by one author. The observations are of carved stone: how much space a title takes, which line sits on which stones, and how long it is. The conclusions, "a nod to the real holder of power" and "a hasty afterthought", are O'Kane's readings of those observations 5. The record does not say who ordered the extra line or whether Badr al-Jamali asked for his titles to be large, so those questions stay open.
Think about it
Badr's titles fill more of the gate than the caliph's. Defend your view with what the record gives, and answer the strongest objection to it: is the gate telling a passer-by who rules, or is O'Kane's reading too strong for what the carving shows?
Into the museum
- Monumental calligraphy in Fatimid Egypt: the chapter's course, from tombstones to the Aqmar Mosque.
- Propaganda coins: the booklet's wider definition and its two examples.
- Badr al-Jamali: the man whose gates the chapter reads.
- Bab al-Nasr: the gate with the added fourth line.
Try this
Read the records on propaganda coins and Kufic script. Choose one inscription or coin and write two sentences on who was meant to read it and what it was meant to do.
4 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
5 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Kufic script have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Writing for the Qur'an and for a monument. Maryam Ekhtiar counts the rise of kufic in the late seventh to early eighth century as a major development in the history of Islamic calligraphy. Kufic replaced hijazi as the preferred script for copying the Qur'an, a status it kept until about the mid- to late tenth century. A dated architectural example is the inscription around the ambulatory of the Dome of the Rock, 72 AH/691–92 CE. What work did writing do in these two places?
In your own words: what does Propaganda coins have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A message on a coin. The Islamic Coins booklet published in Doha defines propaganda coins as coins put into circulation officially by a ruler for the occasion they were struck for, or unofficially by others, secretly or openly, according to their political stance toward the state. A Ghurid coin of 597 AH records Sultan Ghiyath al-Din's victories over the Khwarazmians, with the motto "God is most high". What can a small coin say to many people?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: The Arts
- 2. Bernard O'Kane, 'Monumental Calligraphy in Fatimid Egypt: Epigraphy in Stone, Stucco, and Wood', chapter 4 of an edited volume (pp. 142–159), p. 1
- 3. Bernard O'Kane, 'Monumental Calligraphy in Fatimid Egypt: Epigraphy in Stone, Stucco, and Wood', chapter 4 of an edited volume (pp. 142–159), p. 2
- 4. Bernard O'Kane, 'Monumental Calligraphy in Fatimid Egypt: Epigraphy in Stone, Stucco, and Wood', chapter 4 of an edited volume (pp. 142–159), p. 5
- 5. Bernard O'Kane, 'Monumental Calligraphy in Fatimid Egypt: Epigraphy in Stone, Stucco, and Wood', chapter 4 of an edited volume (pp. 142–159), p. 10
- 6. Islamic Coins (booklet of the Islamic Coins Centre, National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage, Doha), p. 28