What is Islamic Art

8 The Transgressive Image Acquaintances often express surprise at my combined Jewish and Muslim background. This reflects a comm ...

examines the story’s elaboration in Persian poetry and painting. The third section discusses the increased emphasis on the story ...

A sequence of deceptions fuels the narrative. When he is young, Joseph’s paternal aunt Leah, besotted by his beauty, falsely cla ...

wife, still in love, visits him in prison. As in the Bible, in prison he prophetically interprets the dreams of two fellow convi ...

But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife:“Behold, my master, having me, knoweth not what is in the house, and he hath put ...

Quranic commentaries elaborate with a setting and detailed dialogue. Al-Thalabi relates how Joseph’s pious reminders of human mo ...

“Oh Joseph,”she said,“I am yours!” “But where is your husband Potiphar?”asked Joseph. “I have nothing to do with him,”she answer ...

sphere of moral responsibility. But the person who truly deserves praise and the heavenly reward is the one who restrains himsel ...

including the assembly of ladies and the torn garment. For thefirst time in Jewish commentaries, it names the wife as Zulica and ...

When Zuleikha heard these words she made a house for Love and held him in greater esteem than her own life until such time as Jo ...

Though you be penitent, what profit to your hand can come When you have dissipated your whole life’s capital?”^30 Later in theBu ...

conceives of her dream as an image more real than matter:“The image whichfills my aching heart is more solid than a marble carvi ...

who hears of Yusuf’s beauty and falls in love with him. Unlike Zuleikha, she is driven not by the image but by the spoken word, ...

He traced its work with twofingers; When he wished a line’s mark, of a sudden, From his innermost nature, drew he straight–and w ...

Christianate episteme, the transregional imposition of a globalized teleol- ogy of universal patriarchy runs the risk of occludi ...

As Zuleikha expresses her passion when Yusuf enters her chamber, the paintings apparently multiply. Sexual desire metaphorically ...

female guile, by expanding on those elements in the Quran that allow for sympathetic interpretations of sexuality and female des ...

Heal and free mine own lust, hug me close to yourself Because, while I thirst, you are Life’s very fountain– Rather than the ten ...

But Joseph loosened not the dart From his archer’s ring Unto her proffered target, Nor shattered he the seal of her shell Therei ...

worship other than He”(Q17:23) functions as a description of reality, not as a command. Since the oneness of God is absolute, al ...