Naẓar:Vision, Belief, and Perception in Islamic Cultures

Samer Akkach, Ph.D (1992), FAHA, is Professor of architectural history and theory and Founding Director of the Centre for Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) at the University of Adelaide. His many works on Islamic intellectual history include ʿIlm: Science, Religion, and Art in Islam (UAP 2019).

Preface


Notes to the Reader


List of Figures


Notes on Contributors





Aperture: Terms, Concepts, and Discourse


 Samer Akkach





1 Naẓar: The Seen, the Unseen, and the Unseeable


 Samer Akkach





2 Naẓar, Subjectivity, and ‘The Gaze’


 Wendy M.K. Shaw





part 1: The Eye of the Heart


3 Human Looking, Divine Gaze: Naẓar in Islamic Spirituality


 Stephen Hirtenstein





4 Seeing with ‘The Eyes of the Heart’: dhikr and fikr as Sources of Insight in Indonesian Islamic Art


 Virginia Hooker





part 2: The Eye of the Mind


5 Transparency: Ibn Al-Haytham’s Manāẓir and Visual Perception of Beauty


 Ellen Philpott-Teo





6 Veiling: Ibn Al-Qaṭṭān’s Aḥkām and the Rules Concerning Seeing


 Samer Akkach





part 3: Evil Eye, Talismanic Seeing


7 May the Envier’s Eye be Blind


 Sakina Nomanbhoy





8 Talismanic Seeing: The Induction of Power in Indonesian Zoomorphic Art


 James Bennett





part 4: Gazing Eye, Imaginative Seeing


9 The Artist’s Gaze: Visual Representations of the Mughal Hunting Landscape


 Shaha Parpia





10 Vernacular Subjectivity as a Way of Seeing: Visualising Bijapur in Nujūm al-ʿUlūm and Kitāb-i-Nauras


 Sushma Griffin





Index