Mosque Architecture (No.6): THE INFLUENCE OF HISTORICISM ON MUSLIM ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE

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This is a reflection of how a range of unfounded theories in ‘historicism’ can cause an adverse influence on the Muslim Arts and Architecture. But first, let’s  have a brief grasp of the origins and meaning of the word ‘historicism’.

The traditional or Old Historicism, has its historical background, dated from the 19th century. The abuse of this approach in part has led to a movement called New Criticism.
The abuse is what the late German historian, Leopold von Ranke, the leading German historian of the 19th century, indicated then that it was the historian’s duty to understand the essence of “historicism”: that history determines each event but does not justify it.

The New Criticism, in turn, has led to the development of a New Historicism in late 1970s in response to perceived excesses of New Criticism, on the ambiguity of historical context of works of art.

Thus, the New Historicism differs from the Old Historicism in large measure not based on the approach, but rather on changes in historical methodology, the rise of the so-called New history.

The New Historicism is advocating its methodology on the assumption that a literary work is the product of the time, place, and circumstances of its composition. The New Historicists, therefore, reject the autonomy of both an artist and works of art and argue that literary texts cannot be read and understood in isolation. They emphasize that literary texts must be read and interpreted in its biographical, social historical contexts.

From the many fact-findings, we can infer that both the concept of the Old Historicism and the New Historicism, are only founded on shoddy foundation, notwithstanding that the later has slightly ameliorated.

The obvious shortcoming is that at the end of the day, they only have their own value system with their own purview. The value system refers to the order and priority an individual or society grants to ethical and ideological values. While two individuals or groups may share a set of common universal values, they may not give equal emphasis or preference to those values. The thing would become complicated if an issue involves spiritual or religious values.

With that shoddy foundation, both the Old and New Historicism have been made blameworthy of making things fair-seeming and blunders in many things of the Muslim Arts and Architecture, especially when touching on the value or spiritual significance.

With this, I hope it will open up to more criticism of literary theories. What is meant by Literary Theory? The very basic way of thinking about literary theory is that these ideas act as different lenses critics used to view and talk about art, literature, and even culture. These different lenses allow critics to consider works of art based on certain assumptions within that school of theory.

I’m sharing herewith, two links, which one can follow the discourse on the difference between the Old and the New Historicism, for further study:

-Jankiba Rana's Assignments: Advantages and Disadvantages of New Historicism
http://jankiranabatch2014-16.blogspot.com/2015/03/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-new.html

-New Historicism’s Deviation from Old Historicism – Literary Theory and Criticism
https://literariness.org/2016/10/20/new-historicisms-deviation-from-old-historicism/

Insya’Allah, in the next posting, I’ll be sharing on, DEBUNKING THE HISTORICISM’S MYTH OF A PRAYER RUG OF HAVING A SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE WHICH RELATES TO HAVING DECORATIVE ELEMENTS SUCH THAT DEPICT OF A MIHRAB ARCH WITH A LAMP, KA’ABAH, ETC.

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