I found a certain mystical quality in Husain’s painting & that is reflected in the painting titled ‘Islam’.
This is how I read the painting.
Arabic is written from right to left and that is how I would like to read this painting.
The right corner has an inage of Ka’aba the house of God, with the Arabic letter ‘k’ on it.
After that are representations of various events in the life of Prophet Muhammed.
Next to it is a circle with ‘m’ written on it, denoting the centrality of Prophet Muhammed in Islam.
Next comes the buraq- it took me some tome to figure out the buraq as i had by then seen many other female representations by Husain & missed the body of the buraq. Thanks to Vivek Gupta for pointing that out to me.
The buraq is a supernatural winged creature that transported the Prophet on his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and back to heaven.
Islamic art has many depictions of the buraq. It often has a female face, wings and peacock tail.
Here its equine properties sre very evident possibly because of Husain’s interest in horses.
The red portion on the top of the left corner is still an enigma to me. Have thought of two possibilities.
1. Does it refer to the miracle of ‘The Splitting of the Moon’ attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad?
2. is it something to do with the martyrdom of Imam Husain? As a Shia from the Bohri community, Husain would have grown up with the story of Karbala pervading many aspects of his life.
Hoping art historians reading my post can come up with more answers.
Giles Tillotson
