Number, point and space: The Islamic tradition
Schalk le Roux & Nico Botes*
*Schalk le Roux is an Extraordinary Professor and Nico Botes lectures in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pretoria.
Islam is at once the oldest and the youngest ofthe monotheistic religions of the Middle-East.According to its tenets, it is the religion ofAbraham, restated through the ProphetMohammed in the 7th century CE (Holy Qur'an
11:130, 111:67-69).
The central statement or
shahãdah
declaressimply but with no uncertainty.-
Lã ilãha illa'Llãh -
there is no god but God, which, in its mostprofound sense,
means that there is no reality outside theAbsolute Reality, thereby negating all thatis other than Allah. The formula of Unity isthe most universal criterion of orthodoxy inIslam; that doctrine may be said to beIslamic that affirms this unity in one wayor other (Nasr 1978:5).
Established at a time when artistic creation wasconsidered as a substitute for reality and thus anintermediary between man and that reality{Grabar 1973:101), it is not surprising that Islamdeveloped a sacred art in conformity with itsown revealed form as well as with itsfundamental nature. The principle of Unitybrought into being an aniconic art in which thespiritual world was reflected in the sensibleworld not through iconic forms but throughcalligraphy, arabesque, geometry and rhythm.
As the final assertion of the revelationIslam is also the means to the rediscoveryof the sacred character of the first of God'srevelations
1
which is the created orderitself. Islam contains the means to enableman to see the forms of nature once againas the
vestigii Dei
and multiplicity as somany reflections of the Unity which is boththe origin and end of the order ofmultiplicity (Nasr 1976:6).
It is only during the past half century that somescholars in the west have become aware of themeaning embodied in Islamic art - amathematical description of multiplicity in unity.These mathematical forms are not seen asmental abstractions but as reflections ofcelestial archetypes within the cosmos and theminds of men.
In the west, even by well-informedacademics versed in the validity of perspectiveand chiaroscuro, Islamic art has often beencondemned as "decorative" or "ornamental". It isa further truth that in the Western mind hardly aworse accusation could be levelled against anyform of art, especially when in conjunction witharchitecture, than it being decorative.
An early exception was Owen Jones (1809-1874), who considered the Alhambra at the verysummit of perfection of Moorish art:
The Moors ever regarded what we hold tobe the first principle in architecture - to
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