Good evening, everybody. Thank you for joining me so numerous. Me and our speaker, Professor Samir Akash, who is in Australia, in Adelaide, and where it's very early in the morning. So thank you very much for rising so quickly. And that is why we moved the seminar from six to seven o'clock here to give Professor Akash the chance to get a coffee. Thank you for rising so early. We are pleased. We're very pleased to have you here. Professor Akash is Professor of architectural history and theory and founding director of the Center for Asian and Middle Eastern architecture at the University of Adelaide, and he's also a fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. The main areas of expertise are in the fields of Islamic art and architecture, Islamic mysticism and Islamic intellectual history, and he's interdisciplinary research interest extent to also the social urban and cultural history of the Levant, and the early science in the early modern period. His works received several national and international prizes and have been translated to several languages. His major publications include 10 books, and the most recent research project has just come out published by Professor Akash, Professor of architectural, another vision, belief and perception in Islamic cultures. And indeed, continuing with the Russia aim at presenting work in progress or work recently completed. The focus of this seminar is not the question of vision in Islamic art and architecture. So please kindly agreed to take questions. So please do write your questions or comments in the chat, and I will post them to him at the end of the talk. Thank you, Professor Karshan over to you. I hope you can hear me. Thanks, Anna for the kind of introductions and for the invitation to contribute to this. This fantastic series on Islamic art. I hope you can hear me well. Yep, I'll start by sharing my PowerPoint and then I will continue to just give a second. I hope that you guys can see the image. Yes, we can. Perfect. Well, good evening to the to all the audience, including friends and colleagues I can see many of you from the northern hemisphere and good morning to the early rises from down under. It's a big challenge to wake up early in the morning. Thank you all for joining my presentation. Anna mentioned the focus and the focus of my talk is my recently published book on the concept of another, which is vision in Arabic, which I haven't actually seen yet in physical form but I know that it is on its way. It's an opportunity to thank all the authors and some of whom are present with us here for their valuable contribution. It was absolute pleasure to work with you all. I have learned a great deal from your expertise and insight. I will, I will share a table of content so that you can get an idea about the topics and the the thematic fracturing coverage. However, my aim in this talk is not to introduce the chapters or present a summary of the content, but rather to reflect on some of the key issue that are larger in the scope and implication than the book itself. You can live with the author or editor, as many of you know, and find continuous exposure in many occasions until they, they are eventually overtaken by new medications. This seminar is the first occasion to reflect on those issues outside the frame of the book itself so some of the stuff that that will be there is not really in the book. I would like to add to an introduction that that I am an architect by educational and professional training, yet one who is more idea oriented, rather than object oriented architects even though they deal with objects, somehow I grew out of this. I see myself as an intellectual historian rather than an art historian, and even though that I have written extensively on art and architecture, and having worked closely with. And for a long time with Asian operators in the Art Gallery of South Australia, which houses the only permanent Islamic art display in Australia I have come to know only too well, the complex problem involved in dealing with either objects or ideas. Or art history, and intellectual history, and which have remained disconnected in the field of Islamic art and architecture. I will, I have reflected actually on this. On this disconnection in the recent short publication. You might be interested in seeing the sort of considering the relationship between the two disciplines and the insight in this article emerged from my recent work on the history of Islamic science. So, I will start by raising two questions. You may be the question of vision in Islamic art now, or Islamic art and architecture now, and why Nazar, and which is really the essence of the book. By the way, I just wanted to actually make some, some passing comment of being using in, in, throughout the presentation, the work of contemporary Moroccan artist and Lala, a city. Which I actually not part of the book and it's not featured in the book and I don't know. I'm not promoting her work. It just, I found her artwork, very compelling and is very relevant to the issue of vision. So I'm just using it as a visual device. And regarding those two questions. And the first, the truth to answer this question that to side to it there is a side which represented by those two books that have been published recently, an island science, religion and art in Islam is published 2019 and then Nazar as vision believe and perceptions of Islamic cultures, and those represents in what I would would call fabrics of thought in Islamic cultures as intellectual historians. I've been very much concerned with the, with, with the sort of the intellectual fabrics that that lead to the production of work. And fabrics of thought have not actually received due attentions, and particularly focusing on key vocabulary that played important role in the sort of intellectual constructions of how mode of thought has been sort of presented and disseminated throughout the world. So that's the first aspect, the second aspect that relates to my. Why, why mother in particular is the really that the publications of hands built in for Florence and about that Renaissance art and Arab science and many of you know it's a it's a controversial book that has received many criticism from art historian. And it's part in me when since it, it was published by me an interest in the nature of perception. Good I think in my opinion, building's got it all wrong. And you can actually see his, not from the art historical perspective you can see the problematics from the history of science in fact. So, why did Chris start by Islamic art historian from a theological issue, but not as far as I know, for the way that it intertwined Islamic intellectual history with art history. Nor for the near Eurocentric position it is spelled, which can only be revealed from the perspective of the history of science I've reflected on this in that short article that I referred to earlier our return to belting. Later on but with reference to those two aspect. I would say that I would actually say that the. Today's talk will be divided into those two issues like the fabrics of thought. That is the heart of my, of my interest and the nature of perceptions. So the first half will be very much kind of a literary focus is based on literature, and it will deal with the issue of the gaze versus mother. Another is vision and the gaze has been the theoretical tool that's been used by art historian and perception versus Iraq, and Iraq is the Arabic word for perceptions and and much more in Arabic. So the first half will dwell on fabrics of thought, and the second half of the, of the book will on nature of perception, where I wanted to discuss. I wanted to discuss the racism presented by belting versus pleasure of wonderment. So let's start with the, with a bit of a background. And this is beyond my immediate concerns with the two aspect, ever since the appearance of how for the vision, the duality and Martin Jay's famous, Martin Jay's famous essays scopic regimes of modernity in the field of art and history in the 90 in the 90 in the 80s actually one century and and earlier the kinds of influential words in psychoanalysis in the 70s. The act of seeing and being seen had we paint has attained wide popularity among scholars in many fields. Philosophers historians and historians and social scientists have articulated a new theories and histories of the gaze, the viewing it as a power laden culturally constructed social practice enacted through modes of visual interaction and control. They have investigated the nature politics morality and sociability of seeing examining how seeing knowing and power interrelated. And who is able to see what, and in what context, what is made visible, and how, how subjectivity is constructed through vision, how privacy, community and visual, visual intrusion are enacted and negotiated among, among many others have been have been widely engaged. As a result, new insight have emerged on the nature and culture of seeing opening up a new horizon of thinking the scholars and students of many fields, including visual and media studies, as well as art and architecture. Those, those study have converted to central point. The first point is that that seeing is a complex act that is culturally conditioned cultivated and refined by learning social norm and moral value. Second, that ways of seeing and had history that can be traced through a complex matrix of system of thought, religious beliefs, social practices, work of art, and science and technology. So, let's focus now on, after this background let's focus now on the, on the notion of the gaze. Most Islamic art historian including belting and his critics have dealt with the issue of vision and visuality in Islamic cultures. They have used the gaze and visual perceptions as key analytical term, assuming that they describe a human sensory and mental function that are universally that are universal in nature. While it is true that we all see and perceive in the same way mechanically, and it is justifiable to analyze the human visual experience in this universal term. And it tends to ignore the specific fabrics of thought that underlies the culture of vision. And from my perspective, and I see that fabrics and fabrics of thoughts are woven by language. I could be wrong but this is really my, my stance in this particular position. Hence the question of vision in Islamic art and architecture must be anchored in culturally specific and meaningful vocabulary. So let's not forget that the gaze is a term is a term that that emerged in the 70s in film theory and criticism and referred primarily to how viewers engage with visual media. That is how we look at visual representation such as advertisement, television program and cinema. The gaze can simply mean just looking and seeing. That's in general terms. But I'm more specifically refers to the role of seeing and visual perceptions in self awareness and awareness of others. And the intimate relationship between desire and, and reality. And if we are to start looking at fabrics of thought and looking at the way that the whole concept of vision being constructed in pre-modern and even modern Arabic literature. And we have to sort of make some kind of a scanning of what terms that have been used. Anyone who's familiar with the fine grain of Arabic can immediately recognize why the spectrums of term associated with vision. Selected a set here which is mother, mother, sister, sister, Ramiya, Ramiya. It's just a sort of a selected spectrum. And the question then emerges as where is the gaze located in this spectrum. If we are to use the gaze as a universal device to analyze vision and visuality in Islam then how we can map it over this linguistic structure or what I call the fabrics of thought that is based on this on the sets of vocabulary. If we consider the lexical definition of the gaze which is to look steadily and intently especially in admiration surprise and thought yet another Arabic term emerges which is different to the one that I've actually just listed which then you are talking about from from to stare and which is the the iris so we can actually see that despite all that spectrum still have other terms to deal with the concept of the gaze. Now those issues never been as far as I'm concerned being really examined by an art historian who discussed the issue of the gaze. In this spectrum the three interrelated terms are fundamental for the understanding of vision and mode of seeing in the Arabic speaking world. Those terms are Quranic terms and used extensively in the literature they are nazar, basar and ruqya and if we are to analyze what do they mean or how do they what do they represent in the in the in the process of vision nazar identifies the act of seeing basar identifies the medium which is the sense and ruqya identifies the outcome. So by using the gaze we are in fact reducing the complexity of those three terms which could not actually be taken separately into a single term that we're assuming that this is will cover the way that Muslim scholars or even artists have understood or worked with the notion of vision. So let's quickly look at what nazar's mean in in general term nazar's mean vision, sight and gazing and this is the one that I overlapped with the meaning of the gaze. It also means reasoning, thought and reflections and the folks of reflections of people of reasons where the philosophers and theologians in medieval literature. This is a technical term that consistently be used throughout the pre-modern period. If we look at the contemporary and usages we've got nazaria which is theory, which is a formal debate, which is perspective and that's a medieval term but it's still being used which is the mirador, the viewing platform and then tanzir, tanzir is theorizing and theorization but at the same time tanzir is a medical visualization of the body's interior like endoscopy and colonoscopy. This is also used by the word tanzir which is derived from nazar. The most important aspect of the use of nazar is this particular aspect which is akhaman nazar. Akhaman nazar is the rules concerning seeing and this particular medieval discourse that that emergent medieval but to continue to these days actually dictates visual practices and influence social life in Islamic society. It's such an influential aspect of thinking about nazar that does not come into the spectrum of what art historian deal with because it's being considered as more of the religious matters but akhaman nazar actually is so fundamental to everything that related to issue of vision and in the book I have a separate chapter on akhaman nazar. So let's dig a little bit deeper into the fabrics of thought and look at some of the medieval or early Arabic literature. I'm referring here particularly to the work of the celebrated literary scholars Abu Hilal al-Askari. It's a 10th century scholar who has several books. One of the interesting one is called al-Furuq al-Lugawiyah which is linguistic dissimilarity. In this particular book al-Askari focuses on the semantic differences between terms with overlapping meaning. Try to sort of clarify the some of the confusions or the misunderstanding and using the term. So he looked at nazar extensively and in the book we can actually see the differentiation between nazar and ta'amun. We can see the difference between nazar and ru'iyah. Nazar and ta'amun looking and contemplating. Nazar and ru'iyah looking and seeing. Nazar and istidlal reasoning and deductions. Nazar and Badiha reasoning and intuition. Badiha and ru'iyah intuition and seeing. Nazar and Fikr reflections and thinking. Nazar and Intizar reflections and expectations and then Nazar and Khater which is reflections and roaming thought. So obviously the word or the concept of Nazar extend to a much wider spectrum of thought that has been part of what I have been calling the fabrics of thought in pre-modern Islamic cultures. Al-Askari's provide valuable insight into the relationship not only between seeing and thinking but also between seeing and perceptions. When we get to the to the way that Al-Askari defines Nazar in particular we will find that we will find that he refers to another as seeking to reach. I think through either vision or thought. So if we use the the exact Arabic word that he actually used is Al-Talabu Idraq which is perception. I'm not going to use it because I could translate this as seeking to perceive but I don't want us to use it to seek it to perceive because then I immediately fall in the trap of equating Idraq with perception but the actual meaning of Idraq is actually reaching. So reaching a thing through either vision or thought. He also referred to another as seeking the appearance or manifestation of thought. So it is not direct seeing but it's actually the initial act which is seeing. That is why it has that three-sided aspect which is Nazar, Basar and Ruh. Furthermore if we look at the way that he deals with Idraq. Idraq from the verbal Arood Daraka or Adraqa to reach reveals an understanding of perception as a process an endeavor towards an end which is not restricted to senses. Once fulfilled one reaches a state of awareness which is Idraq through a singular or multiple means. So it could be sensory, it could be intellective, it could be regulatory. And that is why in Arabic both perceptions and comprehensions are referred to by the same word Idraq and this is where the confusion gets when we restrict perceptions to Idraq which is mainly the sensory aspect of understanding. So by conceptualizing Nazar as an act of seeking. So it's not seeing is an act of seeking. Alaska offers an interpretive scope that allows Nazar to be understood in visual terms as an act of function of the eye in cognitive terms as an act of function of the mind and in spiritual terms as an act of function of the heart. So while as a result of this while perceptions narrows the scope of a human engagement with the world to the senses Idraq opens it up beyond the senses. This is a very fundamental difference from my perspective when we consider fabrics of thought. We could not actually just use sort of generalized terminology and ignore the way that certain aspects being thought about and written about and engaged and dealt with in medieval Islamic literature. And I'm using Arabic only I know that's a limitation. This is my mother tongue, I'm native speaker but of course when you take Ottomans and Persians and Urdu into account things get even more complex. Just to quickly hear before I move to the second part because I think we're getting so halfway now. I just want to refer to certain usages of the three terms by by a Sufi and by a scientist and by Hadith scholar. So that would actually give an idea of how those three terms features in the fabrics of thought of different group of people in the Islamic world. So if we look at Ibn Arabi's quote here which mara eita illa suratan qayyadaha nazaruka di basaridhu al-haq. We can actually see that the ruqya, mazar and basar are related in certain ways and the important bit here is that the basar is considered the divine essence of the whole practice of seeing. So you have not seen other than a form determined by your side which is mazar with a vision that is the real. So the vision, the essence or the divine essence of the whole process of seeing is really basar in this regard, not mazar but mazar plays an important role in determining the external form. Now if we look at a very famous book which qita al-ma nazar by Ibn al-Hasam. Ibn al-Hasam does not deal with mazar in the content of the book like throughout the book. He deals with basar and he uses basar as the aspect of vision that is being scientifically analyzed because it is the kind of universal aspect of it. But he calls the book mazar which is from mazar. Mazar is a plural of mazar which is the scene and scenes and hence its relation to the concept of the motion of perspective. But throughout the 13th century Latin translations of the book it has become known as the book of optics and the book of optics is the study of the of light. Now Ibn al-Hasam never called it the study of light. He specifically and whoever actually read Ibn al-Hasam know how specific he is. He called it al-ma nazar because he's concerned with the issue of mazar and in fact optics from the original Greek term optos which actually scenes. So he's being quite faithful to the original meaning but in the meantime it has been transferred into a book of optics that deals with the study of light which is really not the intended meaning. So that's that's the second one. The third one which is really important that comes from Hadith scholars and uses the focuses on al-idraq and Hadith scholars is in the Arabic and it came from al-Qabat Fisheh al-Mu'ta maalika bin Anas. So actually in a Hadith book that came he said al-idraq and here's he refers al-idraq not to comprehension, minimal comprehension but to visual perception. He said is a meaning that God creates in the eye according to what the viewer intends to see of the visible thing. So here is this is really a whole big twist where is the visual perception is a meaning that emerges in the eye. It doesn't emerge in the mind, it emerges in the eye and through the divine intervention and intentionality plays a very important role in how you present or you see or you perceive or you want to represent the external world. So let's move now quickly into the implication of all this before we move into the second section of the talk. First introducing the stage of seeking to see and breaks the immediacy of visual perceptions allowing for the intervention of cognitive imaginative and regulatory processes to be part of al-idraq. We'll call it perception, called comprehension, we'll just call it al-idraq, part of al-idraq which involves a scope of comprehension much wider than perception. So that's the first implication that is important for the study of vision and visuality. Then second seeking the appearance. This is important now when you seek the appearance you're not dealing on the sort of subject-object relationship. The appearance could actually change because you're seeking certain appearances, same object would actually appear in different ways to your eyes. So seeking the appearance of things gives both the viewing subject, malzir, and the object of vision, manzur, active agencies in the act of seeing while playing down the instinctive nature and objective autonomy of the process of visual perceptions. Third, the effective agency of the viewer and the malleability of visible reality provide a scope for the extraordinary, the unpredictable, and the unknowable to emerge. Those things are not really part of the spectrum of gaze and that is why malzir through malzir, I'm trying to open up a horizon of thinking about vision and visuality in Islamic world that is quite different to the to the conventional approach. So finally, malzir and Idrak allows for the possibilities of divine interventions and the perceptive process as well as of one reality or object to appear in different forms so as to be seen differently by the same or different viewer. I think this is from my perspective quite fundamental and in the context of this fabric of thought and associated modes of understanding the scope of the gaze that has been so perceived that they basically use present limited intersections with the scope of malzir. Those reflections in fact are not really part of the book, this is now it's an occasion for me to reflect on it but sometimes you present certain things on the book but then you come back and reflect on them in a different manner. So let's move now, having completed the first part, let's move now to the to nature of perception and perspective of private realism versus pleasure of wonderment. And here I wanted to start by referring to this particular painting. This is one of my favorite Persian painting because it brings architecture and art together in a marvelous way and it is called the seductions of Yusuf by famous Persian artist Kamal-e-Din Behzad. It's a 16th century painting featured in the Persian Power Janus classic work of literature Haft O'Rang. While we're looking at this, I would like you to consider three things that we refer to or that comes from medieval pre-modern Islamic literature. The first one is Nazar being the quick, this is how it's actually defined also by the Al-Asqari and it's not just by Asqari, this is actually I found it in so many references, is the quick turning of the eye. This is really important. It's the quick turning of the eye while facing the scene, seeking to see it. So that's the first one. The second one, we've already looked at it as a seeking polyp to reach a thing through either vision or thought. So there is a kind of interaction between the sensory and the and the intellective aspect and then Idraq adds a meaning that God creates in the eye according to what the viewer intends to see of the visible zone. Once you actually consider those three and then look at this, it starts to actually appear in a different way. This depiction arises a sense of wonder through the unfamiliar juxtaposition of familiar architectural elements. Unfamiliarity is invoked through the constructed spatial composition that defy perspectival logic and visual realism. The architecture is recognizable yet the scene is widely different from what we know, perceive and experience.  Disconstructed Simultaneity mobilizes the viewer's eyes and takes it on a curious spatial journey of intrigue, mystery and discovery, while challenging their mind to make sense of it, of what they see and to restore imagined of normality to the scene in familiar terms. This type of presentation has led to a number of questions. Why do pre-modern Islamic paintings look flat and unreal? Why do they lack spatial depth, basic visual logic and sense of natural realism? Why do they not involve perspectival naturalism? These are the questions that Belting has sort of grappled with. So that is why it is important for me when when I consider the nature of perception to refer to Belting. In response to those questions, there has been generally a three-position. There is a cultural difference. Was it a matter of cultural difference, reflecting different ways of seeing expressions of expression in drawings or was it a matter of culture and capacity that impeded the intervention or the invention of perspectival techniques and the development of naturalistic pictorial representation or was it simply a matter of cultural preference, aesthetics or otherwise, for spatially fantastic and visually non-realistic representations enacted by Muslim artists, patrons and audiences. Now the generally the general position on this has been cultural difference, even though that the actual sort of since there was a, you know, Muslim have perceived spatial depth and saw deployment of natural object in the same way everybody else is. But the actual explanation of cultural difference has never been convincing to me. Now this gets a bit more complex, in fact, that question. When we consider that Muslims have long established practice of constructing a viewing platform for panoptic days, known in Arabic as Manzara, as referred to earlier, from Nazar and Manzor perspective. Abbasid and Fatimid Calus built numerous Manazer, Manazer, which is the Mirador, to overlook beautiful landscape marketplaces, urban spaces and even battlefields. These devices, architecture devices were also used for visual display of power at significant religious ceremonies, yet never have these gazing practices being captured artistically with a sense of naturalism. And this is one in the in the endless Manzara Dara'isha. Here I would like to actually just refer to to some kind of give part explanations of that pre-modern sources, what pre-modern sources suggest is that that drawing natural scene as they appear carried little value from Muslim, prompting us to questions, why would anyone want to represent what is always visually available? What is the value of such mimetic practices? The way in which Muslim drew and reflected on the value of the visual experience is that their sense of difference reflect the theorizing preference. This can be seen in that in Al-Qazwini, who whose whole book really was structured around the concept of Nazar. Even the structure of the of the book was referred to as first Nazar, second Nazar, third Nazar. So the Nazar was really ingrained in the way that he thinks about his visual representation. Here is a quote from the opening introductions by Al-Qazwini. He said, whosoever cannot see of the sky other than its blueness and of the earth other than its dustiness is sharing with the beast this visual experience. His state is even lower than the beast and his forgetfulness is worse. As God says, they have hearts with which they do not understand and goes on until he says, those are like the beast. Now they are even more astray. What is meant by Nazar, this particular vision, here is the simultaneous reflections on the on intelligible realities while looking at the sensible reality and the search for their wisdom and mode of existence so that their truthfulness may appear unto the observer. Remember, we talked about Al-idraq as being seeking the appearance of things. So it is actually the kind of corollary of this where he says, so that their truthfulness may appear unto the observer. So it's not like the static form of the object, but it's the truthful message of the object that can appear in certain circumstances. And these are the ones that's being sought. For this is the cause of worldly pleasure and eternal happiness. Now, quickly here, building is, of course, upheld the argument of cultural incapacity. He considered that although the Muslims have actually worked out the mathematical principle of perspective that they were incapable of such revolutionary inventions due to various religious inhibitions and intellectual constraint. So although building theory of cultural incapacity is not widely shared, some attempt to argue for cultural difference by explaining the uniqueness of the Islamic ways of seeing have inadvertently played into belting near-eurocentric stance. Islamic landscape historian, a fair child, Raghals, for example, has analyzed the visual construction of another painting of Haqqoran to show the fundamental difference between the European and Islamic mode of seeing. This is the painting that she referred to as the article Making Vision Manifest. Unfortunately, Raghals adopted, and critically, the gaze proposition. She argues that the perceived spatial depth created by lines converging at a vanishing point brings the viewer into the same fictive visual field of the canvas. This is really, this is a belting argument. The visual perceptions of space receding from, let me just sort of give you an example of that. The visual perception of space receding from the viewer and projecting outward towards him, generating a sense of depth, naturally draws the viewer to the plane on which the picture is traced, technically known as the picture plane. She argues, the Muslim flattening technique, she argues, extract the viewer from the picture, from the picture plane and position them on the outside, where they deliberately stay immobilized and dissociated from the scene. Now, I think this is my view, and you can criticize me on this. I think the whole situation is the reverse. It is not that the Islamic painting immobilizes the viewer, and the other one who brings it into the picture is the other way around. So let's look at, let's look at it technically at least. Technically, this argument is technically incorrect in my view. In perspective drawing, the stationary eye of the viewer lying at the apex of the cone of vision is always outside the picture plane. The picture plane here in this picture is the middle gridded glass panel. The gazing point can never be in the picture plane because it will fall on the horizon line of vanishing point, and this will flatten the image, eliminating the illusory sense of depth created by the conversion lines extending from the eye to the vanishing point. The illusion of depth reflects the distance between the viewing subject and the viewed object. Thus the picture plane must be kept at a practical distance from the viewing point to capture the object of vision with minimal distortion. So the subject-object polarity, which keeps the spatially positioned viewer out of the scene, is the very essence of the spectraval representation, and I think this is where a sort of regular wrong. So by contrast, the flattening the image removes the necessary distancing of the viewer's eyes from the picture plane as we could see actually in this, bringing it in and conflating it with the image. The conflation puts the eye in motion as there is no one privileged and static point from which the composition is to be seen, and that is why the Muslim referred to the act of seeing as takli bul-ayn, and this whole issues of peripheral visions and the movement of the eye has now only recently come into sort of understanding of our perspective was inadequate in their representation of spaces. So accordingly, Islamic painting drags the viewer vision and imagination into the heart of the scene and engages them in a dynamic relationship with the element of the deliberately estranged composition. It is this estrangement of the familiar that draws the viewer into the picture, inviting them to join the painter in an imaginative journey of discovery and understanding, or as Al-Tazwini puts it, of simultaneous reflections and search for wisdom concealed in what appears, for this is the cause of worldly pleasure and eternal happiness. Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor Akash, for this very rich and multi-layered talk on a very difficult subject. Lots of food for thought, and I hope that please write in the chat your points and your questions. This question of perspective or flat vision, I don't like the word flat for paintings, for Arab or Persian or Turkish paintings at all. I think that it's not flat at all and that we rather have to think of them as images that represent multiple points of view. And they are very complex, in fact. And I think that this focal point of the renaissance is quite reductive in a way. It's got its own ideas and its own merit. So yes, I agree with you that it's much more complex than that. Another thing that came to mind when you were talking is this idea, and you were showing Emirador in the Alhambra, and you sort of talked a little bit about the outside, the inside, so the vision that it's also inside and outside. Previously, you talked about the concept of tanzir, of the view of the interior, which includes also the view of the body inside. And I was wondering whether you could say something a bit more about that. I think first of all, regarding the flattening, I agree with you. The flattening is only a technical term that has been used in opposition to the perspectival spatial depth. But that doesn't mean flattening that is everything in sort of just a flat surface, but it does not have the sort of the perspectival naturalisms of depth. It has multiple view, of course, and this is where the whole idea of the sort of bringing in the viewer to share with the painter or represent the whole idea of the multiple. That is why I refer to the idea of taqli bulaim, which is the quick turning of the eye. That is really important. So that's one thing. Now, with the miradoran and the tanzir, tanzir is actually as a colonoscopy or endoscopy, which is the interior, it's really modern term. It's never been used because they didn't actually have those techniques in the past. But it's interesting that it actually came from mazhar because it's the visualization that matters. Now, whether that actually resonates with some aspect of the manzara, I think in a certain way it does because even though that you're actually looking in the outside, you're always on the inside. Those visualizing platforms is always removed and is always sort of the people who are actually viewing are on the inside, but their visualizing act is off the outside. And there are so many, he described so many manzars which actually have an interesting way of sort of relating to the inside and outside. But because tanzir as the interior of the body is a modern term, it's very hard to sort of compare to what mode of sort of viewing that used to be in the past. Yeah, thank you very much. I was also thinking while I'm waiting for some comments in the chat, please write your comments in the chat. I was thinking because you showed so many images of Asadi that uses calligraphy, elements of calligraphy, calligraphic aspects and the importance of calligraphy in Islamic art. And how does calligraphy sits in the act of writing for a scribe? How does that sits within the discourse that you were looking at? Well, I particularly used Laila's actually paintings or the sort of contemporary art because it does use that kind of script. But she uses it, I mean it's very powerful the way that she wraps all the body with the or the object whizzes scripts. But for me, and one of the reason why I select them is because they actually bring the whole idea of fabrics of thought where it is all about the language. But when I talk about the fabrics of thought about the language, I'm more interested in the actual semantics rather than the visual appearance. But the visual appearance is so important and that is why Laila's work I think reflect that sensitivity is that the sort of the visual expressions of the language and the script is as important as the semantics of the of the meanings. But I have in my projects, I'm more interested in the meanings and the semantics of key terms like for example knowledge, alien and another vision, which are sort of used universally in the Islamic in Islam. There's never actually been the focus of research in themselves. It's kind of on the side way like you can talk about visions through the gaze but you're not talking about vision really as being a medial thinking as a sort of a foundation of a particular fabric of thought that could reveal words of art in certain ways. And by looking at the field in this way, we're not trapped in the sort of pre-modern and modern and that is why I deliberately decided to use modern sort of visual devices to see that it is not really, it doesn't really matter. You can actually still be part of that fabric of thought in modern time. You don't actually have to worry about crossing the line between the modern and the pre-modern because the word mother is still being used now in many different ways. And Ahkam al-Mazhar particularly, which is the most influential aspect of mother on Muslim life, is still parent is still valid and it's still very powerful. So that is why I see it this way. But I haven't actually sort of paid particular attention to the calligraphy itself as an expression of fabrics of thought. Thank you very much. We have some points in the chat. So there is a Ileona Uttram Akhalili that says thank you for your interesting talk. Does Nazar related to Islamic art relate to bringing the image into the beholder's subjective or inner space? I would like to relate your subject to my PhD study which looks at how the Christian icon brings the image to a person's interior. This is a complex questions and I mean my point would be is the making of the image as I referred to for example the seduction of Yusuf is part of that fabrics of thought. So you would think about the visual field in certain ways and I always think that that is already part of your mode of thinking and that's why Nazar is so important because it brings the act of seeing and the act of reflections together which is not in the word of in any other word. It's not then the gaze for example when you think about the gaze the gaze is entirely sensory and visual practice it is not reflected in that if you want to reflect on this it becomes perceptions and then you would talk about perception whereas Nazar allows you to actually think about the two together. So I would say might be not the right answer or might be sort of in the that I understood well but it is of course any image is part of that fabrics of thought before it becomes an image and so and now whether that is sort of comparable to the way that the Christian thought about I would say I wouldn't actually because I think of fabrics of thought as being woven by language I would like to see it within a linguistic framework rather than seeing it within a religious framework like a you know a general religious kind of a you know position so Christian would do this. In my analysis I would like to say okay look you know those who speak Latin for example would think about it this way or those who would speak Greek would think about it this way. It would be Christian but be Muslim but because the fabrics of thought is being woven by language language is the medium of view of your externalizing your ideas and so here I'll show my limitation that I haven't actually ventured into Persian despite the fact that you know the Jami's work in in Persian and it would have been would been useful to actually look at Nazar in Persian for example you can actually see that out of the fabrics of thought actually it's dynamic like Nazar in Turkish for example is it's very much evolved to become now associated with the evil eye which is not the case in Arabic and I don't think that the case in Persian but in Turkish yes it is Nazar is now the evil eye and so but historically when you look at it in the in the literature and you will see that how it actually evolves and I particularly used earlier sources to get a sense of how that term was what's considered by early Muslim before it actually started to you know to be documented in a modern way. Thank you. I don't know that answers but you know now that it's probably my limitation. Kathi Shahande does your idea of Nazar correspond with Hamid Nafisi's Islamicate Gaze theory and the idea that in Islam this is largely predicated on the concept of veiling and averting the gaze particularly in regards to women also does this mean that in Islamic countries the gaze can never be fully translatable into the western gaze theory and its implications and that we do need these different rhetoric to reference this ideology. It is interesting to see that you chose Leila aside these photographs as they also reflect this ideology and idea of gaze which is heavily predicated on the image of women. Can you can you see the chat you can? I'm trying I'm trying it's a it's a long one and okay let me see this is Kathi this is Kathi Kathi Kathi yeah. Of course what was Hamid Nafisi's Islamicate Gaze theory I've actually read down so I can't I can't comment on this but and the idea of Islam is largely predicated on the concept of veiling and averting the gaze. Look I think if you um I particularly refer to the to the Ahkamun Nazar and in the way that actually I discussed it in my in my chapter in the book which is all on Ahkamun Nazar because the whole idea of actually my my paper in there my chapter is called veiling it does discuss the issue of veiling but I don't look at it in the conventional way I actually look at it it's completely different way so it's I wouldn't actually say that you know I wouldn't actually reduce the whole Islamic culture into into the notion of veiling it's far more complex than that but veiling does play an important role but if it does play an important role it is because of the discourse of Ahkamun Nazar there's no comparable legal genre of writings about Ahkamun Nazar as far as I know in other in other societies where it actually dictates how what you are allowed and not allowed to see and and the moral principle that's based on this and how for example and men looks at men woman looks at women men looks at women and women looks at men's and and you know and various object that you would look at and there are certain you know prescriptive rules about this and and this is in a way in my opinion is highly influential and has been ever since Ibn al-Qaqan wrote his his really critical book because it kept being reproduced until this this time and and a lot of people abide and the whole idea of veiling is is really constructed around Ahkamun Nazar which is the rules concerning seeing it's a what you are allowed to see and not to see what you're allowed to expose and not to expose and all that sort of stuff so I would I would say only in that regard is yes I would say that this is an important part of Islamic today but if you look at the Islamic world is so varied even sort of in modern time not everybody actually sort of you know uphold the idea of veiling and or believe in the the issue of veiling but but it is an influential but because I'm looking at fabrics of thought if I am to understand veiling I want to understand it in the context of the of the way that's being conceptualized and articulated in the literature and the best way to see it is through Ahkamun Nazar and Ahkamun Nazar as I said Islamic artists don't normally look at it because they it is two sort of religious related type of topics and but I believe it is an important fundamental in the in the way that that dictates visual practices sure okay Sabri Hafiz I would have liked to hear more about the position of the viewer in relation to both the picture and architecture do you think that the lack of perspective has to do with the accepted position of the viewer as a passive agent submitting to the sublime divine representation of either the Quranic story as in the case of Yusuf or the sublime architecture of the Alhambra I um look thanks Sabri I think this is a good question I honestly think that it is I mean you know finding finding historical explanations like what belting has done as to you know all the sort of religious inhibitions or the the intellectual constraint that like you know for example I have a doubt that like even belting has actually read Al-Munazar in Arabic he might actually have read it in in in translations and even if you read it in Arabic his Arabic must actually be very very basic because he did not really understand the fine grains of the Arabic and understood like you know simple things like for example he says that oh the Arabs didn't actually have concept of space they didn't actually have concept of the picture and that's why he's trying to sort of build his argument around it but I mean if you I can go through the text and show you how Emil Heisen you're fully aware of this thing he might use different terminologies that is the one that he's familiar with but it is not really the case so so I would you know trying to find um define those kind of justifications um by why for example they are didn't produce or invent the um the perspective in the same way why you know in the history of science why did they invent the heliocentric theory while they know the mathematics of it and all that sort of stuff this is actually a near-eurocentric position which I explained it in my in my in my article and you know I don't think that you will find you know satisfactory and satisfactory kind of justifications because the the historical it's so complex that you cannot reduce it to sets of um sort of interpretation say ah because of this they that's what happened and uh generally I would say in my from my position is that it's simply a cultural preferences and that they didn't actually see value in representing the world as as it is because it's visually available why would you actually just reproduce it numerically they were more interested in in creating um what what I've actually focused on is the the issue of seeking the appearance of you know when seeking the appearance I didn't mean the appearance that the appearance as a static form it's something that emerges in that visual interaction um and the the perspective actually denied that um that possibility because the the perspective always assumed that the appearance is is there and you can we can reproduce it exactly using the uh perspectival mathematics or the geometry of the perspective whereas the the from water from my reading and the fabrics of thought that are they not interested in this they're interested in the in the dynamic nature of what appears because in certain circumstances and this is related also to the concept of um al-hal in Arabic where where you see things in certain situations very situational and sometimes things appears to you in certain way other time appears to you in different ways so they the whole idea is to try to seek the appearance that you are after so for example if you are after sort of the truthful thing or the meaning of the then things start to appear and give you different meaning so it is you know the static nature that that the perspective has projected I think it's alien to the uh to the Islamic fabrics of thought and there's no reason to try to justify why they did or did not do perspective I mean it's I thought that's completely irrelevant and I find it's completely futile argument to try to find historical justification it's just basically this is the way the culture played itself only this is the civilization played itself and there is merit in in whatever they they have presented and I can actually see more beauty in the way that they have I'd like for example Al-Kazweeny the way they talked about Nazar throughout the book was far more you know far more um interesting to me as a as an intellectual historian than the images themselves or the way that the um the representations of the world works because there is a certain sort of interest or or a certain idea certain way of thinking about the world that is it's quite operative and it is not restricted by just particular sort of perspective representation but tend to be static I don't know whether that answers the question sorry I think uh yeah it's very complex thank you uh Salman Amira thank you for this wide-ranging lecture and the book which is Great Souls was a prompt purchaser I mentioned that to you uh there's much to say by writing comments rather the restricts dialogue I know both Belting's book and Raghav's article quite well and yet I didn't recognize your accounts of them uh does Belting really say the Muslims were culturally incapable of perspective he has been rightly criticized for his historical errors and like any book it's imperfect but it has always seemed to me Apache it's Islamic art historical critics it is much more interested than it has been represented by these critics I'm glad to find it you to find it use usefully provocative well look I agree I I think it's a it's a provocative book I think I enjoyed reading it in fact that it has it made it provide a lot of information but if you read my article um on um near Eurocentricity and science if you look at it from the science perspective because it does bring the history of science and particularly if you look at it in together with other history of science like for example um the writings of Toby Huff for example then there is an emerging new position which is which is now which is now emerging trying to change the way that the that the authors account for European exceptionalism now we know that European exceptionalism and the and European superiority has already been there in the in the discourse of the enlightenment but you know these discourse of the enlightenment that would be subject to heavily criticism in post-colonial theories and portrait realism and all that sort of so that's collapsed in but now authors have have come up with a new strategy actually a far more robust strategy than what it used to be and this strategy which I called Neo Eurocentrism is again trying to re-establish the re-establish European exceptionalism on the basis on the basis of creative adaptability the argument in the past used to be ah look you know there's no one else has done anything you know the Europe has done everything you know that was you know they are the you know the rational the inventive the creative and all that sort and the Arabs has only sort of been sort of like a medium of connecting the or bringing the the Greek knowledge and that now European have given up this because it's it's no longer actually validated they don't believe in it themselves but now they've come up with something else they said oh you know the Arab the Chinese and all the other tradition have done great work in medieval time that's fantastic they've done all that they've worked out everything but you know you know comes into early modern time we as a European were so clever that we could actually take all those inventions and put them to new use and make something and you know so Toby Huff would actually talk to that you know and and your saliva's and all those things about all the you know the the inventions of the heliocentric system the charters inventions and all that sort of stuff that it's all already been done by the by the Arab but of course the Arab did not really put forward the heliocentric theory like Copernicus and and and even El-Hesa worked out all the mathematics of perspective but the Arab them actually you know come up with the with the perspective so they find this as a new strategy to reposition themselves or to be presenting their superiority as being as being so fundamental it's inscribed in the DNA of the Western societies that that it is now it's quite clear that okay all the civilizations done but they couldn't do what the European have done because they've taken all this and then made the new use out of it so it become like the creative adaptability that matters and it is no longer the invention itself they've adapted this and I think this is a very fundamental near your eccentric position this is what I don't like about about um um belting which which has not been picked up by the art historian because the art historian did not actually look at it from the history of science I looked at it from the history of science and and then you can see the overlap with other historians of science and how this position started to represent itself in various fields among early modern historians and I think this is where it requires now a new narrative by the sort of the non-eurocentric theories to try to counter that that that approach it is harder actually they made it harder for us because now if you look if you look at the global history all the non-eurocentric presentations um they don't have a narrative they don't have they they can't explain what happened in in a sort of a global term in um they can't have an explainer of the rise of the west so they don't have a narrative for this so until we come up with this narrative I think the neo-eurocentric like beltings and half and others who actually worked on on particularly bringing history of science into history of art or other fields they still had the upper hand it is a very complex situation and I would encourage people to engage with that article that I present because I don't actually myself have answers it's not easy things to to come up with and because they came up with a very robust argument which is different to the old argument but I don't think that's been picked up by art historian yet thank you I don't know that that answer answered the question but I'm trying thank you um we have Valerie Gonzalez thank you for your rich presentation about painting I wonder if you are aware about the recent theory of the theory of Persian painting as writing which implies a totally different manner of seeing the images as they are constructed in a mode well explained by Jean-François Lyotard in his famous text this course figure when he writes uh I quote at once this course in figure a tongue lost in an hallucinatory stenography I think she has a a clarification later on my point is that there exist recent propositions of explanations which offer responses to these questions that are alternatives to these issues of perspective versus flatness um thanks Valerie look I take your point I think um look I haven't covered that area I mean I I'm aware of it I'm aware of the way that they're trying sort of um to to address the this is a sort of complex question I still think that even um uh with with Lyotard they're still they're still thinking within and also so are they still thinking within the sort of the fabrics of thought of the of European languages of that visual um visual perceptions I think I am still sort of searching to find my feet around this but I haven't actually seen anything that will um sort of give me indication that that the the the thinking um procedures or the thinking processes to analyze these have gone beyond the linguistic foundations like you know for example the moment you continue to use the gaze and visual perceptions and all that you're still working within a particular fabric of thoughts and I wanted to see whether whether someone started to actually look at the the Islamic languages in a in a war um a profound way analyzing the you know finding an analytical vocabulary that allow you to think through them rather than assuming universal terms and and seeing that it applies everywhere in the same way that could be the case uh I might actually be um on a sort of non realistic project but this is what I've been trying to chart in my in my current project so um I don't have a direct answer to this I don't think that I sort of fully aware of the um of of this aspect yet but um but I'm more interested in the studies that have tried to think in to think within the frameworks of the of the Islamic languages rather than trying to come up with an analytical theories of the gaze or visual perceptions or representations and I mean even you know when you talk about words of representation it's very hard to actually find the uh find its equivalent in the fabrics of sort of error thank you and Avinoa and Shalem has a comment related to this interesting the Avalari poses interesting question as to how picturing is writing refers to calligraphy um and then there are there are do you need another coffee yes I had my coffee so Jada Vercelli thank you very much for a great talk I could find an echo in Guru Nijibolu critic to building in particular the reference to Islamic art as appealing to the inner senses beyond the hierarchy of the five senses I was wondering whether we can take the fact that many painters were also calligraphers and poets as evidence of this need to visually express a multi-sensorial approach um Guru is a fantastic scholar and I've actually done great work and her works on the on the gaze has been really inspirational to me and one of the earlier texts that had actually inspired me to to work on this and all all her work it's fantastic but really I mean if you look at even though that she does convey those meanings particularly talking about sight and insight and various aspects she she still works within the within the um the vocabulary of the gaze um she has not actually she has not ventured out outside this she has um although she she she attempt to describe I think it makes it easier once you get out of the out of the European language I you know if she if had she you know explored her ideas within the fabrics of the Turkish thinking I think that would have been absolutely fabulous because then you would see the possibilities that the language presents I think this it seemed that it is look I'm not you know the fact that calligraphy as a mode of writing like a bit of sort of art or expressing the sort of the beauty of the Arabic alphabet is really not my the heart of my um my project my project is when I talk about fabrics of thought and the fabric and I use the metaphor as fabrics of thought as being woven by language then I need to see um a set of terms and the sets of writings and the sets of sort of conceptualization that employs those in order to create that fabric I don't think that Guru does that um but having said that I mean Guru covers the content very well and able to convey the um you know the the way that the artist or the thinkers actually go beyond the sensory meaning but it makes better sense if you start seeing why do they do this because their linguistic apparatus forces them to think that way because because you can only think within your language um let's say if I'm trying now to think in a Chinese a language that I don't actually know it would be extremely difficult for me um not difficult it's impossible so um I could I could work within the language that I can work within the English because I sort of learned the English even though it's a second language I could I could operate better within the Arabic I can operate with difficulties in Persians and and Turkish because I know it's not as good as Arabic so it's it's always you know as I said it's not really the the Arabic the artistic expression of Arabic that that interests me I'm interested in the actual language itself and the way that enables us to think in certain way and I think when I call I mean in fact um I just referred to one thing when I when we were searching for publishers uh for this um one of the publishers that were interested suggested that I will take the word Nazar out and you know call the book ways of seeing and and I refuse I said no I'm not going to do it and I didn't go with that publishers because it actually just under my entirely the whole idea that I've been trying to present which is moving from Eiland to Nazar and there will be a subsequent uh subsequent uh volume that will could will deal with this so without without another we could not actually you know as I try to so sure we could not present that in your perspective very interesting. Asha Imam thank you for sharing your work I found it very interesting look forward to your book uh Yamin Zina if we compare philosophically the notion of Islamic Nazar with the Greek notion of logos can we identify a starting point to reflect on the difference between this philosophy language logic and aesthetics um this is we get here into some kind of a sort of a comparative studies and and comparative linguistic is really um interesting I think looking at the comparison between Nazar and Logos would actually be quite um um uh quite interesting um but I um but it would it is a sort of a different project all together um it will definitely bring some insight because the Arab have used the um the Greek sources early on and their that and their translation so they could um um it will highlight certain ways as how the fabrics of Northern Arabic has been mobilized or enabled um by the Greeks and I could actually see particularly in Kitab al-Manazar because because if it comes from optos which is the scene then and then Abdelhaisim was able to to be faithful to the original meaning but the word has actually changed kind of topography in the in the medieval time it becomes optics and um so so definitely a comparative linguistic is really is really important and I think it would it would reveal an important aspect of the fabric of sort of Arabic but it would be actually a side project and it would it would have it would take someone who can master the two languages to be able to do that quite well. Ahmed Sukkar impressive presentation as usual I was wondering whether you could comment on how the spiritual aspects of Nazar relate to the sexual aspect as presenting the discussion of Orientalism I'm thinking of the cover selected for Edward Said's Orientalism that is this Nick Charme by Jehom oh gosh the yes the painting depicts a naked boy watched by a group of armed men. I think it's I mean the issue of sexuality has very much been the core of the discourse of the gays and you know anyone who's familiar with Lakan you know sexuality is you know right at the heart of this and in fact if we look at Ahkam al-Nazar it is all about sexuality then all about the way that the male and female and the body particularly the representation of the body has been has been constructed from the point of view of the rules concerning seeing so it is it is absolutely there and anyone who who actually read Ahkam al-Nazar and all the commentary on Ahkam al-Nazar and all the all the implication of Ahkam would know that this now as as it relates to the sort of issue of Orientalism and particularly the the snake channels and all that I think this now we're getting into the gays from the western perspective because those are Oriental painting that have actually been done in order to represent the Islamic world in particular way but but it is it is not something that I've actually dwelled on at this stage um uh I'm more I'm more interested in the way that that the sort of the Arabs and the Arab scholars or the mystics or the philosopher or the scientists have actually explored the relationship between these three terms which is Nazar but yeah because because I think this gets obliterated by the concept of the gays even though when you even though when you actually look at sort of issue of sexuality you've got actually to look at those three terms and the way the dynamics relationship between the two in order to understand how they thought about it in in these in the Islamic world so um um yes to the first part the second part I think it's a little bit remote to my concern at this time. Zeynab Tamasuki thank you so much for this intriguing talk I was wondering if you could elaborate more on your idea of languages fabrics of thought that you used regarding the multiple languages in the Islamic world maybe you've answered partially this question I understand that the perspective chosen in this book however I want to know if you can see the limitations to your viewpoint does your idea merely refer to the term Nazar or relies on language in general? Look I I take this point I think it's a very very valid point thanks Zeynab I think it's really important and as I said the interesting that actually when you look at the contributions in the book for example we've got always in the edited book depending on really the the linguistic framework of the authors like for example Shah worked with the with the Mughal painting and she actually had to work with Persian so she presented certain aspect of Nazar from the painting from the from the Persian perspectives and it's the same as the one that done by Sushma also it's in the sort of the Indian traditions and whereas let's say James he worked with Indonesia and he looked at the whole issues of vision within the within the Indonesian language and the same as Virginia who also worked on Indonesia and worked with the Indonesians so you can actually see the sort of the repercussion or the the ripples as it were or I would say probably the the the expansion of the concept in various languages we did not have a contribution that would look at it I think I think Wendy Wendy Shaw also looked at me particularly in the Turkish but and particularly with reference to the Rumi's work but we didn't actually have a contribution that was in the in the person so yes the fabrics of thought I said if it is if I'm I stick to my position that it is woven by language it would have to be in order to be fair to the project and to be sort of comprehensive it would have to be taken into and and and it investigated in all Islamic languages as I said the limitation but because now you may actually then why did you speak to Nazar rather than sort of find another term Nazar is a Quranic term and in in fact it has been used extensively in the Quran and so is Bazar and Rupia so because they are Quranic terms has been widely used throughout the Islamic world within the Quranic context and within the sphere of the the Quranic meaning I could be justified to use it as that now when we get into and the same as when we start to use term that is not sort of supported by that kind of sort of universal text that that kind of brings the Islamic cultures together then yes it becomes more problematic there is a problem in using the word but I think it is less problematic than choosing one that is so specific to a language like Arabic but Arabic now is the language of education throughout the Arab world and because it is being promoted through the Quranic taste I think I'm justified to sort of make it as standing for other variations of the meaning in various languages because they will be an adaptation of it in that language because they could not get out of the of the Quranic projections of the way that and it's been used something like 150 times and the same as Bazar and the same as Rupia so and in fact it's very interesting the way that the Quran actually presented the three together I haven't referred to this but there is a reference to that in the book Avina Shalim has a point he had to leave and says thank you very much but he says Kurt but was a German art historian who argued for picturing as writing and viewing as reading going back to the previous point. Amira Al-Jalani I would like to mention the words like the Mansour in Quran is different meaning in Quran which means judgment day and also vision which is Ruhiya it means dream. Yes true, hi Amira look I in the spectrum of what I presented I mentioned Rupiya as a who is a Ta'am Arbuta and Rupiya with with the Aleph which is which are the sort of it shows this is important because it shows that the like you know normal vision like you know sensory vision and dreams are so connected because they are of the same the only difference is that the final sort of emphasis on the and the same was Bazar and Bazeera so so the relationship between the terms that is why I was talking about fabrics of thought because you know we've got to get into all this to understand how people have thought about you know in English you don't actually have sort of visions and dreams meaning you know using the same word is it you know you're starting to move into different sort of experiences or sensory experiences whereas the Arabic dance by bringing those together it allows you to see that people would see the relationship between more or that relation more transparent than trying to sort of construct it through theoretical means. I don't know whether I answered the a day in Mansour which is the judgment day yes that that's that's just another addition to the to the word of Nazar which yes I would I would I would say that should actually be added in the way that that the spectrum of of term that emerged from another should be presented. I think it's this is the last question because you've been talking for over an hour and a half now Karen is there a presumption that even Al-Haytham was widely read and applied in medieval Islamic world was there no divide between scientists and artists? That's Karen though right here and look I think there's a two side to this question very important questions and in Al-Haytham kind of the universal saw that sided by most art historian because it does refer to the aesthetics and particularly in the section that in the section of his Kitab al-Mazir which talks about Idraq al-Hasim and Idraq al-Qubah which is the way that you perceive beauty and the way that you perceive ugliness and there are no others there's no other sort of text that have that have sort of presented theory of aesthetics in the same way that Al-Haytham did but I agree that Al-Haytham was not widely read and that is why one of my point of contention is that in order many many art historians try to rely on the Al-Haytham theory of aesthetics to try to justify certain things and I always have doubt about this because there's no evidence that Al-Haytham was widely read and there are certain several and in fact I think in the in the from memory in in the whole sort of eastern part of the Islamic world like you know the Levan Turkey and Persia and even the Turkey there's only two manuscript that's been found two or three I think two or three manuscript and now kept in the in Istanbul or in the libraries in Turkey whereas there are several in the in the eastern part like you know in Spain for example so there's no evidence and we don't have hundreds of of manuscripts to say like you know this has been really widely read so there's no evidence but nonetheless it is an important work to see how the relationship between Nazar, Basar and Rory has actually been being conceived and discussed by by scientists now scientists is not the right word because I don't think that it's a scientist is a sort of a modern term that refers to natural scientists or the scientists of of nature of what used to be called natural philosophers and and and I don't think that we can actually make a distinction between scientists and an artist because I don't think there was scientists as such but one of the things and that was actually brought up in in the earlier book on Ail by one of my students which looked at how anatomical drawings have actually been used in science book in order to in order to because anatomical drawings are actually part of the developments of visualizations of them of early modernity and and in fact the entire the entire book of Kitabal Manadov's Seven Volumes there's only one drawing this is sort of a cross-sections of the and there hasn't been a widely used anatomical drawings by by scientists or by people who actually worked with natural and natural philosophy and but to what extent actually the the the artists have actually used the insight from those kind of natural philosophy book in their in their representation it it is hard to tell that we don't actually have evidence that suggests that they have they have used it but there's no evidence that they have that they haven't actually used it and what I would say when we consider fabric of thought is to consider how those particular terminology is being used and put in operation widely across the society let's say for example Sufi's natural philosophers and theologians and even travelers and others that are the more you get to see how those three terms has actually played out in their way of thinking and and of course reflecting their way of seeing then we get a better picture of how the sort of the artist and the what we call scientists that actually work together but I don't think we can actually reduce it to that kind of polarity it's very hard to to to document that kind of relationship. Well Sameth thank you so much for for your talk that inspired such a wonderful conversation and thank you also for answering all of them so comprehensively you must be exhausted can we give him a round of virtual applause. Thank you so much. Well thanks Anna that was really wonderful and thanks for the for the audience it's been really great to see all it's actually quite intimidating to see all those colleagues and esteemed colleagues that have taken interest in this and so it's been it's been a pleasure thank you all I can go and actually have a nap though. Thank you very much bye bye. Thank you thanks Anna thank you all.


Hello everybody, Andrea Mayesky here. So what happens if you did have dental insurance, but you don't anymore, or you just don't have dental insurance? I am self-employed, so I will never have dental insurance. I could if I, you know, purchased it myself, but the prices these days are crazy. For me, it's actually less expensive to just simply save up every month. But I am going to teach you guys how to take care of your teeth and mouth as a whole, the best you can at home. So even if you can only afford to have your teeth cleaned once a year, once every two years, I will try to help you guys keep your teeth. But I do have to say that your teeth are such a good investment. Trust me. If you can set some money aside to have your teeth cleaned at least every six months, you will thank yourself, okay? Because there's only so much you can do yourself at home. But what you can do is brush two to three times a day. Absolutely. The more you brush, the better. Seriously. But having that said, do not brush too hard.  And your gums around the teeth, you do not want to thin those either. So don't brush too hard. Always use a soft toothbrush or an electric toothbrush. So I do love electric toothbrushes, but if you don't want one, then a soft manual toothbrush will do the trick. Another thing is use mouthwash, okay? I prefer the ones with no alcohol just because it doesn't sting. And you don't need the alcohol, by the way. You really, really don't. We used to think that, well, everybody used to think that if you're using mouthwash and it actually stings, that it's helping. And that it's killing the bacteria. No, that's not the case. So use an alcohol-free mouthwash twice a day. If you have cold-sensitive teeth, as an example, use mouthwash first and then brush with toothpaste after that. Because I want that toothpaste to really help to protect those teeth. But if you do not have any teeth issues per se, then use mouthwash last. So brush first and then use a mouthwash. The key with mouthwash is you should be using it for at least 30 seconds. Like this. 30 seconds. Any less, it won't really work. So 30 seconds, you guys, please. Brush two to three times a day.  And guess what else I'm going to tell you? I know. Make sure to go in between the teeth. I like to use a water pick, actually. Yes, me. So I use a water pick probably after every meal. Because it's just so much easier to use that. And that does help to get things out from in between the teeth. Because that's where problems start. It is. In between the teeth, that is where problems start. That is how people get cavities. That is how you might say, oh, my gums are starting to bleed. How the heck did that happen? It's probably because you have not been cleaning in between the teeth. And I use the floss about four to five times a week. So yes, I do still do that. In a perfect world, use the floss every day. But that's hard for like 99% of the population. So invest in a water pick. It doesn't have to be expensive. I can actually leave a link for you guys on the bottom. I purchased mine from Amazon. Depending on the one you purchase, it could be $30. It could be $50. You don't need like a $90 water pick. No. Quick tips on a water pick are do not get ones that accept the batteries because the power does not last. You can also purchase one that you have to plug in to charge. I prefer a cordless one just because I can take it anywhere. And it takes up less room on my counter, but that's up to you. What else? No, that's pretty much the key, you guys. Of course, eat as healthy as possible because if you're eating like chips and pops, pop and pizza and yummy stuff like that, but that's not good for your teeth. And the more acidic foods you have, that does start to wear away at the enamel. If you clench your teeth at night, you do need a night guard. I'm sorry, but yes, you do. You don't want to see your dental hygienists to get a night guard because that can wear away the teeth so fast that before you know it, you won't have any teeth left. Like they will be tiny and or really thin enamel and you can't bring that back. So if you clench your teeth, if you wake up in the morning and you're kind of like, I don't know, I'm really sore here. You probably clench your teeth. You need a night guard. If you go to the store to get like a preformed night guard, they're not nearly as good.  So be careful. I hope that helps you guys. Let me know if you have any questions. It is so nice to see everybody's comments and I'll see you guys in the next one.


Alright guys, I'm gonna do a video about these Merge Mansion ads, okay? I did a video about Merge Mansion on my main channel a couple months ago And I don't want to like beat it to death So I don't I'm not gonna post this on my main channel But I just I have to make a video about it because people keep tagging me in it and it is kind of crazy, okay? They've got live-action ads now. They have they instead of making these like weird cartoons They're at their real people now and it's they're like kind of good. It's like shitty app About fixing up a house has like legit like movie quality ads now with Kathy Bates They hired like a real actor to be in this and I haven't I haven't watched any of them yet So I'm gonna watch them for the first time in this video do another sort of off-the-cuff Commentary I'm gonna be going absolutely off of my cuff off of the off of the cuff of my shirt all the commentary It's gonna be coming from right here Yeah, that's my shirt voice. That's what shirts sound like okay So I think this is probably all of them here merge mansion has a YouTube channel or at least I think they do actually I'm not sure if this is like their official channel It's not verified or anything But and they've got a variety of ads here and you can see they're all live-action So let's just go through here and watch the first one. It's called giving grandma a hand grandma. Can I help? Sure rakes are in the garage Okay What was there even a rake in there? Oh, maybe there is maybe right here. This is that a rake? She's just got so many knives, so I guess okay. Is that a rake? I can't tell They could be They're not really shown.  Why does she have so many knives?  Why so many knives though? You can only kill one person at a time It's not like having all these knives would be how she's got this many hands and she can be stabbing that many people at a Time do they have to be clean for her to use so she's got a bunch just in case she's like she killed someone and then the next Day she's gonna go kill someone else and she doesn't have time to clean the night just seems like I don't know Just stay on top of it Try to be motivational to the killer just stay on top of the man You got this just you know every morning, you know spend five minutes cleaning your knives. You'll be good You don't need to buy them any knives She's got so many that she actually ran out of room on her like sweet wall rack And she's just got them like healthy or skelter on the table too. Is this even a garage? There's no cars in here or anything I don't know looks more like a regular old garden shed so many knives She had the same thought as me. She's just got so many knives So little time Okay, so they're they're alluding to the fact that she's like she wants to kill people with the knife She's like I've got all these knives, but I don't have enough time to use them all but it's like okay Does she think the knives are disposable or something she can only use one knife per person I mean it maybe she's like a connoisseur of murder or something She's got like all these different types of knives and she wants to try them all out on different murders But they're not different types of knives. They're all the same night They just they all have the same green handle the same slick little curves I just don't understand what the what she's gonna do with all these knives so little time Okay, well, so it's a it's a funny ad it actually is funny and I guess kudos to them for that Now I'm worried that people are gonna think that I'm sponsored by Merge Mansion.   I'll never play the game and you shouldn't either unless Unless you want to no, I'm not sponsored by Merge Mansion. That's a that was a funny end to the ad though. She's raking Raking knives. What's grandma hiding? Obviously not knives. She seems like she's perfectly fine with With people knowing about those. No, it kind of seems like from everything that I've watched It's like she's grandma is almost like willing and ready to tell anyone what she's up to She's like got this thing on her hand. That's like I did it.  She's just placing knives everywhere She's just waiting for someone to ask what she's up to if this girl just just was even like hey What are those knives for she probably be like I killed your dad I killed your dad and I killed your fiance and I killed a dog just a few minutes ago I'll give you all the details on the murders I'll get I'll tell you everything you need to know and then I'll kill you I guess maybe Maybe so don't ask cuz maybe she'll kill you too then if you know But I definitely feel like someone should get to the bottom of this all right Let's look at the next ad grandma getaway. This is actually the most popular one. It looks like it's got a million views.  They got this sick-ass dolly shot at the beginning It's beautiful. This is a beautiful film. I'm not sponsored by Merge Mansion But if they wanted to at this point shit with ads like this, I don't know man I don't you know, I gotta have a hard time passing it up after after an ad like this Wait, so what was she doing at the beginning she was just burning something I can't see what it is though kind of lowers the stakes of whatever is happening in the scene if I don't know what she's burning Maybe it's like the the somebody's will or something or a receipt for three thousand knives, okay? So she's running away. She's got all these different secret passageways Secret passageways aren't very helpful when the the person chasing you can see how you're getting into each one You got to have a little bit more of a head start. I feel like otherwise.   I was worried how far this was gonna escalate, you know I could see you know They could get pretty raunchy with those Next ad you're not my grandma Okay, I so this is kind I think this is like a reference to Psycho, you know type thing, you know, there's like a fake grandma stood up in the window or whatever It's kind of weird for her to have a decoy of herself Which is like literally ten feet away from the decoy like in plain sight outside in the broad daylight But she is burying something. What could she be hiding? What's she burying more knives? probably oh Shit dude, she knitted that fast or maybe she just had that ready grandma's knitting game is insane. Oh Yeah, look there she is. She's knitting. She's making another one. What's grandma hiding? Yeah, they should just get rid of the what? Grandma hiding. Yes. The only thing grandma's been hiding this the whole time is her absolutely blazing fast knitting skills just Made a whole-ass human-sized Crochet in the three seconds it took her to get from Upstairs to down in the front yard. Alright, so it looks like this is the last live action one It's called pie is sir I'm kind of curious because it looks like they posted four live action ones and then went back to a an animated one Is their most recent one they posted this seven hours ago, but alright, let's watch the last live action one first Absolutely no clue what's going on in this one looks like a it's like a dinner party or a cocktail party or something Butler looks Suspicious as hell. It looks like he hasn't slept in years Grandma Ursula's pies. I think I know what I mean there must be something fucked up in the pie box, right? Because when she opens it They're absolutely mortified, but they look surprised to even see the pie box that says grandma Ursula's pies They're just that surprised that grandma Ursula makes pies.   I Didn't know you grandma made pies. That's crazy. Oh Okay, okay. All right, so look grandma's got blood all over her What is this called smock a apron What's this? Why don't I say smock? What is a smock? Okay, same thing. So smock is an apron I don't know why that was the first thing that came into my head.  They won't suspect a thing. There's just a head in there Who wants a slice of pie? All right? Let's see what the freak is going on in their most recent ad then now that they've gone back to the animated universe I wonder if these are like parallel cinematic universes a la the spider verse Okay, that one was super anti-climactic it was just like she's baking and she's cutting and she's in jail And and there's a pie. Yeah, that one was pretty anti-climactic.  Yeah, it's pretty impressive So yeah, those are the ads. I am not sponsored by Merge Mansion Do not ask if I'm sponsored by Merge Mansion because I'm not honestly I don't have any interest in playing the game probably never will doesn't look like my cup of tea Unless you know Merge Mansion unless you want him Unless you want you know I'll cut this part out of the video. All right. Well, that's all I wanted to talk about today. Bye


One of the guys bears out, if you're such a fan of him, name three songs from him right now. And I couldn't do it. Like I was like, I could tell you why I like this artist as a person.  All these things that he was saying has absolutely nothing to do with the music. Every artist should be aware of this perspective from fans, right? As much as y'all hear people like us talk, like we are markers, so we always try to keep ourselves in a fans perspective as much as possible. But don't y'all forget to listen to fans as well, like not even your own fans all the time, but just like the overall fan sentiment in the marketplace. So check this clip out right here. And this fan is telling artists what they're doing wrong today. Do you guys remember like back in the day when you could name people's discographies? When you could like compare albums and see which one was better? Yeah, the days of that it's done because it's impossible to do that. Like I could rank my top five Drake's discography right now. We could compare and see which albums are our favorite Kendrick albums. We could do the same with Nicky as well. But it's nearly impossible to do that when the artist drops five times a year. How am I supposed to enjoy this music when I can't even name like five, 10 songs? I don't think rappers have the same cult following that they used to have back in the day. Like baby, I like him as an artist. And we used to compare him to Wayne, but the quality of his albums are nowhere near as close. The song writing is nowhere near as good. I feel like artists are more focused on quantity rather than the quality of their music. And I honestly don't feel that artists right now have the same fan bases that our older artists had. I think the only ones I could name are maybe Doja, obviously Cardi, and definitely Megan Thee Stallion. But I think the music industry needs to bring this back. Authenticity, great music catalogs, and overall, damn good artist. I think he's talking about an error where personality shines before music, right? Overall brand feel shines before music. And people don't even know what's happening to them. They don't know you being consumed to this space where you just rock with how somebody looks, right? Cause somebody represents you. But that's the error we are. Like it's a tribalism error. I'm looking for somebody who looks like they would be in my tribe, right? I like how they move or like how they dress. I like everything about what they seem to be doing and how they're moving. And I want to be a part of that. I feel like I could be a part of this world. This other world I don't connect to as much, right? And then the music gets consumed as a part of that, right? The music is almost a story or the, I don't know, the soundtrack to that world, right? It's the side salad. It's the side, for sure. It's the house salad, right?  That's how our fans are taking it, even though they say they want music music. That's the problem. As much as we say we want this, we're acting on the other thing and it's working. Yeah, because going back to like I said, how I typically feel about fan opinions is they, I think a lot of times they speak from, they speak from like noble, they speak from a noble place, right? A place I think like deep down we all kind of wish would be. But to your point, our consumer behaviors don't reflect that, right? Reflect it. Because I was telling, me and Sean were talking about this off-camera where I was talking about the Mexico trip. Yeah, I was waiting, let's get to it. I was talking about the map. So if y'all haven't watched that episode where we were in Mexico with the since the 80s guys, there was a point off-camera where they were challenging me on my fandom for a particular artist. I'm not gonna name the artist, but this artist is an artist that is like, he came from Atlanta, he had a big moment, he's not as big anymore, but he was a huge part of my music development. And in the conversation, one of the guys bears out, if you're such a fan of him, name three songs from him right now. And I couldn't do it. Like I was like, he's like name three songs and saying the words, that's what the other part was like, and saying the words to them right now if you're such a fan. And I couldn't do it. You know what I'm saying? I could tell you why I like this artist as a person.  I connected to, I was telling them that that was when I just moved to Atlanta. So I connected with the nostalgia of having just moved to Atlanta. All these things that he was saying has absolutely nothing to do with the music. And I think that as a consumer, I don't think that's a bad thing, right? I don't think it's a bad thing that we're able to pick up on so many of these different things about a person that can make you like them or dislike them, regardless of how you feel about the music. I personally think it's a positive. But if I'm being honest with myself, that artist that is like that isn't the only artist I feel that way about. So I have lots of artists that I like that I couldn't name five songs from them to be real, which I can maybe name one or two. But then I go beyond that. I'm just like, oh, I think they're cool, right? I think I like him or her for some reason. And so I think all of these points kind of tie together in the right like consumers are finding different reasons to like artists. Back in the day, that's all we had, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's not all we had. Like they still did personality building and things, but you didn't get it enough for that to be a main driver. It was like back then you heard of artist speak when they did a written interview or a radio interview or maybe they got on BET or 106 and Park or MTV or something like that. Today we can hear our R.S.P. every day, you know what I'm saying? They tweet and they drop in TikToks and they make an Instagram. So we're able to pick up on the personality a lot faster and the personality makes an impact a lot faster than they used to.  You're out here. Quick second, have you ever seen an artist catch some traction and then they start to move? The numbers start to grow. They might even go viral, but then fast forward a year from now, somehow their numbers haven't really grown that much they dropped back close to the same monthly listeners they had before the traction and viral moment. Well, that's because you have to know how to convert those moments into careers. And we've done this again and again with not only songs, but artists. And so has J.R. McKee, who's been a part of helping artists like Lil Durk, Rod Wave, Justin Scott and Money Long. And we just did a collab where J.R. McKee does a step-by-step breakdown of how he took Money Long from zero to millions of monthly listeners and winning a Grammy over Beyonce, Mary J. Bly's and Jasmine Sullivan. Check out this breakdown while we still have it up. You can check it out at www.brandmannetwork.com slash Grammy. Don't forget the www or it won't work. Again, that's www.brandmannetwork.com slash Grammy. Back to the video. All right, like you said, the music was basically what we had to determine if we liked your night. Now we have all these other things that are actually easier than listening to the music. Listening to the music takes more work. Yeah, 100%. Cypher in the lyrics and doing something that's focused because I could play the music in the background and with the energy and everything, but that don't mean that I'm not working while listening to your music, not cooking or doing whatever I'm doing, and I'm just sitting there and listening to it, right? Which is a whole different type of activity. Paying attention is a... It's a tough, it's a heavy lift for a lot of people. That's just the area we're in. So it's good news and bad news, right? It's bad news from a standpoint of people who long for their music to be the only thing, right? But it's good news for people who like... Got good personal. That got good personalities, yeah. Or people who just at least are aware of it. Cause you're able to manipulate the game once you're aware of it. If you're moving and you just expect, oh, my music is gonna be hit. And tough luck. But Ryan Leslie, I remember when I interviewed him, like he said that when he was coming up, he realized that that was enough just being really, really dope. He got really dope cause he thought that was how you want one in music. Like all that production and all them skills, all the instruments, I'm just gonna be amazing like Prince and then somebody gonna find them and blow up. And you're like, oh no, I gotta get out, start networking, boozing and shaking, right? So there's the pros and cons that come with this era. But the tough part, the tough part that I think everybody has to take in is, no, it's not about the music anymore. Just about the music.