A Reading from the History of Islamic Art Studies Underlining the Role of Museum Processes

It has been about a century and a half that Islamic art has been defined through a set of essentialist features, characteristics, and interpretations. However, the most fundamental definitions and statements concerning the concept of Islamic art have gradually been challenged following the advent of postmodern, postcolonial, and interdisciplinary approaches. The growing trend toward critical studies has brought about significant developments in the issues surrounding Islamic art studies, its definitions, and its conceptual frameworks. Parallel to the emergence of the New Museology movement, these recent trends have initiated a critical, fundamentally historicist approach in stark opposition to the metaphorical attitude toward Islamic art. Reviewing the history of Islamic art studies with an emphasis on the role of museums in this process can help uncover the implicit mechanisms behind the contested definitions of Islamic art and provide a more conscious understanding of the potential role of museums in initiating and transforming the main currents of research in the field. It is worth noting that the notion of Islamic art has largely been shaped by an orientalist perspective, itself the outcome of Western collecting and curatorial practices. Nevertheless, no satisfactory explanation has yet been provided for how the discourse of Islamic art has been shaped by the museum world. Accordingly, this paper asks: through what processes and mechanisms have museums constructed current interpretations of Islamic art? Recognizing the role of museological processes in interpreting Islamic art is the main objective of this study, which is pursued through a qualitative content analysis approach. The museological analysis of Islamic art studies across three periods demonstrates a shift in the location of objects, from ethnographic to art museums in the second period, and later to material culture museums in the third, accompanied by corresponding changes in their perceived values. It also reveals a transformation in the interpretive community: from experts to the general public in the late twentieth century, and later the inclusion of the “East” within the museological discourse of Islamic art, recognized as a third interpretive community by Western museums. In conclusion, special attention paid to Islamic art objects by the museum world marked a critical turning point in articulating the discourse of Islamic art, as these objects were not referred to as “Islamic art” before entering the museum. Therefore, what we now understand as “Islamic art” is a constructed and interpretive concept derived from various museological frameworks. Finally, the paper proposes an interdisciplinary theoretical framework based on museum studies, demonstrating the potential for expanding the domain of knowledge concerning Islamic art.