I have a Muslim friend who recently told me a story about a painting of the Virgin Mary. She said that during (or maybe it was after) the crusades, a lot of European traders who traveled through the middle east would bring home middle eastern cloths, scarves, blankets, etc. Back in Europe, they were circulated around and eventually ended up being painted by renaissance artists. She then proceeded to tell me that there is a painting of the Virgin Mary wearing an Islamic headscarf that said (in Hebrew): “There is no God but Allah.” Needless to say, the painter had no idea how to read it, so he was obviously unaware of his mistake. Is this story true? If it is, then what is the painting and/or where is it?
Whether it’s true or not, I don’t see any hypocrisy. Allah isn’t a competitor to the Jewish/Christian god, but the same god. “God” and “Allah” are names for the same god in English and Arabic, respectively.
Furthermore, a painting made over a thousand years after someone’s death is hardly evidence of anything the subject of the painting said or did. It’s a reflection of the artist’s conceptions. You could paint the Virgin Mary roasting babies on a spit and fornicating with the devil, but that doesn’t mean that she actually did those things.
Sorry I don’t have any info as to whether the painting you asked about exists, but I don’t see where it makes any difference about anything one way or the other.
I’ve a PhD in Renaissance art history and have never heard this story (and I thought I’d heard them all). If someone else has a reference to this I’m very interested. I know of a piece of eastrn cloth that was kept as a relic associated with St Josse, for example, that has an inscription but it just says “Good luck and glory to Commander blah blah and may God prolong his prosperity.”
Christians, however, also believe there is no God but Allah, but they call him something different, so the hypocracy here is iffy. An Islamic inscription in Hebrew? Is something getting mixed up in the translation here?
To be clear, that wouldn’t make Mary Islamic.
“Allah” is the same Lord God the father of Jews and Christians - the God of Abraham.
If it was in Hebrew, they wouldn’t have a special Islamic were for “He is who He is (no, not Popeye - the other One)”. So the story doesn’t make much sense to me.
I apologize for the God/Allah slip-up. I am by no means religious…I actually tend to avoid those topics, despite their immense involvement with my own history.
And also the Islamic/Hebrew mix-up would be a mistake. I didn’t look into which languages belonged to whom.
I could probably ask her again if she knows anything else about the painting, but I doubt she does, as the story was passed from her grandmother who has long since died.
There’s no such language as “Islamic” either. I think you mean “Arabic”.
Sure do. I blame ignorance. I’m only a teenager. 
Hey bup, I think you meant to say, “If it was in Hebrew, they wouldn’t have a special word for the Islamic God…”
:wally
I don’t know what the background of your discussion was, but if your friend is suggesting that a Renaissance painting somehow supports that Islam is the true religion and that Christianity and Judaism are false, she’s got a lot to learn in the area of clear and logical thinking.
I can’t comment on the veracity of the story, the painting itself, or history of art. But there are a couple of odd things about this story.
First, the reference to an Islamic headscarf. The Muslims were certainly not the first culture to cover the heads of the women; some Christians had done it long before Mohammed came along. So a painting of Mary wearing a headcovering is plausible and it doesn’t mean it was Islamic.
Second, Muslims generally practice their religion in the classical Arabic language. (Although translations of the Qu’ran exist, the book is really supposed to be studied in its original language.) It would seem unusual for a Muslim to write this phrase in Hebrew. That phrase, by the way, is one of the five pillars of Islam (the complete phrase is, and I translate loosely, “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet”).
Third, as mentioned by Gary T, Islam was not the first monotheistic religion to come along. It would be interesting to see the exact translation of the purported Hebrew to see how “Allah” was rendered. Maybe it was just the Hebrew word for God, in which case translating it to “Allah” to indicate a Muslim origin might be a bit disingenuous. What is the basis for your friend’s translation from the Hebrew? Although it’s true that these religions basically believe in the same God, the words are different. (In English we capitalize God. In Arabic there is no such thing as capitalization, so they use Allah, which literally translates as “the god” to emphasize monotheism.)
Fourth, Islam was not founded until the 8th century AD so any reference to Mary’s being Muslim would be a gross anachronism, if that’s the implication (frankly I am not sure what the OP is implying so I’ll supply my own implications).
Fifth, I’m not art history guy but I’ll bet capybara could provide examples of revisionist history being depicted in art throughout the ages.
And last, I am completely baffled by your reference to painter who could not read the words in his own work. If he was a Rennaisance-era painter, where would he have seen such a scarf to copy the script without knowing how to read it?
Not that I particularly believe the story, but the OP did say that the headscarf came to Europe as a souvenir from a crusader. An artist could have given a faithful rendition of the “design” on the scarf, and thus render the Arabic despite not understanding it.
7th century. And Muslims believe that certain holy people in the years before the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad were possessed of a close relationship with God, and some were privy to revelations from him. That is, Islam reveres a line of prophets, including Abraham (Ibrahim), Moses (Musa) and Jesus (Isa), and related holy folk stretching back to Adam. Mary (Maryam), as mother of Jesus, is worthy of a certain reverence in Islam and so holy texts etc saying this would not be anachronistic.
I am no art historian, but most of the Renaiassance painters I recall learing about (and note that this learning took place many years closer to the Renaissance than today) did not give a bronzed fewmet about historical accuracy. Mary was usually depicted dressed in contemporary garments, including proper whimples.
True enough.
Although many Renaissance/Late Middle Age artists would also copy decorative details w/o much regard for meaning, thus making it plausible that an inscription of the Shahaddah(sp?) be copied as if it were a mere decoration into an inappropriate context by someone trying to give the painting an “Eastern” feel, who had seen it on some Eastern artifact but had no idea what it means.
But the possibility has to be weighted against how most of this art was done on commission of the Church or of pious patrons, and there were some specific conventions that artists of the time would follow when painting Saints or Biblical or Mythological characters, in order to (a) make them easily identifiable to the viewer and (b) avoid making a heretical representation, which could be harmful to your health.
Oh, lots did care aboout recreating the antique properly and based their figures on ancient ones and stuck biblical-era persons in togas and such. Some more than others. I do also know of some northern painters especially copying Greek by eyeball and a couple working up fake-o Hebrew inscriptions (and a few good copied ones-- like on the titulus sign above the crucified Christ). Links between te east and west were stronger than you might thing-- by the 1490s one of the Bellini family was actually working for Sultan Mehmet II in Istanbul/ Topkapi so an Islamic influence wouldn’t surprise me. I just have never heard of this case and it sounds like something’s been messed in over the years.
First of all, Mary is a very prominent Islamic religious figure. She’s in the Qur’an a lot. Shall I post chapter and verse references? 3:35-37, 3:42-51, 4:156, 4:171, 5:17, 5:75, 5:116, 19:16-29, 21:91, 23:50, 66:12. The 19th chapter of the Qur’an is named for Mary. As a matter of fact, Mary is mentioned way more in the Qur’an than she is in the Bible.
Secondary cites:
Abd ar-Razzâq Yahya. Marie en Islam. Alger: Editions Maison des Livres.
Murata, Sachiko. The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
Schleifer, Aliah. Mary the Blessed Virgin of Islam. Louisville: Fons Vitae, 1998.
To answer the OP:
There was a painting of the Madonna and Child made in medieval Sicily that showed her with a fine transparent veil draped loosely about her head and shoulders. The lettering on this veil was pseudo-Arabic. It didn’t actually say anything, but mimicked the forms of Arabic Kufic calligraphy. Apparently the artist who lived in the post-Islamic period in Sicily (12th or 13th century) admired Arabic script for its aesthetic value, without being able to read it.
The coronation mantle of King Roger II of Sicily, if I remember correctly, had an actual Arabic text embroidered on it: la ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad rasul Allah (There is no God but God, Muhammad is God’s messenger), the essential Islamic testament of faith.
Both these pictures were reproduced on B&W photo plates in the book A History of Islamic Sicily by Aziz Ahmad (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1975).
It looks like someone vaguely remembered seeing both these pictures, and conflated them.
Didn’t Jewish women of that time and place cover their hair?
Sorry, I spaced out more secondary cites I was planning to add:
Barlas, Asma. “Believing Women” in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.
Wadud, Amina. Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective
Yeah, feminist religion is my “thing,” as in the phrase we had back in the 1960s, “do your own thing.”
To reinforce Johanna’s point, the fourteenth-century ‘Cambrai Madonna’, now in the Metropolitan Museum, is another example of one with pseudo-Arabic script.
Wow, APB, that’s another one I hadn’t seen before. Beautiful painting too! I have a 20th-century Sufi painting of Mary done in the style of Byzantine icons, lots of gold, with inscriptions to Mary in both Greek and Arabic. Χαιρε Μαρια ~ ya Maryam ‘alayki al-salâm