Sara Susanne Kuehn

How does a visual manifestation serve as an effective medium for the stimulation of affective piety in the mystical orders of Islam? This research proposes to examine the visual and representational art, artefacts, material culture of the mystical orders of Islam in the western Balkans, as well as their iconographic and iconological expressions and their relationship to devotional practices within the context of the contemporary conventions of the religious orders in these regions. It will systematically introduce and investigate an extensive collection of visual data collated mainly during field research conducted on the visual expressions of the Sufi orders in 2011 and 2012. The regions involved comprise Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Novi Pazar Sandžak, Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania, as well as the Turco-Tartar regions in the Dobruja, Romania and the Crimea, Ukraine. Comprehensive research will be directed at the cultural and historical context of the visual material, prototypical models and the semiotics of the visual information. The endeavour will thereby involve studies that overflow the boundaries of the visual arts. As such, it will enter the field of history and ethnology and, generally, Islamic studies. An interdisciplinary method of analysis will be pursued, involving not only art historical but literary, epigraphical and textual evidence. This will shed light onto the visualisation of belief and piety of Islamic brotherhoods in early modern and contemporary Southeastern Europe and thus elucidate a significant and hitherto often disregarded group of images and symbols in these ritual spaces; focussing on the ritual/ceremonial aspect of pertaining to things sacred, of being in some way efficacious in the lives of the “mystics” and in Islamic society more generally. In so doing the examination of this body of data will primarily concentrate on the reflection of particularly Sufi symbolic overtones in the visual representations of the religious orders. Deciphering the iconography employed within the ritual setting of Islamic brotherhoods will thereby add new insights into the history of early modern and contemporary visualisation and seeing in these regions.