Representing the Divine in a contemporary world

 Saturday- I had my breakfast at the café Aux Folies, as usual. Salem the head bartender doesn't fail in making his guests feel at home. Today I got an extra cappuccino. The guy next to me, a silent Pakistani guy with a broad chest and two very big Indian rings, one with a yellow gemstone, the other with a purple one. I asked if they were real, his answer was yes. The rings and the well groomed beard made him look like a young Maharajah. When I went to pay for my breakfast, Salem told me that the guy with the gem rings had already paid for it. I thanked the Maharajah for this gentlemanly gesture. After we chitchatted on some superficial matters he asked if he could show me around today. I had an appointment, so I didn't have much time, but I agreed on going with him for a walk in his favorite park.
When we headed out together I wanted to make it clear that I was a practicing Muslim. He agreed that he was one too, after which he asked if I could hop into his car. I repeated that I was a practicing Muslim, so I won't be sitting with him alone inside the car. We walked towards the market, which was next to the metro. I bought some essentials there and some french booklets with collector item stamps inside: Mickey Mouse, Famous old trees and paintings of flowers.
We headed to the metro and again he asked: "come and get into the car", for the third time. I repeated that I was a practicing Muslim and have no intention of getting inside his car and am irritated that he has now asked me the same question three times: He looked disappointed.
We headed into the metro. After I passed through the gate with my card, he pushed an old woman aside to enter the Metro for free. I told him this was not very nice. He could have asked me, I would have loved to pay for his entry. The maharajah looked busted. When we arrived at the park I was surprised by it's size, it was nothing more then a circle of trees with two benches. One for us and one for an old french guy before us who was taking a nap while pigeons whirled around him and flew back into the trees. The Maharajah now asked if I could get closer to him and pointed towards his chest. I saw that this was heading towards the wrong direction and was thinking of a way out of the situation. I was starting to become as repetitive as he was. "I am a Muslim." He pretended like he didn't hear me and offered me a place to stay at his house. I answered that he had a bad breath after which he stood up to go to a small shop across the road to buy breath-mints. I stood up to go with him. Inside the shop I bought my own set of business cards: a pack of cigarette papers with on the cover a picture of man who looked exactly like the Maharajah I was with.

After buying my business card I wrote the name of my blog and my email address on a piece of cigarette paper and gave it to him. Again he looked disappointed. I wonder how I got myself into this situation. It was clear we both had different intentions. I wondered what kind of Islam he had in mind, because he wasn't quite receptive to the idea of an Avant-Garde Imam, but he wasn't traditional either, because his idea of a walk in the park involved more physical activity than traditional Islam would allow him to, and I'm not referring to sports ;) 

He was not the only young Muslim I would meet today with this confused idea of Islam. 

I headed to my appointment after which I roamed through the streets around the Grand Mosqueé de Paris.

After a short visit to the Budo Store to buy a book about the ethical decision making of warriors from Japan and China I went to research about what I could find on Muslim Art and culture.

Me standing next to the legendary Soke Hatsumi Masaaki

I entered a big bookstore that specialized in African books. I headed to the Arab section. I looked for Arab Art, but couldn't find anything contemporary except a book about belly dancing and a whole collection on Arabic cinema. I took the book about the belly dancing and one about 12 female figures from the Orient who changed the course of history.

I Entered the Institute du Monde Arabe. A dazzling architectural masterpiece designed by Jean Nouvel, a modern day cathedral builder with a special interest in playing with light. 

In the shop I looked for modern day Arab Art books: again, nothing. I got a referral to go to  Librairie du monde arabe مكتبة العالم العربي, which was on the opposite block, a little walk away.

I was greeted by a cultured Lebanese lady in an orange dress. I asked if she sold Artistic magazines. "No, we have no space, the shop is too full with books", she answered. I then asked if they had books about contemporary art or youth culture. "No, we don't have those either," she smiled, but was clearly not happy about it either. "Contemporary Arab art books aren't being made." I was a bit shocked. This bookstore was clearly one of the biggest bookstores on Arab culture on the European continent and all it had to offer was a lot about the old. I thought about the Maharajah I met earlier today. The emptiness I felt with him, I also found in these famous libraries of Arts and Culture of the Muslim world. Without a contemporary ARTS and CULTURE movement a culture will remain stagnant, and like water that doesn't move, it slowly will become unpotable.

I entered the Institute du Monde Arabe again and visited the exposition:Representing the Divine.

Coincidentally the same artist as the one whose book I bought had an exposition: Lassaâd Metoui. The Museum gave him the liberty to use old works of Islamic art from the museum's collection and to mix them with works from contemporary Arab artists. He made a very tasteful arrangement of old and new and his artistic eye was very present throughout the exposition. His own works went into a dialogue with Japanese calligraphic aesthetics which resulted in new ways of representing Divine Islamic calligraphy.

 Lassaâd Metoui

After my visit to the museum I had dinner at a pop-up restaurant: L'Alexandrie Café. It was established to commemorate an exposition about 21st century pharaohs, but everything about the restaurant breathed the Maghreb, Morocco specifically. The owner was a young Moroccan dressed in a perfect tuxedo and with twinkling eyes and a continuous big smile on his face. In typical Moroccan broad gestures he guided me to the table and gave me the feeling I was his only guest. I got seated. The orchestra began to play Moroccan dance music. 

I ordered an non-alcoholic Shirley temple & Brik, an Algerian specialty. 

Before me there was a multitude of hookah smoking Arabs from Paris. I decided to mingle in. After a few minutes the group I was in started to become louder and more giggly. Probably this was the result of me entering the conversation. An Avant-Garde Imam from the Netherlands who can speak fluent broken French is not something they got to see every day. Immediately the young girl next to me asked me to start dancing. I was a bit surprised by the question, she was clearly more then a decade younger then me. I didn't know the elderly were supposed to dance for the young these days. I waited for her to dance first, but she apparently was too shy. Nobody was dancing and being the first to do something is not something that is safe. 

Two of the girls had a grandmother who was a black Gnawa Sufi musician. In Morocco the Gnawa are seen as descendants of West-Africans who make ritual Islamic music that moves the dancers into an ecstatic spiritual dance with the divine. The girls seemed not much in touch with their Grandmothers heritage, they preferred a 'safer' Islam, more in line with what was 'acceptable'. The word 'Sufi' almost sounded dirty for them.

 I felt saddened by the idea that these girls were the descendants of this legendary strong and spiritual woman, and instead of continuing her legacy they tried to muffle it away to belong to the rest. 

I looked at the girl who asked me to dance, stood up and started dancing. An imam should be able to dance, like the grandmother did.