Realism and Beauty: Having a Look at Leaman: s Reading of Islamic Aesthetics

Islamic Aesthetics: An Introduction, by Oliver Leaman, is a critical book or, it would be better to say, the most critical available book about the Islamic art or those who believe in a phenomenon called Islamic art. The book was published by Edinboro University in 2004, and the second edition of its Farsi translation, translated by Ahmadreza Abolqāsemi, was published by Māhi publication a while ago. Although each of the chapters in the book is about one of the fields of Islamic art, the main part of the book, in which Lehman›s central critique of the Islamic theorists› claims is presented, is the first chapter which is called «Eleven common mistakes about Islamic art» which mentions the drawbacks that attacks different areas of Islamic art. Nevertheless, all of the problems are not mentioned exclusively in this chapter, and in other chapters, each of which deals with a particular realm, Leaman has also raised important points and influential arguments with regard to both matching the general criticisms with detailed instances and criticizing the fans of Islamic art. In the present article, the author first gives a brief report of Leaman›s most important ideas regarding the Islamic art. Following this, he discusses some of the general or detailed critiques of Leaman›s ideas and approaches. Finally, he is going to mention some of the points related to the book translation.