Criticism of Traditionalists’ Ideas on Wisdom and Concealed Secrets of Islamic Art

Traditionalism is a contemporary esoteric current that lays its foundations on hidden signs and the process of discovering and revealing them. Though, unlike other encoding processes, this one has no sound and clear regulations, rules, or acquirable techniques or skills. Believing in monotheistic theologies, traditionalists understand the world as a created reality that conceals a system of divine signs, and as for the holy Quran, it is called “a closed book” which is divinely inspired hence has to be difficult to disclose the depths of its meaning to the superficial reader; rather, it has to be meditated upon and, as the mystics of yore used to say, has to be understood as if man were listening to God’s own words, addressed to him at this very moment. Traditionalists firmly believe in the sacredness and transcendence of artworks created by Muslim artists or craftsmen and attribute this unique holiness to the concept of unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity. Some of the leading and eminent figures of traditionalism like Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Titus Burckhardt sustain that everything is divinely created and that an ontological metaphysical essence exists in every created being. Though from traditionalists’’ point of view “tradition” indicates the spiritual wisdom conceived as having formed the ancient core of all the great religions and spiritual paths, a thorough look at their works and findings contradicts their ideas and opinions. This study attempts to have a comparative though thorough look at thoughts and ideas of some of the leading traditionalists regarding Islamic tradition, on which their core structure is claimed to be established, and presents a brief explanation of their paradoxical claims.