The Unbreakable Rope

An Exploration of Sexuality in Islam

Preface
Quilliam Foundation, the world’s first counter
-extremism think tank, and Free Word, an
international centre for literature, literacy and
free expression, have partnered to present The
unbreakable rope: an exploration of sexuality
in Islam. The unbreakable rope brings together
the works of ten international artists who examine
issues surrounding the diversity of sexuality
in Islam through themes of memory, identity
and sensuality.
Inspired by Love in Bloom, an eighth century
classical, erotic Arabic poem by Abu Nuwas,
The unbreakable rope explores diverse sexual
orientations within Islamic cultures, past, present
and future. The exhibition illuminates sexual
plurality as existing in conservative and progressive
societies, incorporating historical reference
points from all over the world to debunk
the myth that non-heteronormative identity is a
modern or Western construct. By employing a
wide range of media, perspectives and voices
from both East and West, the show encourages
intercultural dialogue and an understanding
of sexuality as a spectrum, through the
self-critical platform of art.
The unbreakable rope runs alongside theatrical
and immersive events as part of Quilliam’s
first creative programme, the Season of
#Solidarity, concentrated from 27 April to 8
June 2016 at multiple venues in London. The
show also aligns with Free Word’s Unravelling
Europe, a series that puts artists at the centre
of conversations about Europe’s changing
identity, alongside thinkers and speakers
from other disciplines. Against a backdrop
of increasing fragmentation fuelled by anxiety
and fear, the conditions and values that
underpin our open, democratic societies are
under threat. Unravelling Europe will ask how
we can better comprehend the complexities at
play in order to ‹re-stitch› the fabric essential
to the flourishing of a truly democratic Europe.

Love in Bloom, an essay by Harry Seymour
Prior to the advent of Islam, homosexual
acts appear to have been commonplace
in the Arabian Peninsula amongst the
polytheistic nomadic peoples. The teachings
of the Prophet Muhammad (570 –
632 AD) effectively saw a prohibition
on such acts that spread in less than
a century from the Prophet’s journey to
Medina (622 AD) throughout the Middle
East and North Africa. Since its creation,
the Qur’an has become the way of the
word for Muslims, offering ethical, legal
and social guidance for their public and
private lives. For Muslims, the Qur’an
represents the divine word – an irrefutable
yet sacred governance.
Several times does the Qur’an condemn
homosexuality, arising from two distinct
themes. The first is regarding the story
of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah – a narrative shared with the
Judaeo-Christian Old Testament. The
second concerns the scripture regulating
the sex lives of the followers of Islam,
which sets out what is permissible and
what is prohibited with regards to sexual
intercourse (zinā). In each case, homosexuality
between men, and women
(mentioned once in in Sura 33:30) is
judged to be a base act (al-fahisha),
which can be severely punished. This
is confirmed by two often-recited passages;
“If two men among you are guilty
of lewdness, punish them both. If they
repent and amend, leave them alone,
for God is Oft-returning, Most Merciful”
(Sura 4:16), and “Of all the creatures
in the world, will ye approach males /
And leave those whom Allah has created
for you to be your mates? Nay, ye
are a people transgressing (all limits)”
(Sura 26:165-66). Exegetes interpret
these writings with varying degrees of
force, often depending on the interpretation
of the historical context in which
they were written. One explanation
for these discrepancies could be the
changes between the shorter and more
forceful Meccan verses, and the later
Sura revealed to the Prophet at Medina,
by which time Muhammad was already
the leader of a fully-flourishing society.
However, despite the Qur’an’s forbidding
of homosexual acts, during certain
periods it has played a significant role
within Islamic cultures. There is evidence
from correspondence, literature and art
to suggest that a diverse spectrum of sexuality
flourished at certain times and in
certain pockets of the empire, including
the Spanish Umayyads (756 – 1031),
the Seljuks in Persia (1037 – 1194),
the Malmuks in Egypt (1250 – 1517)
and to a certain degree, the Ottomans
in Turkey (1300 – 1923).
Abū Nuwās (756 – 814) is regarded
as one of the greatest Classical Arabic
poets (756 – 1031), who flourished
during what is seen as the Golden Age
of Islam (dar al-Islam), which consisted
of the Umayyad dynasty (661 – 750)
in Damascus and the first period of
the Abbasid dynasty (750 – 1258)
based in Baghdad. This was a culturally
lively and sophisticated period
with opulent and cosmopolitan courts.
Homosexuality was within this society,
celebrated as a variant of eroticism,
however roles (as often was the case in
Antiquity) were defined by the passive
and active participants. The older and
socially superior male would normally
adopt the active role, and typically the
passive role would be adopted by an
adolescent boy, emphasising the social
hierarchy of society. During certain periods
of this Golden Age, many chose to
shun the traditional Bedouin lifestyle of
chastity, valour and courage in battle
for a focus on wine, passionate love
and revelry. Biographers of the life of
Abū Nuwās recount his many relationships
with both women and boys, full
of the flavour of this libertine spirit. He
lived a bohemian lifestyle, especially
during the years in which al-Amīn was
caliph (809 – 13) with who Abū Nuwās
shared many experiences. His Dīwān,
a collection of lyrical prose, provides
evidence for his heady thirst for secular,
carnal life, which he said to be comprised
of four elements; “flowing water,
gardens, wine and the beautiful face of
the beloved”. The most well known and
celebrated of his erotic works are the
ghazal and the khamriyyāt, which exalt
wine and revelry. In his work ghazal,
Abū Nuwās celebrates his love boys and
young men, including epehebes (ghulām
amrtad) and fifteen year olds (khumāsi),
although both younger and older boys
are not to be discounted, even once they
have began growing facial hair (muaddir).
His work compares young males to
fawns, gazelles and kid-goats and his
descriptions of male youth-beauty conform
to those of the day: being slender
and supple with smooth skin, narrow hips
and firm buttocks, a face with moon-like
radiance, languid eyes, pink cheeks,
plump glossy lips, hair slicked back with
ambergris, a clear and pronounced
voice and musky kisses. Passages from
his work describe the seduction of young
Persian boys in taverns. Pages, prostitutes,
slaves, Christians and Zoroastrians
are all lured by presents and the clink
of gold coins. His lyrics speak of burning
carnal desires, which are sometimes
accepted but often scorned, while his
works range from euphoric and explicit
to melancholic and ironic.
Many other homoerotic Islamic authors
existed during this Golden Age, in which
homosexuality played a large part in culture,
in part explained by the fact that
Islam makes no distinction between
spirit and the flesh unlike in Christianity,
while also highly valuing sexual pleasure.
The Persian Ibn Dāwūd (868
– 909), the Andalusian Ibn Quzmān
(1080 – 1160) and the Arabic-Sicilian
Ibn Hamdīs (1053 – 1133) all wrote
skilled and beautiful prose flowered with
homoeroticism. There are also extant
practical lovemaking manuals, such as
The Perfumed Garden (Ar-rawd al-atir
fi nuzhatil khatir) written by the Tunisian
sheikh Muhammad Ibn Umar al-Nafwāzi
between 1410 and 1434, which
instructs how to enjoy sex to the fullest,
and The Book of the Respective Merits
of Maids and Youths (Kitab mufaharat
al-jawari wa-l-ghilman) written by Ūthmān
al-Jāhiz (777 – 869), which discusses
the pleasures of making love to women
versus young boys. Many texts from this
time discuss the desire of, and lovemaking
to both heterosexual and homosexual
partners, often in lively and humorous
tones.
During the Classical Age of Persian literature
beginning in the thirteenth century,
Sufism begins to gain popularity. Sufism,
recalling the teachings of Plato, is a mystical
movement that celebrates the love of
absolute beauty. In these texts the loved
one is exalted as making the pain of life
worthwhile. Some of the most prominent
Persian writers at this time were Omar
Khayyām (mid-eleventh century – 1126)
who writes about his hedonistic pursuits
of sensuality, and Sa’dī of Shiraz (1184
– 1291), who discusses his love for
young males in both spiritual and graphically
sexual terms. This same approach
is adopted by Hāfiz (1319 – 1390),
interplaying mysticism with physical
beauty to create a divine union. Much
like Abū Nuwās, Hāfiz talks of being
intoxicated with both wine and love. The
most celebrated of al poets however, is
Jalāl ad-Din Rūmī (1207 – 1273) who
writes passionately about the wandering
dervish Shams of Tarbiz. According to
the American scholar Keith Hales the
two were barely separated, deeply in
love, and often would retreat for months
at a time together in to sexual bliss.
In Islamic art, references to homosexuality
are exceptionally rare, especially as
in Orthodox Islam depictions of humans
are forbidden. Depictions of lesbian
lovers are even rarer. Some periods of
miniature painting saw homoerotic imagery
appear, particularly in Persia under
the Safavid dynasty (1502 – 1722)
and in Turkey between the sixteenth
and nineteenth centuries. Two painters
from the court of Shah Abbas the Great
(1588 – 1629) were Riza-I Abbas and
Mohammed Qāsīm Mussavir who used
explicit homosexual imagery, and in
nineteenth century Turkey Nevi Zade
Atai’s paintings contained highly explicit
imagery of penetration. However on
the whole homosexuality in Islamic art
is historically limited to young males
in salacious poses, bodies entwined
and with longing gazes. An example
of this is a ceramic commissioned by
Shah Abbas for his pleasure palace in
Isfahan in 1590, depicting four males
sat by a river in a garden gazing upon
one another whilst drinking wine. A hint
of sexual relations comes from the gentle
touching of one of the characters neck
by his counterpart. The four figures reflect
the concept of paradise as lyricised by
Abū Nuwās; “flowing water, gardens,
wine and the face of the beloved”.
With the spread of the bourgeois
throughout eighteenth century Europe,
a cultural shift happened in the Arab
empire that saw an increase in artistic
censorship (especially forbidding human
representation). Women were obliged
to wear veils and homosexuality was
scorned. In the nineteenth century the
hypocrisy of the British Victorian classes
caused homophobia to spread throughout
the Ottoman empire, and as social
tensions climaxed, sexuality became a
much less free affair. Stiffening religious
institutions, high unemployment and illiteracy
and ingrained ideas propagated
the issue throughout the decades.
Of course the situation differs historically
state to state as Islam is a body composed
of many member nations; despite
being glued by religion, these states do
not share a common political, economic
or social structure. Cultural outlooks differ
widely not only between countries, but
also provinces, towns and down to
individuals. However, homosexuality
is officially outlawed in every country
in the Islamic world and it remains a
taboo that is either silenced or denied to
exist. Sodomy is explicitly forbidden on
all sides; by the Qur’an, the hadith, the
sunna (the rules for correct behaviour),
the fiqh (jurisprudence) and the sharī’a
(the law). To the modern Arab mind,

sexuality is a perversion of man and
union, and sexuality can only be understood
through strict social and religious
regulations that set out to control desire.
Modern Islamic culture is also masculinist
and hierarchical, with the two sexes
living in different worlds that only combine
in prescribed cases. All beings are
classed as either “men”, or “subject to
man”; including women, concubines,
slaves and even infidels.
Yet, the strict control of homosexuality
in modern Islamic cultures paradoxically
causes it to take its own form. The
degree of secrecy necessary can cause
heightened body expression and language
– fleeting glances and an intensified
desire cause homosexuality to attain
an underground cult status with its own
visual clues and cues. Unlike the West’s
brazen sexuality, it becomes a sophisticated
mechanism of homoeroticism and
a creative visual iconography is established.
In art, film, music, literature and
theatre, homoeroticism has developed its
own techniques of suggestion.
The oppression of non-heterosexual
relationships in recent decades signals
a shift in liberalist Islam. Apart from in
Iraq, Egypt and Turkey, homosexuality is
punishable with imprisonment and even
death. As a result of this in the last century,
non-heterosexuality has rarely been
examined within Islamic cultures from the
inside, but rather by Arabs in Europe,
or Europeans. Since the eighteenth
century publication of Thousand and
One Nights by Antoine Galland, the
West has had an erotic fascination with
“Orientalism” (the predominantly Islamic
cultures encompassing the Middle East
and North Africa). Its foreign, magical
and seductive charm drew European
aristocrats on grand tours and inspired
a Western tradition in the arts for romanticising
the intoxicatingly diverse sexuality
of the East. Yet this was a European
invention and not the reality, sometimes
constructed to enhance the allure of the
East for one’s financial gains. In the
twentieth century with the advent of photography,
a global press and air travel,
the vogue for Orientalism faded as stereotypes
crumbled.
In Europe and the USA, Muslims have in
the last few decades found the freedom
to love openly, yet have the struggle of
creating a new figure - the lesbian, gay,
bisexual or transgender faithful Muslim.
The first support network GLAS (Gay and
Lesbian Arab Society) was established
in the USA in 1988 and the number of
groups has steadily grown to fight discrimination
both in Arab countries and
the rest of the world. Understanding the
history of these relationships within Arab
cultures is a crucial stepping-stone to tolerance
and acceptance and in letting
current and future generations know they
are not alone.
In recent years, countries such as Egypt
are claiming people who partake in
non-heterosexual relationships as defaming
both Egypt and Islam. The oppression
of sexuality is a way of reinforcing
power and control whilst perhaps also a
tool to distract from other economic and
social conflicts. Yet in the internet age it
is increasingly hard to silence repressed
voices, and with every new story of the
persecution of people for their choices
in love (such as within Islamic State
controlled territory where suspected
homosexuals are regularly tortured and
killed) the uproar gains further momentum.
Contemporary fundamentalism’s
denial of non-heterosexuality is becoming
increasingly hard to swallow, and
a chasm in the Islamic world seems to
be widening between the sacred and
profane, where in order for people to
love freely they can not continue to practise
their faith. The tensions between East
and West will continue until a peaceful
cohabitation of the two, albeit antipodean
civilisations is realised. It remains
to be seen if future generations will be
drawn in to conflict on these issues, or
if with a bit of luck and lots of work,
the chasm will be dammed with the
words of free love and bridged with the
unbreakable rope.
Harry Seymour

Farah Ossouli
b. 1953, Iran
As a child, Farah Ossouli realised her toy dolls
couldn’t act out her make-believe stories as she
wished, so she began to create her own characters
out of paper and card that she then decorated
specifically to manifest her own fairy
tales. This process of crafting her own representations
of her imagination through collage,
pencil and paper spawned her passion for art
– a place where she could express her inner
dreams in the material world. She continued
to make series of new actors with whom she
could play, each time throwing the old ones
away, all the while developing a deep interest
in literature. Fascinated by this mixture of narration
and image, Farah found that painting circumscribed
both loves and offered her a way
to practise both passions simultaneously. Her
work is, as a result, a mix of storytelling made
up of characters in symbolic landscapes, interlinking
with her own understanding and interpretations
of life.
In 1971, Farah went to study for a Diploma
in Painting at the Girl’s School of Fine Arts in
Tehran, before completing a Bachelor of Arts
in Graphic Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts at
the University of Tehran in 1977. Her bold use
of colour and form inflected with symbolism
in her oeuvre reflects her academic roots in
graphics and painting.
Farah’s work can be found in many important
collections, including the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, both in the USA; the Devi Art
Foundation in India; the Koran Museum in
Iran; the Tropen Museum in the Netherlands;
and the Ludwig Museum in Germany. She is
a member of the Society of Iranian Painters
and the female Iranian artists group, DENA.
Farah was awarded a prize at “Ayeneh dar
Ayeneh” in Tehran in 1997 and won the
2000 Renowned Iranian Women Award, the
2002 Iranian Women Artists Prize and the
2002 Prize at the second Biennial of Islamic
Contemporary Painting in Tehran. She has sat
on several boards and jury panels over the
last two decades, including recently acting
as head of the jury of the Visual Art Festival
at Mellat Gallery in Tehran from 2010–12.
Farah was a member of the jury and selection
committee of the First International Fajr
Festival of Visual Arts at the Tehran Museum
of Contemporary Art, Iran in 2009, a curator
of the Iranian Art Festival Qanat Al Qasba
at Sharjah, UAE in 2008, chairperson of the
exhibition Representation of Persian Painting
in Iran-Imam Ali Arts Museum in 2007 and a
member of the selection committee of the Sixth
Biennial of Persian Painting in 2006. She regularly
exhibits in both group and solo shows
across the globe.
For The unbreakable rope, Farah is exhibiting
two works, both called Untitled, from
her Hafiz series, inspired by poetry of the
Sufi mystic (circa 1325 to 1389) who wrote
paeans to earthly pleasures and disavowed
religious hypocrisy. Depicting a pair of lovers
embracing under a flock of birds, the first
work Untitled comes from a Hafiz poem translating
to ‘The day of travel and night of separation
love ended. I predicted this, the star
passed, and everything came to an end.’ The
second Untitled shows a couple serenading
each other. ‘I am dying with anticipation/
dying from eagerness, but there is no way
out through the curtain. Or if there is a way
out, the guard/keeper of the curtain will not
show it to me.’ Rife with romantic pathos, the
verses evoke love as a force transcending natural
boundaries. Farah employs intricate textures
and patterns highly reminiscent of Islamic
art traditions, through extremely delicate and
controlled brushwork. The figures are tenderly
set in a history of Persian iconography and
heritage, alluding to a magical splendour
begotten by love.
Untitled
Gouache on cardboard
75 x 60 cm
2003-2005
Untitled
Gouache on cardboard
75 x 55 cm
2003-2006

Faiza Butt
b. 1973, Pakistan
Born in Lahore, Pakistan, to a matriarchal
family of five sisters, Faiza Butt received an
early creative education in the arts. She graduated
with honours from the National College
of Art in Pakistan, receiving the Gold Medal
award for outstanding work. In 1999, she
was awarded the Unesco-Aschberg bursary
for artists, completing a residency at the Bartle
Arts Trust in Durban, South Africa. During her
stay, she conducted talks and workshops in
many art galleries and museums in the Natal
region. Subsequently, Faiza travelled to London
where she went on to complete postgraduate
studies in painting at the Slade school
of Art, gaining a Distinction for her work.
From the beginning, Faiza’s practice has born
a strong social relevance, and her paintings
raise important issues surrounding gender politics.
Created in London, Faiza’s work displays
a hybridity of elements, unique to her as an
artist in diaspora. It addresses issues that face
us all, beyond boundaries and cultural parameters,
exploring quandaries of the human condition.
Specially commissioned for The unbreakable
rope, Love in Bloom is a work inspired by the
poetic works of Abu Nuwas. Faiza uses the
ancient aesthetic of the ‘Kiswa’ (the Kaaba’s
ornate cover) to create an original hybrid font.
The English text is crafted into digital Kofic
font and infused with shapes of contemporary
gold jewellery. As both a spiritual and material
substance, gold has always held a strong
influence over Faiza’s work, calling to mind the
sought-after element and currency in Middle
Eastern and Asian, as well as Western, cultures.
Faiza has also created the ornate metallic
logo of The unbreakable rope.
Abu Nuwas’s poem has been laid out like the
pages of an open book (the Quran) with a
heavily ornate border in a style reminiscent of
the illustrated and illuminated borders of sacred
books. It is often quoted that the holy text of
the Quran reads lyrically, almost like poetry.
In an effort to draw a comparison between
the carnal and the ethereal, Faiza paradoxically
fuses the aesthetics of the sacred with the
worldly longings of Abu Nuwas for his lover. In
the Sufi tradition of poetry, the infinity of God
is manifest in unbridled devotion and passion
for the beloved.
Faiza’s approach towards text is to use word
as image. Her ongoing research into the origins
of writing, the plurality of text and the
visual import of written word has influenced her
crafting of Love in Bloom. In its powerful visual
repertoire of letter, word and font, Faiza’s work
holds appeal even for those who cannot read
the particular translation. The universality of
symbols and codes is of great importance to
Faiza, and the poem has been developed with
this particular intention. “We live in this visual
age, where familiarity and association heavily
influence our day-to-day opinions. The contorting
of Abu Nuwas’s translation creates a fusion
that does not necessarily sit in a particular cultural
box, and becomes a universal message
of love and tolerance.”
Faiza lives and works in London. Her works
are in various private and public collections
including the British Museum and the Kiran
Nadar Museum in Delhi.
Love In Bloom
Digital print on Duratrans mounted on lightbox
150 x 78 cm
2015

Ibi Ibrahim
b. 1987, USA
Born in the United States but raised throughout
the the Middle East, between Yemen, Libya,
Iraq and the Unites Arab Emirates, Ibi was
always surrounded by Islamic culture. His photographic
work reflects his multicultural sensibility
and nomadic history, mixing traditional
values with issues of sexual identity, seen as
inherently taboo in the conservative societies
in which he was raised.
Ibi’s photographs are emotive yet poised, with
erotically-charged imagery that speaks openly
of love, body positivity, gender and sexual
equality. His work throws light on a history
of sexual freedom despite the recent trend
of religious conservatism in the Middle East.
Often working with a monochromatic palette,
Ibi documents a tradition of passion within
Islamic cultures, bringing it into the modern
day using contemporary subjects in controlled
if extremely sensual compositions.
Ibi’s work illuminates liberalism within Middle
Eastern cultures, by celebrating sexual relationships
often eschewed by Eastern and Western
societies. His photographs aim to facilitate free
love and free speech, yet they are banned
from being displayed in his familiar Yemen.
In 2010, Ibi was awarded the GLAAD OUT
Best Emerging Artist award, and in 2014, he
became the first Yemeni artist to participate
in the Cité Internationale des Arts residency
program in Paris. After finishing a residency
at GlogauAIR, Ibi currently lives and works in
Berlin.
For The unbreakable rope, Ibi is presenting two
works. The first is a panel of nine black and
white photographs of digital pigment printed
on Hahnemühle photo rag fine art paper,
showing a young man in a series of poses on
an unmade bed. The title Sans Toi (Without
You) suggests he is pining for his lover. The
images are universally engaging and recognisable
to anyone who has mourned the loss
of a loved one. They suggest the torturous
passageways of any relationship, especially if
strained by cultural boundaries. Ibi’s second
work consists of three vertical panels, printed
by the same process but in vibrant colour. It
shows a couple who, through their cropped
faces, become an anonymous representation
of courtship in an Islamic culture. Their dress
is traditional, and the setting appears to be a
secluded terrace. Entitled Habibi Tala (Darling,
Come!), the work touches on the restraints
placed on relationships by mores of religious
conservatism and the roles played by each
gender within these limits.
I feel that sexual exploration has become a
taboo subject recently. I watch old Egyptian
films quite often, and I can clearly see that
sexuality was common in those films unlike
today’s. So you can see that the idea of sexuality
and exploring it has been quite common in
the region at one point at least. Maybe what
I am trying to do is to bring back that era of
freedom of expression in art and cinema.
Ibi’s work has been exhibited through out the
United States, Europe and the Middle East.
It belongs to a number of private collections
as well Colorado College (USA) and Barjeel
Art Foundation (UAE). Ibi would like to thank
JAMM Art Gallery, Dubai for providing his
works in The unbreakable rope.
Sans Toi (Without You)
Digital pigment print on Hahnemühle photo rag fine art paper
30 x 45 cm (each panel)
Edition of 5 + 1AP
2013
Habibi Tala (Darling, Come!)
Digital pigment print on Hahnemühle
photo rag fine art paper
40 x 60 cm (each panel)
Edition of 5 + 1AP
2013

Alison Butler
b. 1986, USA
Alison Butler is a Los Angeles-based
musicologist and composer. Her work
explores allusion in formalist art works,
with a particular interest in the threshold
between meaningful referentiality and
meaningless over-determination. Alison
is a recipient of a University of Southern
California Endowed Arnold Fellowship
and has received academic distinction
for her work on the twentieth-century
serial composer Milton Babbitt, on whom
she is currently completing her doctorate.
Previously Alison lived in Chennai,
India and worked alongside Bollywood
composer, A.R. Rahman, transcribing,
arranging and orchestrating songs for the
Academy Award-winning film, Slumdog
Millionaire.
Shane Winter
b. 1981, USA
Shane Winter is a composer, sound and
graphics designer, and visual effects
artist from Washington state. His work
has appeared on television, Radio Lab,
NPR and in multi-media projects in and
around Los Angeles. Shane’s music plays
on the dichotomy between the natural
and technological world, putting ecologically-
and biologically-inspired concepts
in dialogue with synthesised sounds.
Specially commissioned for The unbreakable
rope, Moon reflects upon the moon
as a symbol of femininity, as an invitation
to violence and as a promulgator of
dreams. The work metaphorically enacts
the violence done to oppressed voices,
first by stripping the work’s source sample
of its text and reconstituting it so that a
listener might perceive only the percussive
echo of what was spoken, then
by compressing and filtering the work’s
source material beyond recognition.
Frequencies are eliminated so that the
speaker’s message becomes fragmented
and distorted. The voice, in one sense,
is effectively silenced. And yet, despite
the physical restrictions imposed on the
sample, the voice builds upon itself,
reverberating at the speaker’s suggestion
to imagine. To imagine is to embark on
the path to make real.
The formal devices that Moon employs
are indebted to the socially conscious
tape works originating from San Francisco
during the 1960s. Specifically, the work’s
delays and phase shifting (in addition to
symbolising the phases of the moon) pay
homage to Steve Reich’s civil rights work
Come Out (1966) and Pauline Oliveros’s
feminist Bye Bye Butterfly (1965). Finally,
Moon engages the provocation in the
work of the British artist Sarah Maple.
The opening fragmentation and phasing
of the word ‘moon’ elicits the sound of
one’s voyeuristic gaze at the painting.
Through the course of the composition,
Maple’s symbolic assault is transformed
through the music, which petitions one
to listen and to imagine, in a meditative
incantation.
Moon
Recorded and synthesized sound
Duration 4’40”
2016

Lisa Bretherick
b. 1981, UK
After a career working in graphic design and
brand marketing, Lisa Bretherick discovered
her calling in documentary and portrait photography.
Combining her two loves -- art and
people -- she began training alongside professional
photographers to refine her skills. Lisa’s
resulting body of work focusses on capturing
human emotion in a variety of states. “If I have
an aim when I photograph, it is to tell stories
that evoke emotion and reaction which would
not otherwise be experienced. If those experiences
change attitudes, emotions or actions,
then the stories have been worth telling.”
Lisa has exhibited work at the Science
Museum and at The Hub Kings Cross. She has
also worked with high-profile charities including
Cancer Research, De Paul, Diabetes UK,
British Heart Foundation, Women’s Rape and
Sexual Abuse Centre, the Big Issue and Age
Concern, using her photographs as a medium
to tell passionate stories of human lives involved
with these causes.
For The unbreakable rope, Lisa is presenting a
series of images taken surrounding the tragic
circumstances in which a romantic relationship
was cut short. On 30th July 2014, Dr Nazim
Mahmood ended his own life, two days after
his religious family confronted him about his
homosexuality. It was the first time they had
heard about his thirteen-year relationship with
his fiancé, Matt Ogston. In Naz’s memory,
Matt set up the Naz and Matt Foundation
to support and empower LGBTQI (Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and
Intersex) individuals, their friends and family
to help resolve challenges linked to gender
and sexual identity, particularly where religion
exerts a strong influence. The Naz and Matt
Foundation hopes to open closed minds in
families and in communities, so non-heteronormative
individuals are loved for who they are
and who they were born to be.
Spending time with Matt over the past year, I
have seen and experienced some of his journey
with him since his partner Naz passed
away. I could never pretend to understand or
feel the amount of pain he has been through,
but over time he has given me a little window
into some of his thoughts and fears, highs and
lows, memories, regrets and unanswered questions.
Photographing with Matt has become a
medium for him to document his thoughts and
memories in order to allow him the opportunity
to let them go. It has become a means of
sharing his journey in the hope that we can
affect hearts and minds. Together we have
been down memory lane - he has talked, we
have sat in silence, we have walked and listened
and taken in our surroundings. I have
photographed when I feel the time is right and
when there are feelings to capture. The images
are intimate and raw. We are not trying to tell
anyone anything, or shock people into seeing
different things, just exposing human nature in
its most raw and innocent form, in the hope
that anyone, whatever religion, faith, background
or age might be able to connect to
Matt’s story. Through connection, we are some
of the way to opening minds to new ways of
thinking.
Lost in Memory
Digital display
Production by Lisa Bretherick with audio by Jessica Marlow and voiced by Matthew Naz Mahmood-Ogston
2016
The Celebration of Naz
Prints on Fuji DPII Silver Halide mounted on MDF
40 x 30 cm (each panel)
2014

Tareq Sayed Rajab de Montfort
b. 1989, Kuwait
Images representing
the performance on 9
March 2016 at Free
Word Centre
Born in Kuwait, with British, Iraqi and Meccan
ancestry, Tareq Sayed Rajab de Montfort
was educated in Islamic art and philosophy
at a prominent Islamic Museum. After fleeing
Kuwait at the age of 17, he came to London to
study Fine Art at Central Saint Martin’s College
of Art and Design.
As an artist, Tareq identifies as a
Gesamtkunstwerk, an all-encompassing work
of art. His oeuvre includes photography, illuminated
drawings, and historical and religious
research. He is known especially for using
his own body as a tool of self-expression and
marker of his own socioeconomic and cultural
background. Inspired by his childhood surrounded
by Islamic art, Tareq has begun tattooing
his body with the ninety-nine names of
Allah, to form a Zikr (a remembrance of divinity)
and personified ‘Object of Virtu’. Tareq
acts as a corporal vessel of dialogue, questioning
and reinterpreting Islamic and Arabic
epistemology.
redefines perceptions of Islamic values by
shedding light on lost knowledge.
In a work commissioned for The unbreakable
rope, Tareq presents a series of ‘vignettes’
involving his own body, voice and a theatrical
set to convey discourses of Western literature
and Islamic scripture, elucidating ideas of esoteric
love throughout history. Through spoken
word, poetry and visual storytelling, he
re-evaluates Arab-Islamic identity in a swiftly
changing globalised world, where Eastern
and Western cultures more than ever require
rapport. ‹Just like so often with the Quran,
words can be deceivingly interpreted (‘The
devil can cite scripture for his purpose’ –
William Shakespeare), ambiguous sounding
lines from Shakespeare even today in a certain
context can sound violent or intimidate.’
Tareq has had solo shows in London and Paris,
where his work has been noted for its close
and critical readings of sacred texts and exegesis.
Drawing on classical and romantic iconographies,
he creates an Islamic avant-garde.
Tareq aligns himself with 19th-century ‘Cults of
Beauty’, using self-expression, aesthetic theory
and philosophy across cultures to shape his
work. He refers to beauty as a healing balm
manifested through art and sensuality.
As Tareq hails from a country where homosexuality
is banned, the systematic repression
of sexual freedom is a theme featuring prominently
in his work. Bigoted ideologies are
challenged by his rediscovery and re-presentation
of the Arab region’s history of sensual art
and literature, often alongside a celebration of
‘Ishq’, or divine love on earth. Tareq’s practice

Rachel Maggart,
b. 1985, USA
Rachel Maggart grew up in Knoxville,
Tennessee. She trained for twenty years as
a classical pianist and received a degree in
Music from New York University, before working
as an art writer for a variety of print and
digital publications. Rachel expanded into
working as a consultant in public relations
and development for non-profit organisations
committed to experimental and emerging art
forms. She went on to pursue a Masters in Art
History at Hunter College in New York but
midway through relocated to London to finish
her degree at Birkbeck College, where she
received a scholarship awarded to only two
non-EU scholars at the School of Arts.
Soon after arriving in London, Rachel began
working as a dealer of modern art for a
Mayfair gallery, which inspired her to cultivate
her own longstanding fascination with artistic
practice. She opened her first solo exhibition
of ten paintings in Borough Market’s Roast
Restaurant in 2015. As primitive digital collages
transposed to canvas, the works use
British pop and art historical iconography as a
point of departure for examining contemporary
modes of perception and pre-packaged visual
narratives.
Rachel has become increasingly attuned to
issues of policing and scrutiny in the name of
Islam, since marrying ex-Islamist and political
prisoner turned advocate for liberal values and
Islamic reform, Maajid Nawaz. Critics of her
husband have stalked and maligned her family
on public fora, and in April 2015, prior to
Maajid’s Liberal Democrat Parliamentary campaign,
circulated a Daily Mail article strategically
publishing CCTV footage of his visit to a
London strip club. Video footage was leaked
to the newspaper via the club’s Muslim owner,
who scorned Maajid for his indulgent behaviour
during Ramadan. The coverage and its
propagation in outlets such as the ‘Middle
East Eye’ incited death threats to Maajid and
necessitated installing panic alarms around
their flat and in Rachel’s studio.
Double Exposure is the artist’s response to
this exploitative and mortifying experience.
Revisiting her method of appropriating and
manipulating loaded imagery to expose
underlying motives and hidden value systems,
Rachel has recycled pieces of text and stereotyped
representations of both the sacred and
the profane to shine a light on the manufacture
and dissemination of moralising viewpoints.
Paying tribute to the fallen Charlie Hebdo
Editor in Chief, Charb’s reflection on God
as a super-surveillance camera, the painting
mocks voyeurism masquerading as religious
observance. Images of sensual Quranic fantasies
and Western debauchery converge in a
decapitated body, to complicate conventional
notions of beauty and objects of desire. Equal
parts naïf and baroque, the painting interrogates
looking for the sake of looking. It forces
the viewer to consider context before subject
matter and glossy facades obscuring deeper
interpretations of events.
‘Verily, as for those who like [to hear] foul slander
spread against [any of] those who have
attained to faith grievous suffering awaits them
in this world and in the life to come: for God
knows [the full truth], whereas you know [it]
not.’ – 24:19, Muhammad Asad translation
Double Exposure
Oil on canvas
70 x 100 cm
2016

Sarah Maple
b. 1985, UK
Born in Sussex to an Iranian Muslim mother
and Christian British father, Sarah Maple’s
upbringing under a dual-religious household
has impacted greatly on her work. Upon
graduating from a degree in Fine Art from
Kingston University, her reputation grew after
winning after winning Channel 4 and Saatchi
Gallery’s 4 New Sensations award, which
aimed to find “the most exciting and imaginative
artistic talent in the UK”. In 2015 Sarah
was awarded a £30,000 grant by Sky Arts
Scholarship to continue her work promoting
diversity issues.
Sarah’s upbringing under a roof of mixed religious
ethics is a prominent theme in her oeuvre.
Blurring the lines between popular culture and
religious devotion in an unapologetically mischievous
manner, Sarah’s art challenges traditional
concepts of identity, sexuality, religion,
gender and concepts of identity, sexuality,
religion, gender and roles of women in patriarchal
societies. Her work fuses painting, photography,
mixed media and performance.
bold and confident images are pragmatic in
their ethical questioning. Photos of a self-made
‘anti rape cloak’, naked self-portrait paintings
with genitalia blocked by the words ‘using
my intelligence’ and canvases stating ‘this is
an investment’ all raise conversations on the
nature of art in society, and its deeper place
as an instrument for affecting a more inquisitive
and tolerant collective consciousness.
In my work I aim to make people question
beliefs or ingrained attitudes/learned
behaviour, almost without them realising it.
For me art is about trying to create social
change...I try to be an activist in my everyday
life. I feel that small gestures can have a
knock-on effect on the world around me. In a
piece called ‘Inaction’ I used a lyric from a
Faithless song ‘Inaction is a weapon of mass
destruction’ because I believe we are all
responsible for change in our own individual
way. In the piece the words dominate, and
the viewer is forced to look him or herself in
the eye.
Sarah has exhibited at galleries including A.I.R
Gallery in New York, AGO in Canada, the
Southbank Centre in London, the New Art
Exchange in Nottingham, Golden Thread
Gallery in Belfast and Kunisthoone in Estonia.
Her work has been the subject of several documentaries
including ARTE and VPRO, and
she has been invited as a guest speaker to
Amnesty International, as well as Universities of
Warwick, Birmingham and Oxford. Sarah has
collaborated with the artist and filmmaker Nick
Knight on video projects, and her work has
featured in publications by Phaidon, Gestalten
and the Whitechapel Gallery.
For The unbreakable rope, Sarah is presenting
two works: God Is A Feminist and Self-portrait
with my Mother’s Headscarf and Breast of Kate
Moss. This pair of paintings evokes the feminist
controversy between Eastern and Western
societies, concerning the traditional versus the
contemporary visions of a female’s role within
society, at the same time challenging received
knowledge of gender in religious contexts.
God is a Feminist
Oil, acrylic and gloss on canvas
190 x 150 cm
2009
Self-Portrait with my Mother’s Headscarf and
Breast of Kate Moss
Oil on board
228.6 cm x 152.4 cm
Sarah’s work has a strong sense of irony, often
charged with allusions to contemporary celebrity
culture, the objectification of women and
Western society’s views towards Islam. Her

Soody Sharifii
b. 1955, Iran
Soody Sharifi is an American/Iranian
artist working in photography, painting
and collage to untangle the paradoxes
of the two cultures under which she has
grown up. She challenges notions of
Eastern and Western through her multi-disciplinary
oeuvre exploring concepts of
identity. Soody approaches her subjects
from the view of both an outsider and an
insider, investigating ideas of alienation
and integration. Much of her work examines
what it means to be a young Muslim
in both Iran and the United States in the
21st century, and how modernity can be
embraced and interwoven into a traditional
society with strong religious ideals.
Since the age of 17, Soody has lived
and worked in Houston, Texas, where
she studied for a Bachelor of Science
in Industrial Engineering at the University
of Houston in 1982. In 2004 she re-enrolled
to complete a Master of Fine Arts
in Studio Photography. Her carefully
staged works show an influence of meticulous
planning and physical context.
They feel engineered and practical in
their structure and execution. In 2010
Soody completed a residency at Stiftung
Kunstledorf Schoppingen, Germany, and
she has been the subject of several solo
exhibitions throughout the USA, Finland
and Slovakia. Her works are in the
collections of the Museum of Fine Arts
in Portland, the Museum of Fine Arts in
Houston and the Farjam Collection in the
United Arab Emirates.
As part of The unbreakable rope, Soody
is presenting work from her Maxiature
series. The works appear as large-scale
Islamic illuminated manuscript illustrations,
yet collaged with contemporary
figures in the scenes. They are finely
detailed and saturated with colour, referencing
the exquisite craft of the Islamic
manuscript illuminators who were true
masters of their art – an art that took
many years to master both because of
its painstaking technique and rich heritage.
The contemporary figures address
the ways in which young people interact
with a society strongly underpinned by
traditional values, at the same time situated
in an age of unparalleled social
and technological change. The works
are highly alluring in their colour and
labyrinthine compositional schemes,
alluding to convoluted imaginings of history.
Soody Sharifi uses the tradition of
Persian miniature painting and photo-collage
to present a dialogical critique of
the entrenched positions separating the
Western and Muslim worlds.
The Maxiature series intervenes in the
tradition of Persian miniature painting,
incorporating contemporary issues and
art practices into the centuries-old form.
The series ruptures the miniature tradition
on two levels: the medium (the works use
photography) and the kinds of narratives
depicted, which lead to incongruous
and at times humorous results. As highly
sophisticated pieces of visual language,
Persian miniatures often explore the tension
between public and private spaces.
In particular, they offer the viewer idealized
vignettes of daily court life behind
the palace walls.
The Maxiature works open up the private
spaces of domestic settings to provide
the audience with a privileged insight in
to Islamic culture behind closed doors.
Whilst Islamic miniatures traditionally
show courtly spectacles such as elegant
receptions, sporting hunts and romantic
encounters (by characters who are
depicted as generic types rather than
specific individuals), the protagonists of
Soody’s works are sourced from staged
and documented photographs. By blurring
the line between fiction and reality,
they suggest a tension between Islamic
culture and Western influences. Religious
and secular attitudes collide in Soody’s
works, revealing a miscegenation of
visual narratives before rendered in black
and white.
A Courtly Love
Archival inkjet print
89 x 114.3 cm
Edition of 6
2007
Love is in the Air
Archival inkjet print
94 x 114.3 cm
Edition of 3
2007

Curators
The unbreakable rope: an exploration of
sexuality in Islam has been curated by Harry
Seymour and Rachel Maggart in conjunction
with Nazish Khan, artistic director at Quilliam,
and Free Word.
Harry Seymour is an art historian, curator
and critic based in London who completed his
postgraduate studies at The Courtauld Institute.
He specialises in exploring and elucidating the
historical dialogues and narratives between
contemporary and classical art in both Eastern
and Western traditions.
Rachel Maggart is an artist, curator and
writer, who holds an MA in History of Art
from Birkbeck College and BA in Music from
New York University. Her first solo show, New
Britannia: Reinventing British Iconography is on
display at Roast Restaurant in Borough Market
until March 2016.
Nazish Khan is artistic director for Quilliam’s
Season of #Solidarity. Nazish has an LLB from
Brunel University and an MA in Theatre from
City University. She is co-founder of Angry
Bairds Theatre, the writer of the five star play
Pole Factor and co-writer of international,
immersive theatre and dining experience EAT.

The curators and Quilliam would
like to thank:
All of the artists: Farah, Soody, Lisa, Ibi, Sarah,
Faiza, Tareq, Alison and Shane for their distinctly
fascinating works and willingness to
participate in a show of highly divisive subject
matter; galleries Rossi & Rossi, Leila Heller
and Kashya Hildebrand; Anna Wallace for
reaching out to Kashya Hildebrand and Nour
Aslam for facilitating an introduction to Anna;
Jacob Krynauw for his generous catalogue
design; Matt Ogston for selflessly retelling his
story for others’ good; Seemaa Butt and Tareq
de Montfort for making themselves vulnerable
to an audience; Nazish Khan for sharing her
brainchild with us and providing guidance all
along the way; Mandana Jalalian for her translations;
Lulu Al-Sabah for bringing Ibi’s works to
London; Rose Fenton, Sophie Wardell, Lauren
Mooney and Tim Fletcher for giving their time
and space for multiple events, their skills and
belief in our work; Arab British Centre for connecting
us to Free Word; Elana Woodgate
for her advice on contracts; our families and
friends for their support; and all the inspiring
people we have met over the course of this
project.
Published on the occasion of The unbreakable rope: an exploration of sexuality in Islam
10 March – 8 June 2016
Free Word Centre, 60 Faringdon Road, Clerkenwell, London, EC1R 3GA
© 2016 Copyright Quilliam Foundation and the contributors
Text by Harry Seymour and Rachel Maggart
No part of this publication may be copied or reproduced in any form without the
permission from the copyright holder.
www.unbreakablerope.com
information@quilliamfoundation.org