Standardization in the Islamic Arts of the Book: the Master-Apprentice Relationship and the Tradition of Licensing

Abstract

During the Ottoman era when the Islamic arts of the book constituted a living tradition, master-apprentice instruction (mashq) ensured a certain degree of continuity but did not prevent the occasional emergence of radical artistic innovations. By contrast, in contemporary Turkey where this tradition has been interrupted, the arts in question have been frozen in the persons of a set of arbitrarily selected artists, resulting in the imposition of a static and imitative orthodoxy. This article examines the roles of the master-apprentice relationship and the awarding of artistic licenses (ijazah) in the standardization of the Islamic arts of the book. The historical development of the mashq system is reviewed first, together with the artistic licenses that represent both its end-point and its principal method of quality control. The historical perception of the master-apprentice relationship as reflected by biographical dictionaries and other primary sources is assessed, as well as the partial replacement of individually granted licenses with institutional ones during the later period. This is followed by a discussion of the notion of degeneracy that first surfaced in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century and then entered both left- and right-wing discourses in Turkey during the second half of the century. The influence of this concept on the arts of manuscript illumination and paper marbling, and its consequences, are reviewed next. While the invention of a new licensing tradition in the arts of illumination and marbling, neither of which had such a tradition in the past, can be posited as an effort to forestall their degeneration, in fact the betrayal of tradition for the sake of preserving tradition clearly constitutes a paradox; moreover, this approach stands in the way of the natural further development of the Islamic arts of the book.