The Textile Museum of Canada is currently running an exhibition, Portable Mosques: The Sacred Space of the Prayer Rug.
Drawing on the TMC’s significant collection of carpets and rugs, Portable Mosques: The Sacred Space of the Prayer Rug features 30 prayer rugs created during the early 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Textile Museum of Canada is one of Toronto’s most engaging visual arts organizations.Also one of the most "diverse" and "inclusive," no doubt. But read the following "Exhibition Overview" and ask yourself whether this is an exhibit of rugs or an opportunity to engage in a bit of da'wa:
An important element of worship within the Islamic world, the prayer rug is a powerful expression of worldview, integrating local aesthetics and materials as well as textile practices shared across centuries and generations of weavers.
As part of daily life within Muslim cultures, the prayer rug is used several times a day, offering a clean and sanctified space in both material and representational form. Each has intricate and powerful symbolic meaning, enacting a transcendent space isolated from the profane world in which to concentrate in prayer.
Connecting the individual to the realm of the sacred, the prayer rug’s design embodies architectural details – niches and arches which represent directional points to orient the worshipper towards Mecca.
Through this symbolism, the prayer rug functions in effect as a portable mosque, fusing personal with collective experiences as well as physical and sacred spaces...Wow. Talk about freighting a woven rectangle with a whole lot of meaning. Kind of wants to make you run out and buy one for yourself, no? So that you, too, can have your very own personal portable transcendent space isolated from the profane world, I mean.
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| One of the portable mosques on display at the CTM's highly reverential exhibition of prayer rugs |
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