An excerpt (aka my favorite part):
In contrast with Christianity, Islam doesnât have exactly the same type of foundation in mimetic behavior: God revealed himself to Mohammad through his word, and therefore the words of the Quâran take precedence in religious imagery.4 For Islam, words are the embodiment of God. This point was emphasized in an article that I shared with my students, âThe Image of the Wordâ by Erica Cruikshank Dodd. She explains, âThe written or the recited Koran is thus identical in being and in reality with the uncreated and eternal word of God. . . If God did not reveal Himself or His Image to the Prophet, he nevertheless revealed a faithful âpictureâ of his word.â5 God sent down his image in the form of a book. In turn, Muslims decorate the interior and/or exterior of their religious spaces with phrases from the Quâran, as can be seen on the exterior of the Dome of the Rock (a structure that Oleg Grabar describes as a âvery talkative buildingâ).















