The School of the One: A Mystery on Canvas

Abstract

In late 20th century Sudan, a new school of visual art emerged that sought to bridge what it saw as a gulf between contemporary Islamic renewal and the arts. Lamenting that the latter had gone in the direction of secular life, while the former had taken on a deeply anti-aesthetic bent, the school looked to Sufism’s aesthetic archive to revitalize Islamic artistic practice for the 21st century. Calling itself “The School of the One” (Madrasat al-Wāhid), its artists sought to harness the power of beauty inherent in Islamic theological and ritual traditions while suturing it to new ends, ones that sat in complicated relationship with state projects of Islamic social reconstruction regnant at that time. Taking as a jumping-off point a mystery that the author came to untangle about one particular painting by the founder of the School of the One, Ahmad ‘Abd al-‘Āl, this essay offers a microhistorical approach to the problem of aesthetics in late 20th and early 21st century Sudan. In what follows, the author travels with Ahmad ‘Abd al-‘Āl to both the recent and the distant past, as the artist seeks to conjure an aesthetic experience that will at once serve God and contribute to a project in pious reform that has gone deeply astray.