Ghada Amer - Under Criticism

Despite her respect towards Islam shown in her work, Amer has not always been received well by Islamic communities. Many Muslims critique her work as being too suggestive for proper Islamic art, and feel that her work is more influenced by her Western education, with even her parents having a hard time accepting her controversy.

The role that women have played in the making of modern Egypt has been well documented. Towards the end of the 19th Century, the political and cultural revitalisation of Egypt, after centuries of oppression, began. Egyptian women began to be acknowledged as public individuals and their roles as others and wives were recognised.

However, Orthodox Muslims consider displaying the human image in any form unacceptable, so painting or drawing a nude figure of course is forbidden. The display of the human image is seemed as sacrilegious because it attempts to glorify the human figure, when it is only their God, Allah that should be glorified. However, as Allah cannot be presented as a form, appropriate Islamic art instead typically delves into abstraction and/ or calligraphy. Therefore, the suggestive content of most of Amer’s work goes against the very nature of proper Islamic art.