Muhammad images removed by NY museum?
New York Post reports Metropolitan has chosen to pull prophet's pictures, apparently in order to avoid tensions with Muslim population. Museum spokeswoman says controversial images 'under review'
The Metropolitan Museum in New York is considered one of the most important art museums in the world with one of the biggest collections. Its Islamic art collection includes 60,000 pieces, but now it appears that the institution's managers are trying to avoid tensions with the Muslim population and have chosen to pull images of Prophet Muhammad from the collection.
The New York Post reported Sunday that the museum said the controversial images were "under review". According to critics, however, the Metropolitan has a history of dodging criticism and avoiding controversial issues. Conservative Muslims who say their religion forbids images of their holy founder.
A source with inside knowledge of the museum said it likely wanted to escape the kind of outcry that Danish cartoons of Muhammad caused in 2006. "This is typical of the Met – trying to avoid any controversy," the source said.
According to the New York Post, the Metropolitan currently has about 60 items from its Islamic collection on temporary display in a corner of its vast second-floor Great Hall while larger galleries are renovated, but its three ancient renderings of Muhammad are not among them.
Museum spokeswoman Egle Zygas explained, "We have a very small space at the moment in which to display the whole sweep of Islamic art. They didn't fit the theme of the current installation."
But Islamic art experts are not certain Muhammad will go on display when the Metropolitan finishes its $50 million renovation in 2011. Kishwar Rizvi said the museum, which has one of the world's best Islamic collections, has nothing to fear from Muhammad.
"Museums shouldn't shy away from showing this in a historical context," said Rizvi, historian of Islamic Art at Yale University.
Just recently, the Metropolitan decided its highly anticipated "Islamic Galleries" will be given an awkward new name ahead of the 2011 opening. Visitors will stroll around rooms dedicated to art from "Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia," according to a museum press release.
Rizvi said it was "a shame" the museum dropped the word Islamic from the title. "It's cumbersome and problematic to base it on nationalistic boundaries," the historian said.
