Of serpents and dragons in Islamic art and related animals : an iconograpical study /

Of serpents and dragons in Islamic art and related animals : an iconograpical study /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Daneshvari, Abbas, author.
Edition:	Expanded and revised edition.
Imprint:	Costa Mesa, CA : Mazda Publishers, [2021] ©2021
Description:	xxii, 220 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.
Language:	English
Series:	Bibliotheca Iranica. Islamic art and architecture series ; no. 13 Bibliotheca Iranica. Islamic art and architecture series ; 13.
Subject:	Dragons in art. Serpents in art. Islamic art and symbolism. Dragons in art. Islamic art and symbolism. Serpents in art.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12640080

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	1568593910 9781568593913
Notes:	Series information from publisher's Web site. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	In the medieval Muslim world, the dragon was the most frequently represented fabulous beast. This applied across styles and media and in both sacred and secular contexts. Yet its prominence is marked by seemingly contradictory representations. Like Plato's "Pharmakon, "; the dragon was imbued with antithetical meanings: as it stood for both the darkness of the eclipse and the light of God, the satanic and the divine, the transcendent and the earthly. The "yin" and the "yang" of Islam were embodied in the dragon, whose fire was the hell of destruction and also the blessed light of the divine. The dragon thus represented one of those exceptional and mysterious symbols that explained the more baffling phenomena such as creation, chaos and order, furthermore signifying amalgamations of dichotomous forces whose balance made life and the understanding of life possible ... -- Book Description

Table of Contents:

Background information
Names, types and attributes
The intrepid hero
Astrocosmological symbolism of the dragon
The dragon at the navel of the earth
Hybrid representations of dragons and serpents
Dragons, opium and "the kitab al-diryaq"
Dragons in the cult of the saints.