There is no figurative art in the long history of Islamic tradition, fitting, in a culture where the female form—habitually veiled and shrouded—has for centuries been obscured, rather than revealed as the object of artistic scrutiny. In this century and throughout the last, it is perhaps the burqa, more than any other article of hijab, that has most come to represent the complex dichotomies dividing the world as we know it today. In the post-apocalyptic aftermath of the events that occurred on 9/11, the photographer Leslie Bahr’s journeys to Egypt were conceived out of incomprehensibility: how could such acts be a reflection of anything considered holy, in any culture? The resultant images offer an immersion into ambiguity, an allegory of irresolution in terms of the world’s continuous “holy” wars. Yet the light they contain seeks to dispel this darkness.
