ABSTRACT
The arts of Islam have produced—choosing haphazardly among the great masters—neither a Phidias nor a Rembrandt, nothing comparable with Michelangelo's David or with Raphael's Madonnas. They have, in brief, given the world no great paintings or noble statues. In the West their arts are even less well known than those of China, Japan and India. We might conclude therefrom that the arts of Islam are of no great consequence; but this is a superficial view, concentrating, as it does, on the plastic arts. Moreover, it may well be that Islam's apparent weakness in the arts is nothing less than a symptom of strength.
