Beauty moves to faith

At the ELM Women's Day, the participants embarked on an aesthetic search for clues in the Arab world

What does faith have to do with beauty? The participants of this year's ELM Women's Day learnt quite a lot. As beauty evidently captivates the interest of many women, the FIT hall was filled with over 60 participants and the organising team led by Indra Grasekamp, ELM consultant for global spirituality.

Beauty not only evokes love but also inspires faith. This connection appears to be universal, transcending cultures and religions. To underscore this theme,a glance beyond the Western Christian context into the world of Islamic faith and oriental culturesproved insightful. The ELM invited Claudia Ott, an orientalist, translator and musician from Beedenbostel, as a "bridge builder". Ott provided insights into the literature, language, writing and music of the Orient offering diverse opportunities to experience the impact of beauty with all the senses.

Illustrating the purpose of beauty, Ott shared an example of the oriental Nay flute, crafted from reeds. "The reed dies the moment it is cut," explained Claudia Ott. According to people in the Islamic world, its sound harbours a longing for its root, from which it was separated. "In the same way, humans long for the perfect original state, for oneness with the Creator. And everything humans do - literature, music, art - they do in order to become one with the Creator again."

While in Christianity God embodies himself in Jesus, in Islam he does so through the Koran, the speaker explained. "Religious realisation is conveyed here as an experience of beauty". The Koran's aesthetic effect, manifested through linguistic rhythm and word repetition, was emphasized. And when the women practised their first swings of the Arabic script on the word "God", the orientalist made it clear: "Allah" is the word for God in all religions.

In the afternoon, four workshops with speakers Conny Müller, Leonore Landmann, Astrid Lange and Cristina Scherer provided the opportunity to explore individual aspects of the topic in greater depth: with hand lettering - the art of beautiful writing, with dance, literature or a look at Brazil, where women's struggle for their rights can also be understood as an expression of their beauty. An interesting revelation surfaced in the literature group: "When a love poem from the Orient, for example, says: 'There is no blemish on you', it is clear that this cannot be the case. Creation is not flawless either," the participants realised. Beauty therefore always reflects a form of goodness.

"I can truly sense the energy and joy you have driven from the workshops," says Indra Grasekamp, as everyone meets again in the plenary session at the end to give the other groups a brief, sometimes humorous insight into the past one and a half hours. "My takeaway from this day is that beauty is not an end in itself. It is not just there to be beautiful, but leads to love and faith," summarised one participant after the last song sung together at the end of the event.