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| Professor Mona Siddiqui and artist Soniya Ahmed with one of her Issachar Award winning paintings |
- Specially created oil paintings reflecting on gratitude by artist Soniya Ahmed unveiled in Dubai.
- GSA MLitt in Fine Art Practice student drew on personal experiences in award-winning submission.
- Prize is part of “Gratitude: Christian and Muslim Perspectives”, a project chaired by Professor Mona Siddiqui of the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh
Artist Soniya Ahmed believes she has much to be grateful for. An Iraqi Kurdish student who moved to the UK in 2010, Soniya drew on her personal experiences in her award-winning submission for the first Issachar Fund Art Prize, a prize which asked artists to create work reflecting the theme of gratitude.
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Painting by Issachar Award winning artist Soniya Ahmed
which was unveiled in Dubai on Sunday 12 January 2020 |
Soniya’s oil paintings, which have been unveiled in Dubai both express her own gratitude and at the same time show how to embrace the power of gratitude. Through the paintings, which represent a broad swathe of the world’s nations, religions, philosophy, thoughts and art,viewers are able to recreate the experience in their minds, remembering and understanding gratitude.
“Gratitude is the surest pathway both to success and happiness,” says Soniya who is currently studying for a MLitt in Fine Art Practice at The Glasgow School of Art. “It can change your life because it makes you appreciate what you have rather than what you don’t have. It can change your life. It is the single most powerful source of inspiration that any person can tap into if they simply just stop and pay attention to the simplistic beauty and miracle of life.”
“My experience in Kurdistan Iraq has taught me a lot
about the importance of having gratitude in my life.”
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Issachar Award winning artist Soniya Ahmed with one of her painting that were unveiled
in Dubai on Sunday 12 January 202 |
“My experience in Kurdistan, Iraq has taught me a lot about the importance of having gratitude in my life” she adds. “In today’s world is very easy to be ungrateful and to want things that we don’t have. Everywhere we turn we’re reminded of ‘how little have’ rather than how much we have to be grateful for. Most people hinge their happiness and gratitude on achievement rather than making it a platform.”
TheIssachar Fund Art Prize is a collaboration between the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh and The Glasgow School of Art. It is part of ‘Gratitude: Christian and Muslim Perspectives’, a project chaired by Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh and regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and Moral Maze.The project aims to bring together scholarly voices exploring the concept of gratitude through academic workshops and community events.
“The Issachar Fund Art Prize on the theme of gratitude gave me a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with the GSA,”says Professor Siddiqui. “The shortlist was strong but Soniya’s personal story and stunning artwork stood out. Her paintings convey the very essence of gratitude as a complex virtue of gift, humility and reverence.”
The Issachar Fund Art Prize is made possible by the generous sponsorship of The Issachar Fund. For further information on the work of the fund visit: http://www.issacharfund.org
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For further information contact:
Mona Siddiqui
Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh’s Divinity school in December 2011 as the first Muslim to hold a Chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies. She also holds the posts of Assistant Principal for Religion and Society and Dean international for the Middle-East at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to this, she worked at Glasgow University directing the Centre for the Study of Islam. Her research areas are primarily in the field of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and ethics and Christian-Muslim relations. Amongst her most recent publications are, 50 Ideas in Islam(Quercus, 2016), Muslim Christian Encounters4 volumes, (Routledge, 2016) Hospitality in Islam: Welcoming in God’sName(Yale UP, 2015), My Way: A Muslim Woman’s Journey (IB Tauris, 2014), Christians, Muslims and Jesus (Yale University Press, 2013) and The Good Muslim: Reflections on Classical Islamic Law and Theology(Cambridge University Press, 2012). She is currently completing her monograph on her Gifford lectures on the theme of human struggle. She holds research grants from the Henry Luce Foundation on Christian- Muslim studies and the Issachar Fund on the theme of gratitude in Christian and Islamic thought. She has held visiting professorships at several Dutch and American universities and in 2014 gave a series of lectures as a Humanitas Professor at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Siddiqui is also well known internationally as a public intellectual and a speaker on issues around religion, ethics and public life. She is a regular commentator in the media, known especially for her appearances on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland’s Thought for the Day. In June 2016, she became a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s award winning The Moral Maze. In 2012, she appeared as a guest on Radio 4’sDesert Island Discsand in July 2015, was a guest on BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions. She chairs the BBC’s Religious Advisory Committee in Scotland and during 2016 served as chair of the Scotland `Stronger In’ pro Europe campaign. In April 2016, she was invited by the Home Office to lead an independent review of shari`a councils in the UK; the report was published by the Home Office in February 2018. She served as an elected member of the Nuffield Council of Bioethics and as a member of the British Medical Associations’ Medical Ethics Committee until June 2018. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, holds six honorary doctorates and an honorary fellowship of the Royal Society of Scottish Architects for her contributions to public life. In September 2019, she was a judge on the prestigious Andrew Doolan award for the best building in Scotland.
In 2011, she was awarded an OBE for her contribution to interfaith services. In 2014 she spoke on religion and politics at the World Economic Forum in Davos and in 2017 was listed in the Debretts top 500 list of the most influential people in the UK. In April 2019, she received the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation. In April 2019 she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences.