Was there such a thing as modern Islamic art? In this seminar, delivered at Al-Mahdi Institute on 29th April 2026, Professor Gallois challenges the dominant view that colonialism brought Islamic visual culture to an end. Instead, he argues that the colonial period produced some of the most sophisticated and spiritually rich art in Islamic history — much of it deliberately hidden from imperial eyes.In this seminar, you'll discover:- Why aniconism (the avoidance of the human figure) is largely a 19th-century Western invention, not a timeless feature of Islam- How the Murīdiyya Sufi order in Senegal turned image-making into direct anti-colonial resistance — and why French authorities ordered Islamic engravings destroyed- The hidden fifth dome in a Tunisian watercolour later appropriated by Paul Klee, and what it reveals about the Islamic concept of the bāṭin (the hidden)- Why Muḥammad ʻAbduh's famous 1904 fatwā on images may have narrowed rather than enriched Islamic visual culture- How Muslim artists encoded religious identity in plain sight — in marketplace domes, reverse glass paintings, and devotional imagery — under conditions of empire🎓 Professor William Gallois is a historian at the University of Exeter's Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, specialising in colonial history, violence, and Islamic visual culture.