Ivan Aguéli
Ivan Aguéli (Johan Gustaf Agelii or Sheikh Abd Al-Hadi Aqhili), (Sala, Sweden May 24, 1869 - Barcelona, Spain October 1, 1917) was a Swedish-born Impressionist painter and Sufi scholar.
Early youth
Growing up as the son of a veterinary in the Swedish small-town of Sala, Aguéli began showing a keen interest in Islam and Swedenborgian Christianity in his early teenage years.
According to the records kept at the Royal Library in Stockholm, the first books he came to borrow there was the Holy Koran, followed by the works of the French poet Charles Baudelaire.
Paris
Becoming a promising painter, Aguéli moved to Paris in 1890 where he became the student of the Impressionist painter Émile Bernard and also got to know Cézanne, Gauguin and van Gogh. While in France he studied the Koran and Oriental languages and also developed a keen interest in political anarchism and animal-rights.
Cairo, Sufism and Guénon
Aguéli converted to Islam sometime in the late 19th century. Later on Aguéli moved to Cairo where he lived a poverty-stricken life. Aguéli was initiated into the Shadhiliyya Sufi order by the great Egyptian Shaykh Abder Rahman Eliyas El-Kabir. He was also one of the first Europeans to study Arabic and Islamic philosophy at the al-Azhar Unversity in Cairo. After being given the title Muqaddim (representative) of the Shadiliyya Sufi order in Europe, he travelled extensively in Egypt, Spain, France and Sweden. It was during a stay in Paris that he in 1912 introduced the French philosopher René Guénon to Islam and initiated him into Sufism.(see also: Sufi studies)
Regarding the great Sufi Ibn Al-Arabi, Aguéli once wrote "I had read his books before I knew Arabic, I had seen his face before I knew his name...".
Regarding the state of the Muslims, Aguéli wrote the following in an article published in 1911: "If Muslims are disloyal and unfatihful, still the religion of Truth will never alter. God's religion stands above all the actions of men, be they good or evil; He is He, and His religion belongs to Himself in all circumstances, upon which no tracks will be left by the footsteps of ephemeral events. To the Truths of our religion belongs the following, that the world is such as God, the Most High, has wished. Hence demand perfection only of yourself. If you come to demand it of anyone but yourself, and then fail to perceive it, then you are interfering in the Creator's, the Mighty's, Great and Glorious is He, in His right."
Spain
During the First World War Aguéli kept on living in Cairo. As Aguéli dressed in Arab clothing and only mixed in Arab circles, the British administration came to suspect that he was an Ottoman spy and in 1916 expelled him from Egypt to Spain. Stranded in Spain he lacked the funds to continue back to Sweden. Finally, his friend and patron Prince Eugén of Sweden began an attempt to help him back, but in 1917 Aguéli tragically died in a tram accident near Barcelona.
"If a Sufi Shaykh one day would pick up a brush..."
Aguéli was of the belief that an artefact made by an artist had the ability of transferring the spiritual state of the artist to the spectator. In an article written in 1912 he states "...that is why noone in the West is considered cultured unless he knows the paintings of the greatest masters...". In the same article Aguéli also states that "...if a Sufi Shaykh one day would pick up a brush and paint a painting, one would merely have to view his paining in order to have a glimpse of his spiritual state of realisation...".
Miscellaneous
- During his lifetime Aguéli proved to be a linguistic genius who learnt to speak and write fluent Arabic, and he was said to have known up to 16 languages.
- Aguéli had a very sincere love for animals and while living in France he also participated in active protests. In one famous incident, in a bull-fighting arena in Southern France, he shot and wounded two matadors. Rallying the entire French anti-bullfighting lobby he was only given a suspended sentence.
- A Swedish friend once heard him say "He has not lived, who has not slept in the desert and heard the camels grunting..."
- One of his favourite cats was an adopted Cairo street-cat called "Mabruka".
- Aguéli also lived for some time in Sri Lanka amongst its Malay community. He contrasted the architectural beauty of Egypt to the natural beauty of Sri Lanka.
- Aguéli began showing Oriental character traits very early in his youth. At one famous occasion when visiting a rather exclusive café in central Stockholm he persuaded all his friends to settle down on the floor, naturally this “Turkish” behaviour was rather out of place in the late 19th century Stockholm and did cause quite a stir amongst the waiters.
- Swedish genealogists have in recent years managed to trace Aguéli‘s ancestry to the Swedish Bishop Jesper Swedberg who also was the father of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. It is presumed that Aguéli himself was unaware of this connection when as a teenager he began to show an interest in Swedenborg’s teachings.
- In Sweden, Aguéli is admired as one of its most prominent modern painters and his paintings are considered to be national treasures. Most of his paintings are found at the Swedish National Museum of Fine arts (Stockholm), the Museum of Modern Art (Stockholm) and the Aguéli Museum (Sala).
- Many of Aguéli's later Egyptian paintings are very small since he, due to poverty, could not afford to purchase paint in Cairo.
- In 1969, at the centenary of his birth, six of his paintings were printed as stamps by the Swedish Postal Service.
- Aguéli's remains were kept in Spain until 1982, when he was brought back to Sweden and re-buried with Islamic rites in his hometown of Sala. In Sala there is a museum and a park dedicated to his memory.