Music and Samāʿ

Tuesday (4a)

Muslim discourses about the legitimacy of music, singing, and sound, in ritual (samāʿ) or in general (ghināʾ, mūsīqā): historical debates, scholarly (among jurists, fuqahāʾ and Islamic scholars, ʿulamāʾ), mystical, and literary.

Due today

Two page report on the following readings: submit on http://bit.ly/mislam24a

1. Read Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, chapter 3: The Sama` Polemic. OR read "The samāʿ Controversy: Sufi vs. Legalist", by Arthur Gribetz, Studia Islamica, No. 74 (1991), pp. 43-62. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1595896 (or use this link off campus).
2. Read Shiloah, Music in the World of Islam, chapter 4 (pp. 31-44), as well as chapter 5, pp. 49-51 (section: "the ethical, cosmological and therapeutic approach"), and pp. 63-65 (sections: "the pejorative view of malahi" and "the cosmological approach"). Shiloah readings are here
3. Browse the following primary source: The chapter on "audition" (Sama`) in the monumental Ihya' `Ulum al-Din by al-Ghazali (d. 1111); the translation is online in the following articles (note: you definitely do not have to read the whole thing...just try to get the flavor and gist - what topics does he take up? what is the basis for his arguments? is he defensive? prescriptive? who is he addressing? who are the opponents?) . The chapter is: Emotional Religion in Islām as Affected by Music and Singing, translated by Duncan MacDonald, published in three installments: part I, part II, part III ...or download the whole from here.
4. Conduct your own research into primary Islamic sources concerning the debate over music and samāʿ. Try to locate a few passages from Qur'an, Hadith, or other traditional sources mentioned in the above readings, or find translations of books from the Muslim world on the topic - but only consider historical works more than 100 years old (next time we'll look at more contemporary instances). You may also peruse poetry, e.g. (translations of) Rumi. How is the topic treated in each case? Use my list of websites for some online sources, or locate your own. In your report mention what you found, and how it has been (or might be) interpreted. Please come to class prepared to present and discuss what you've found. NOTE: please do not skip class if you don't feel you've done enough research!!! This is a variable length assignment which may help launch you towards a research project, and will give you a better feel for the historical record on this topic. Even if you just introduce one hadith, it's enough...but please come to class!

Note: the wikipedia article on the topic contains many useful links and summaries that will give you a start. As I've stated in class, please do not cite wikipedia in your research papers; as a crowd-sourced tertiary source it's just not appropriate... BUT it's a very very useful resource for finding good sources! Ditto for encyclopedia articles. Note that I've compiled many useful resources on the main course site here.

Class

• My talk tomorrow: Religious freedom, sects, conflict, and musical ritual:  a comparative perspective on Islam in Egypt and Ghana, noon in 3=47 Old Arts (Sound Studies Institute). I will compare the impact of Islamic ritual performance in Egypt and Ghana, the two places where I've done most of my research. Please join us if you can!
• Reading Reports: Remember to do two things: (a) show me that you've actually done the reading - what is it about, what is its scope, what are the main points? Then (b) critique. Position it within a broader context. Why is it written (or filmed...) the way it is? Who is writing, for whom, when, and why? How is it biased by these specific contextual factors? Where are they located in relation to broader systemic ones? Can you address any such biases? All that have been submitted are excellent, but I haven't received all of them, so please ensure you are caught up.
• Qur'an: Contemporary Connections. Did you watch the DVD? It's informative, but also, a kind of educational propaganda, and in dire need of critique. Faruq Masudi, Indian director. Language of tolerance towards Christians and Jews, but also speaks of "infidels". Connection to contemporary culture, comparing Qur'an to the Internet (non-linear hypertext, the Matrix!). Exceedingly dramatic in imagery and score. Strong presence of women. Interesting academic speakers, but note that many (all?) are Muslim and mostly converts. Subtext: post-9/11 correction (apologetics?) about what Islam is, with particular focus on the word "jihad", directed to American Christians primarily. USA focus, with flag motif. The accompanying website (http://www.quranconnections.com) is no longer maintained; we can retrieve it from the Waybackmachine, though use of obsolete Flash technology means it no longer works well.
• One-page research proposal
  • Anything in the wide range of Islamic LP or Islamicate music, or considering connections (historical or structureal) to other traditions is fine. You can write about music of mosques vs churches, or details of tuning systems. But please make a link to Islam the religion, whether considered as ritual context, or as catalyst.
  • The full proposal format I use for graduate students is here. You may find its instructions useful.
  • But for Thursday just submit just one page, about 3 - 4 paragraphs, structured as follows:
    • Topic: one phrase as title
    • Aim and significance. What issue or topic do you wish to investigate? What are the key question or hypotheses? Why do you think it's important?
    • Area (brief): provide some background on the people or sounds you intend to investigate - where, who, why, when....? Include a few secondary sources, links to online media, etc.
    • You might also talk briefly about methods - how will you carry out this project, given the obvious limitations of time and other resources (for instance travel is not possible!).
• Islamic LP, continued....
  • Islamic LP genres (review on your own - we've considered all of them)
  • Sound, Space, and Place:
    • Virtual sonic architecture: the Hadim Ibrahim Pasha mosque in Istanbul
    • The Sonorous Audible Mosque (ppt; book chapter coming out soon)
  • Creative work with adhan scapes. Adhan canon of distance, Adhan convergence
• Islamicate Music and its multiple relations to Islam as religion.
  • Islam as catalyst (forging connections through flow of people, language, and culture (material and non-material), providing a catalytic matrix, supplying economic concentration), aligning values, all thereby gathering and fusing local musical traditions
  • Islamic LP as training, conditioning, selecting, as well as injecting sounds and styles (vocal timbre, improvisation)
  • Local music likewise infusing Islamic LP (the sonic substrate upon which syntactic, semantic, pragmatic aspects rest)
• Samāʿ and Musiqa: The traditional debate about musical ritual and music in Islam. Introduce and discuss the traditional sources you have found! (For Thursday we'll look at the contemporary debate, and if time doesn't allow today we'll do both together.) Review a few primary sources together.

Thursday (4b)

Due today

1. Short research proposal (1 page) on a relevant topic of your choice within the frame of the course, i.e. either (a) Islamic Language Performance, or (b) Islamicate music. Please include the following (a) a title indicating the topic and scope; (b) a paragraph documenting the aim and significance of your research project - what are the primary questions you seek to answer? why are they important? (because they've not been addressed is one good answer!); (c) a paragraph of background information, in which you should refer to a few secondary sources. Also add a note on methods, to be sure your project is feasible. Note that the research should be based primarily on scholarly secondary sources (but not encyclopedias!), combined with online primary sources, such as websites or youtube videos. But you may also elect to perform musical analysis, or conduct interviews (for the latter we'll need to get permission). You can submit this document via upload.
2. Searching the web, locate one contemporary online source (website, video, or text) that is either pro-music or at least admits music under certain conditions, and another that is more firmly anti-music, within the broad realm of Muslim discourse (in English, or another language you know). There is a broad range (including some new books on the topic, in English, for instance Singing and Music in Islamic Perspective, available for $8 as an Amazon kindle title). Perhaps you may find sermons, blog posts, or Facebook pages. You may like to look at the writings of contemporary scholars like Yusuf al-Qaradawi. If your source contains comments (blogs, youtube videos), examine those also - how do people respond to whatever is written or recorded? Also check my Resources page for this course.) For each of these two online sources, submit a link, plus a paragraph outlining the key points of its argument, explaining how this argument is similar to--or different from--those of the classical Islamic sources you read for last Tuesday, and summarizing any comments that accompanied it (on youtube, blog, etc.). Is there anything new in the argumentation, or do these sources fall back on the same old points? How do they handle new online media? Is there anything specific to Qur'anic recitation, adhan, or inshad? You can submit this document via upload as it will likely contains URL weblinks.

Also add your pro/anti music/samāʿ examples (for today and last Tuesday) to this shared Google Doc so that we can peruse them together in class.

NB: If you didn't present your examples of classical sources (e.g. Qur'an, Hadith, and other early texts) supporting or rejecting samaʿ and music last Tuesday (assignment #4 above), please come to class today prepared to present them.

Class

• Islamic LP genres (more examples, beyond adhan and tajwid; note close connection to "tarab" in performers such as Mustafa Ismail or Sufi hadras
• Examples of Islamicate Music and its multiple relations to Islamic performance, as related to religion and ritual. Difficulty, at times, in determining what is "sacred". (Examples, from North Africa to Indonesia.)
  • Islam as catalyst (social connections, economic concentration) gathering and fusing local musical traditions
  • Islamic LP as conditioning musical systems, and training and selecting performers (who may thereafter move away from religious genres)
  • Local music likewise infusing Islamic LP (the sonic substrate upon which syntactic, semantic, pragmatic aspects rest): the arrows of influence point in both directions.

• The traditional debate about samāʿ: music and musical ritual in Islam. Contemporary sources (including booklets and cassettes). Do they tend to refer to the past, or introduce new considerations? Let's review your examples!