MI week 4

Tuesday (4a)

Islam as Musical Catalyst (Islamicate Music) and Islam as Sonic Ritual (Islamic Language Performance)

Due today

Two page report on the following three works (2 readings and 1 film excerpt); submit on eClass 4a

• "Min al-Mashāyikh": A View of Egyptian Musical Tradition, by Virginia Danielson. Asian Music. Vol. 22, No. 1 (Autumn, 1990 - Winter, 1991), pp. 113-127. (Note: if you're not on campus you may have to use this link instead.
• Watch Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt to 18:40 (NB: the subtitles contain errors) or on Rutherford Reserve (ML 420 U46 U46 2006). What was the role of Islam (through Qur'an, religious song, Sufi festival) in selecting singers and shaping or training their voices?
• "Against ethnomusicology: Language performance and the social impact of ritual performance in Islam, Performing Islam, Volume 2, Number 1, December 2013 , pp. 11-43. Consider: why do I reject "music" (and "ethnomusicology")? What is "language performance" in Islam and why is it important? How can it be applied to ritual performance in Islam?

Also: review Shiloah reading from Week 2

Class

What I've been up to? Overview of talks in Sheffield, Limerick; project in Geneva...

Research proposal due 5b (a week from Thursday): AIM and SIGNIFICANCE. What issue or topic do you wish to investigate, and why do you think it's important? One page only. Optionally: include a few secondary sources, links to online media, etc.

This week is very special. Today is 8 Dhu al-Hijjah (the last month of the Islamic calendar), the beginning of the annual Hajj rituals at Mecca. We'll talk more about that on Thursday, Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice).

Note that the Islamic calendar is based on a purely lunar system of 12 month years. The crescent moon (hilal) marks the start of a new month. Most Islamic holidays are set according to this calendar. Exceptions often mark syncretisms with pre-Islamic systems, e.g. the mawlid (saint day) of Ahmed al-Badawi in Egypt (always in October - a harvest festival), or spring festivals like Nawruz and Shamm al-Naseem.

Exercises

• Performing Adhan in various maqamat (with responses) maqamat, following notation on p. 515 of this article..
• Performing Qur'an 112, Surat Ikhlas.
  • teaching and learning online
  • comparisons among reciters
  • Malaysian woman recites Ikhlas (but note comments critical of the unveiled voice!)

Islamic ritual: language performance, and its impact on Islamicate music

We already examined the adhan (call to prayer).

Qur'an

• Revelation (wahy): 610 - 632 CE. Mecca, Medina. (Hijrah in 622), starting in the cave HIra near Mecca, on Laylat al-Qadr, in Ramadan 610.
• Word of God - passed via Angel Gabriel (Jabra'il), thus essentially sounded (but "unsounded sound"), then orally transmitted, then written.
• Restates many themes from earlier revelations to previous prophets (Tawrah = Torah of Moses; Zabur = Psalms of David; Injil = Gospels of Jesus), which had been corrupted.
• Recitation and sound are central.
• Qur'an = "recitation", and first verse was "Recite!" (iqra' bi rabbika alladhi khalaq, khalaq al-insana fi `alaq), Surat al-`Alaq, and the revelation of Qur'an in Ramadan is the topic of the very next sura, Surat al-Qadr.
• Seven ahruf (letters) - 10 qira'at (readings)
• Recensions: Abu Bakr, Uthman.
• The structure of the Qur'an, 114 chapters. The word - written (mushaf), recited (tilawa)
• Ordering in time (beginning with Surat al-Alaq), in text (beginning with al-Fatiha)
• Major themes of the Qur'an
• Tilawa (Qur'anic recitation):
  • as worship
  • as aesthetics
  • as ideological messaging
  • as sonic-ethical pedagogy
• About Tilawa as sounded representation of God's word
  • Textual regulation: mushaf, ahkam al-tajwid, qira'at. Other factors: "free variables" that can adapt locally to local sociocultural conditions, and perhaps even come covertly to express ideas and ideologies.
  • Recent discovery of world's oldest Quran. Note absence of "points" (marking consonants), vowels, or other diacritical marks (including some instances of the letter alif when written above the line)
  • Qira'atComparison (note the polemics of variation inherent in the desire for a unified Qur'an (architext); compare [1])
  • Ahkam al-Tajwid - manuals, some online
  • Surat Yusuf: multiple versions. How does recitation convey ideology without varying the text? [2]Compare these reciters.
• Overview of Qur'anic recitation: tilawa. Mujawwad, murattal. Women reciters. Contexts for recitation.
• Quranic calligraphy: Surat al-Ikhlas[3]
• Learning and memorizing (tahfiz) Qur'an (kuttab) and its implication for musical training and discovery of talent.
  • Morocco: [4]
  • Africa (?) [5]
  • Learning maqamat for Qur'an
    • Shaykh Mohamed el-Helbawy [6]
    • [7] [8]
  • Memorization is central. The Hafiz (memorizer) has a special status.
• The recorded Qur'an. What are the implications of recording?

(remainder for Thursday)

Islamicate Music

• Readings: Shiloah, Danielson
• Mostly what we know is the elite, court music... “art music"
• Formation through Islam as catalyst (connecting people through empire, language, religion; gathering wealth), legal restrictions (e.g. primacy of the voice), emphases (the word), training (tilawa and Sufi contexts), contexts of cultivation (primarily Sufi).
• Commonalities across the Islamicate zone
  • Focus on language, combined with sound system: tonal and temporal
  • music: tonality, temporality
    • maqam, microtones
    • iqa (darb, wazn, usul)
  • Shaped by Islamic discourse and practice (tilawa, Sufi hadra)
  • Shaping local Islamic practices
• Variations:
  • culture, contexts, articulation with pre-Islamic culture
  • ideological differences, e.g. Sunni and Shia presents different soundscapes
  • social and political factors: immigration/borders/state policies; Islamic ideology may trigger/represent political divides, restricting interactions
  • language, dialect, pronunciation: vary from place to place
  • Ramification of sound: localization adaptation, random or accommodating (Suwarian tradition of West Africa)

Lecture on Islamicate Music

Islamicate music: music of Muslim civilizations and the Impact of Islam

Islamicate music

• History
• Core characteristics
• Impact of Islam
  • Discourses of Islam
  • Practices of Islam
  • Islam as civilizational catalyst
• Examples:
  • Egyptian Wasla
  • Turkish Fasil
  • Moroccan Nawba
  • Persian Dastgah

Thursday (4b)

Due today

(note: not finalized yet!)

• Sounds of Hajj and Eid al-Adha (recordings: takbir, talbiya...)
• Hadith: search for hadith about celebrating the Eid using the course's Resources page

Class

LP and its principal Genres

Islamic LP (language performance): the mainstream sounds of Islam in social life and the social implications of sound.

The 5 "pillars" - arkan: at least four are associated with sound (excepting Zakat)

1. Shahada
2. Salat (namaz), including special prayers (Salat al-Eid, Tarawih)
3. Ramadan, including Tarawih, and the Misahharati.
4. Hajj, now in process in Mecca, Saudi Arabia

• Adhan: we have already considered adhan, the call to prayer.
• Salat: a compound ritual:
  • Ibtihalat (sung supplications at dawn)
  • Adhan
  • Qur'an
  • Adhkar al-Salat
  • Ad`iyya (supplications within the prayer)

The theory of LP (ppt from Paris ICTM forum).

Examples of Islamic LP

• Examples:
  • Dawn in Egypt
  • Friday prayer in Kazakhstan
  • Eid prayer (Salat al-Eid)
• Rituals and sounds of the Hajj