MI week 5

Tuesday (5a)

Muslim discourse about music: the historical past

Due today

Two page report on the following readings: submit on eClass.

1. Read Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, chapter 3: The Sama` Polemic. OR read "The samā' Controversy: Sufi vs. Legalist", by Arthur Gribetz, Studia Islamica, No. 74 (1991), pp. 43-62. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1595896 (off campus this link may not work - go to library.ualberta.ca, find the jstor database, and search for the article title instead).
2. Read Shiloah, Music in the World of Islam, chapter 4 (pp. 31-44), as well as pp. 49-51 (section: "the ethical, cosmological and therapeutic approach"), and pp. 63-65 ( sections: "the pejorative view of malahi" and "the cosmological approach".
3. Browse al-Ghazzali's chapter on "audition" (Sama`) in his monumental Ihya' `Ulum al-Din; the translation is online in these articles (you don't have to read the whole, but get the flavor - what topics does he take up? is he defensive? prescriptive? 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 sources. Try to locate the passages from Qur'an, Hadith, and other traditional sources mentioned in the above readings. Use my list of websites, or find 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 located.

Note: I recently discovered that the Nelson is available online through google play or kindle. Of course both Nelson and Shiloah are on reserve, and should be available in the bookstore as well.

Class

• Islamicate Music
• The traditional debate about music and musical ritual in Islam

Thursday (5b)

Due today

Short research proposal (1 page) on a relevant topic of your choice. 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?; (c) a paragraph of background information, in which you should refer to a few secondary sources. 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.