Music and the Islam factor

Islamic influence upon Islamicate music

• Source: pre-Islamic Arabian features that remained at core of Islamic culture
  • Centrality of Arabic language and verbal arts, especially poetry
  • Linguistic form: the qasida (monorhyme, monometer)
  • Genres of love (nasib), praise (madih), description, satire (hija')
  • Courtesan tradition: the qayna
• Expansion: powered by Islamic ideology
• Inward flow towards center: assimilation, cultural fusion via openness to learning and multiculturalism (especially Persian arts and sciences)
  • Accumulation of financial capital
    • Opulent courts (Madina, Damascus, Baghdad, Cordoba, Granada...)
    • Development of leisure class
    • Patronage of music and singing
    • Professional class of musicians
  • Accumulation of intellectual/artistic capital
    • Bayt al-Hikma
    • Music theory as philosophy
    • Development of musical arts
• Outward flow from center: cultural diffusion, as Islam provides political/cultural/linguistic/religious "lingua franca"
• Fragmentation of Islamic empire in 10th c, corresponding fission in Islamicate forms, which nevertheless remained linked
• Core and periphery model
  • Core features: recurrence of organic musical style, linguistic and tonal (maqam phenomenon)
  • Periphery features: recurrence of musical traits, mainly timbral (vocal qualities, instrumental resources)
• Islamic content
  • Rituals
  • Language-centrality
  • Ethical conditions - Sharia: discourse and controversy over music, music terms
    • Qur'an
    • Sunna (Hadith)
  • Mystical currents (Sufism)
    • "tazkiyat al-nafs, tarqiyat al-ruh" (taming the self; raising the spirit or soul)
    • Batin > Zahir (Haqiqa > Sharia) (flexibility)
    • Experiential relation to God
    • Absorption of local traditions
    • Aesthetic as means to spirituality, expression of spirituality
    • Use of music/poetry to express/attain spiritual state (ecstasy, union, annihilation...)