Music and the Islam factor
Islamic influence upon Islamicate music is multidimensional and complex...
Islamic sources and Islamicate music
Islamic expansion and Islamicate music
- Expansion: powered by Islamic ideology, and weakness of prevailing powers at the time (Sassanian and Byzantine)
- 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
- Accumulation of financial capital
- 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 in Islamicate music
- 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)