Islamization Through the Sound Arts

Abstract

I. The Need
Just as philosophical and religious writings are a verbal expression of
the ideology of a people, just as social and economic institutions are determined
by that basic ideology, so also music and the sound arts are "aanslations"
of the deepest convictions of a people. They fit into the cultural whole
as pieces of a giant mosaic, each tessera reflecting the world view of that
people and corresponding to the other expressions of that spirit. Fulfilling
this role in the culture, the arts of sound become an important, even crucial,
bulwark of a people's heritage.
In English, such aesthetic "translations" of the ideology into pitches and
durations are known as "music"; and the term has generally encompassed all
forms of sound art, regardless of their intrinsic characteristics or the circumstances
of their performance. In Islamic culture, however, there is no term
or expression which includes all types of sound art. The term musiqa, which
is sometimes loosely equated with the English term "music," is certainly inadequate.
That Arabic term derived from the Greek has been applied primarily
to those forms which, because of context of performance or aesthetic
characteristics, were culturally and religiously regarded with some degree of
suspicion, or in certain cases, even condemned. The term miidqii has never
included those genres of sound art which were wholeheartedly approved and
fostered by the culture, e.g., Qur'anic chant, the adhan, the pilgrimage chants,
madih chanted poetry (shi'r). Elsewhere I have therehre advocated the use
of a new expression, Handasah al sawt (al Faruqi 1982:30ff). This designation
would cover all the forms of sound art, and thus more truly equate with
the term "music" and its cognates in other European languages. It is with that
expression and an appreciation of the wide meaning which it implies that this
presentation continues.
Handasah al sawt is a cultural phenomemon which can play an important ...