DANCING IS NOT HARAM IN ISLAM

[kmaherali]

What about the dance of souls!!

In his GJ Irshad Mubarak to the Kenya Jamat MHI said that his heart was dancing with joy.

If we consider the heart to be the seat of the soul, then if the heart dances, the soul dances as well.

[shivaathervedi]

What about the dance of souls!!

In his GJ Irshad Mubarak to the Kenya Jamat MHI said that his heart was dancing with joy.

If we consider the heart to be the seat of the soul, then if the heart dances, the soul dances as well.

My question was about the souls and not Universal Soul. In Golden Jubilee irshad Hazar Imam refer to his soul because of joyous occasion of GJ. Imam's word were," his heart was dancing with joy." In satpunth literature Imam is also mentioned as Shiva/ Mahesar/ Natranj who is master of dance, universal dance.

NA MI DANIM CHI MANZIL BUUD SHAB JAAI KE MON BUDDAM
HIZARIHA RAQS BISMIL BUUD SHAB JAAI KE MON BUUDAM

I don't know what was that stage (spiritual) the night when I was there.
(I saw) thousands of souls dancing, sacrificing (infront of Him) the night I was there.

AMIR KHUSRAW

[nuseri]

Ya Ali Madad:
There are 3 aspect to a human that is body,mind and soul.
One is the mind ordering the body to move with self presence of mind during the dance.
One referred to as heart,does not means mind but inner order of the soul.
That one is dancing is IMMENSE JOY of gets into trance ,that person himself does know what he is doing.
Higher phase of order to body/mind to express itself is an act of soul ( noor/ divine intellect).

[kmaherali]

Afghan women’s symphony faces hatred in pursuit of change

Afghanistan's first – and only – all-female symphony is trying to change attitudes in a deeply conservative country where many see music as immoral, especially for women.

The symphony's two conductors show how difficult that can be, but also how satisfying success is.

One of them, Negin Khpolwak, was supported by her father when she joined the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and then became part of its girls' orchestra, called Zohra. But the rest of her family was deeply against it. Her uncles cut off ties with her father.

More...
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/w ... ice=mobile[/b]

[kmaherali]

Islam and Music: the Legal and Spiritual Dimensions


Seyyed Hossein Nasr

https://www.academia.edu/33226685/Islam ... Dimensions

[kmaherali]

Girls Perform Concert To Raise Funds For Kabul Orphanage Children

VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... AF_YvSo1eY

[kmaherali]

Patrick Eisenlohr on his new book,

Sounding Islam

https://www.academia.edu/37877929/Patri ... kly_digest

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520298 ... ding-islam (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520298 ... ding-islam)Interview by Ben Ale-Ebrahim
Ben Ale-Ebrahim:

In Sounding Islam, one of your primary arguments is that anthropologists of religion should focus more attention on the importance of sound and sonic atmospheres in the study of embodied religion. What originally motivated you to focus this project onthe role of sound in religious communities?

Patrick Eisenlohr:

In the recent material and media turn in the study of religion, the sonic tends to be rather marginal compared to work on the visual and visual cultures. But there is more to the focus on the sonic than merely redressing this obvious imbalance. There is, above all, the privileged link between the sonic and the emotive and affective. Saying this, I do not want to set up a binary contrast with the visual along the lines of what Jonathan Sterne has called a Christian “audio-visual litany.” But the privileged link of the sonic to the emotive and affective cannot easily be dismissed. This is because the sonic implicates the body, or to be precise, the felt-body, what is called the
Leib in German, in a most comprehensive way, as sonic events can not only be registered by the hearing apparatus, but potentially the entire body, its flesh. In parts of sound studies, the sonic, vibrational phenomena that transmit energy through a medium in ways that very often extend beyond the acoustically perceivable,have been equated with affect. This ties into longstanding questions about the proverbial power of music to profoundly affect people in ways that often seem ineffable. Without attention to the sonic, the study of religion would be oddly incomplete. Finally, for anthropologists, the sonic, especially as atmospheric, is relevant for many other fields beyond religion. One only has to think of the present political moment, where powerful moods and felt currents are reshaping politics and public spheres across the world, while deliberation and appeals to enlightened self-interest seem so irrelevant in so many places.

Ben Ale-Ebrahim:

Throughout this book, you develop a theory of sonic atmospheres that accounts for the different socio-cultural factors that influence whether or not one’s body is likely to respond to a particular sonic stimulus, making a clear distinction between understandings of sound as affect versus atmosphere. For example, you describe how Mauritian Muslims of the Ahl-e Sunnat tradition respond to na‘t performance in a positive way, feeling as if they are transported to Medina by the sound, whereas Deobandi- or Salafi-oriented Mauritian Muslims respond to na‘t negatively and do not experience the same feelings or affective responses. Can you talk a bit more about why you chose to focus on the analytic of sonic atmospheres and how you anticipate this analytic being useful for the anthropological study of religion in other contexts?

Patrick Eisenlohr:

Thank you, I am glad you asked this question. Distinguishing atmospheres from affect is important. Unlike affect in the Deleuzian genealogy that dominates understandings of affect in anthropology, atmospheres do not categorically operate below the threshold of consciousness. They are also highly meaningful and not “autonomous” in Massumi’s sense, yet they speak to the same concerns about the movement of energy through and between bodies and the need to grasp what cannot be discursively specified as affect theory does. Atmospheres, whether sonic or in other modalities provide a bridge across the chasm that separates affect from sociocultural mediations and forms, therefore they are relevant to many other contexts that anthropologists study, far beyond what is commonly understood to be religion. To return to the example you just mentioned, sonic atmospheres,such as those generated by a voice, exert suggestions of movement on the felt-bodies of those they envelop. They do not just provoke feelings, seen from the vantage point of the neo-phenomenology of Hermann Schmitz such atmospheres themselves are feelings extended into space. But atmospheres can also be merely observed, as the Deobandis or Salafis you mentioned are likely to do, while the Ahl-e Sunnat devotee will probably be seized by them.By locating feelings outside human subjects, an analytic of atmospheres addresses the movement of energy between and through bodies, but also allows for sociocultural mediations to influence what stance subjects take to atmospheric forces, sonic or otherwise.

Ben Ale-Ebrahim:

I am fascinated by the spectrogram and waveform diagrams that you include in chapters five and six. You mention that you were motivated to include these partly as a result of your training in linguistic anthropology, where formal analysis is typically paired with discursive analysis. What was it like collecting these audio samples and working with this type of data? Can you talk a bit more about your methodology here?

Patrick Eisenlohr:

In order to do justice to sound as a separate mode of knowledge and meaning-making, it is important to provide other forms of access to it than discourse. This is one of the main reasons why I used the spectrograms. They give a different sense of the sonic dynamics and movements that make up na‘t recitation. Like discourse, these visual representations of sonic events also have inherent limits in coming to terms with the sonic.They captures sonic movements in a very striking way, but the movements in three-dimensional space they visualize are not the same as the suggestions of movement enacted by sonic movement from a phenomenological perspective. My interlocutors directed me to the parts of na‘t recitals they found most powerful and emotionally compelling, often expressing this through metaphors of travel and spatial displacement. I decided to complement their verbal descriptions of the power of a na‘t reciter’s voice with the perspective on auditory cultures they afford with the spectrograms and the analysis of pitch, volume, timbre, and reverb the spectrograms and waveforms allow. This was inseparable from the analysis of the technologically amplified, modified and reproduced voices, since most examples of what my interlocutors considered a particularly “moving” voice also included its media-technological shaping. Comparing the verbal description and formal analysis of vocal sound in this context helped me to make sense of one through the other in ways that an exclusive focus on either verbal characterization or the formal analysis of sonic events would not have allowed.

Ben Ale-Ebrahim:

You discuss how media play a very important role in the reception and performance of na’t throughout this book. In chapter three, for example, you emphasize how small media like CDs, DVDs, and books work to enable transnational connections between Muslim communities in the Indian subcontinent and Mauritius. What changes have you observed over time in the way na‘t recordings are distributed and shared? Do social media outlets like Facebook and YouTube, or other internet-based platforms, play a significant role in na‘t performance communities today?

Patrick Eisenlohr:

The story is quite familiar. In the late 1990s, I still encountered the use of audio cassettes with na‘t collections, which were quickly supplanted by audio-CDs in the early2000s, and finally by mp3 files in the last ten or twelve years. A newer phenomenon is the popularity of videos of na‘t recitals. Unlike in India, cheap low-grade video CDs never really played an important role in Mauritius, DVDs were more popular, and videos streamed via the internet on mobile devices have dominated in the last 7 to 8 years. In the meantime, social media like YouTube and Facebook have come to play a huge role, performances are not just routinely recorded but now also shared online. According to what my interlocutors have told me, the visits and live performances of Indian and Pakistani na‘t khwan played a decisive rolein making the genre more popular in Mauritius, not just the availability of imported cassettes and audio-CDs. These visiting na‘t khwan in turn inspired the emergence Mauritian na‘tkhwan. In at least one case, a Mauritian na‘t khwan got his first training by an Indian Imam residing in Mauritius at the time. These local na‘t khwan then started to produce and circulatetheir own collections of na‘t recordings.

Ben Ale-Ebrahim: Many of the ethnographic examples you reference in this book are drawn from your discussions with amateur na’t performers living in Mauritius, such as Shareef and Nazeer. You discuss how they learn to perform na’t, imitating previously released recordings of famous na’t khwan in order to capture their unique ler
or manner of vocal expression, for example, and describing the ways in which their behavior outside of performance spaces, such as their general level of piety and their reputation in the Mauritian Muslim community, affects their reception as professional performers of this particular style of religious music. I’m curious to hear more about what happened to your interlocutors, such as Shareef and Nazeer – did they end up “making it” and becoming professional na’t khwan? When does one break the barrier between amateur and professional in the world of na’t performance?

Patrick Eisenlohr:

None of my Mauritian na‘t khwan friends has become a professional in the strict sense of the word, for none of them is this their main occupation. Shareef is now the director of a primary school, Nazeer is retired, and Farhad is an Urdu teacher. Although they are justifiably proud of their na‘t recordings, they all say that they do not see themselves as a match for the Pakistani superstars. The latter are famous and make a good living from reciting na‘t. But for my Mauritian interlocutors there is also a certain ambiguity surrounding the superstars’ professional status, there is admiration for them, but there are also moral doubts about reciting na‘t for money, and not for the love of the Prophet alone. Doubts over whether such professionalism allows for the benefits a na‘t performance is supposed to bring about point to exactly the importance of perceived piety and personal reputation you have mentioned. Certainly, I heard my share of stories about what some perceived as the aloofness and the high financial demands of visiting professional na‘t khwan. Seen from such a perspective, “making it” as a professional also invites suspicions of moral corruption, and becoming a professional in the sense above may therefore be felt to be not entirely desirable.

[swamidada_1]

What kind of dancing is HALAL in Islam? Let me mention some here.

1 Latin / rhythm
2 Swing dance
3 Kumega Dance / Traditional African and African-American
4 Ballroom dance
5 Classical Indian dance
6 Traditional Iranian Dance
7 Azerbaijani dances
8 Freestyle
9 Street dance
10 Disco / electronic dance
11 Pogo
12 Folk dance
13 Tap dancing.
14 Bolero
15 Bachata
16 Cha Cha
17 Mambo
18 Rumba
19 Dhandia
20 Rasura
21 Break dance

[kmaherali]

Mawlana Hazar Imam: “…every individual can respond to art and music”
Posted by Nimira Dewji

“Now I know that in some parts of the world, the words “Muslim” and “music” are not often linked together in the public mind. But they should be… The cultural heritage of Islam has long embraced musical language as an elemental expression of human spirituality. Listening to music, practising music, sharing music, performing music – have long been an intimate part of life for Muslim communities across the world, as has been the chanting of devotional and historical or epic texts…every individual can respond to art and music, whether it emanates from a different culture or not. For after all, art is a matter of humanity just as much as it is a matter of identity. As the Islamic tradition has reminded us for many centuries, the Divine spark that bestows upon us our individuality also bonds individuals in a common human family.”
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Lisbon, Portugal, March 31, 2019
Speech

aga khan music lisbon AKDN

Mawlana Hazar Imam addresses the inaugural Aga Khan Music Awards. Photo: Aga Khan Development Network/Akbar Hakim
Islamic jurists have debated for centuries whether listening to music is unlawful, although it is not clear how the question arose as there is no direct censure against music in the Qur’an. There are just as many arguments in support of as there are against the listening of music being unlawful. Some jurists explain that singing is “unlawful” because it employs poetry, and they point to the Prophet condemning poets in Sura 31:5-6, where it says:

“There is one who purchases a ludicrous story, that he may seduce men from the way of Allah, without knowledge, and may laugh the same to scorn: these shall suffer a shameful punishment.”

The jurists argue that the “ludicrous story” meant singing. Another possible argument against the listening of music is Sura 26:224-6 which says:

“And the poets do those follow who go astray. Dost thou not see that they wander distraught in every vale?”

H.G. Farmer argues that “this was probably not directed against poetry as such, but simply against the poet who in the eyes of the Prophet was the incarnation of pagan idols, and who, was pouring out satires and invective against him” (A History of Arabian Music p 23). However, since objectors to listening to music could not find any real basis to discredit music listening, they turned to hadith, which was considered the second authority to the Qur’an. Farmer narrates that A’isha, the wife of the Prophet, has handed down a tradition that the Prophet once said, “Verily, Allah had made the singing girl (qaina) unlawful, and the selling of her and her price and teaching her” (A History of Arabian Music p 24).

Farmer states there are two hadiths in favour of listening to music: “Allah has not sent a Prophet except with a Beautiful Voice,” and “Allah listens more intently to a man with a Beautiful Voice reading the Qur’an than does a master of a singing-girl to her singing.” Anas ibn Malik (d. 715) claimed that Muhammad “used to make him sing the huda (caravan song) when travelling, and that Anjusha used to sing it for the women and Al-Bara ibn Malik (the brother of Anas) for the men. Al Ghazzali claims that the huda are poems equipped with agreeable sounds (sawat tayyiba) and measured melodies (alhan mauzuna)” (Ibid p 25). When the Prophet, who heard the voice of the singing girl and was asked if it were sinful to sing, the Prophet replied “Certainly not” (Ibid p 26).

Scholars agree that the Prophet tolerated musical instruments, and that his own marriage as well as that of his daughter, were celebrated with music. Historians suggest that the Prophet had to restrict the poetry of pagan Arabia and this was interpreted by some as the forbiddance of poetry. Many of the traditions were deeply embedded in the society at that time and the Prophet had to adapt to the social resistance and accept pagan customs under new sanctions (Ibid p 34).

Pagan Arabia had a custom of music during their festivals of feast, and this, too, says Farmer, “found a place in the public festivals connected with Islam, such as exists today in the ‘id aladha, the id al-fitr, the yaum ashura, and the various mawalid” (A History of Arabian Music p 35). Music was allowed during various celebrations such as births, weddings, and others. The lovesong, which had a strong tradition in pre-Islamic Arabia, was allowed.

Soon after the spread of Islam, cities of Mecca and Medina, “which were concentrations of political and religious power under the Orthodox caliphs, developed into important centres of rich musical life. Among the thousands of migrants to Arabia were many qualified artists and talented musicians, who had brought their craft with them. Patronized and generously rewarded by the elite, the best singers and instrumentalists could thus demonstrate their finest achievements.” (Shiloah, Music in the World of Islam p 11).

Many sources acknowledge that the founders of the four legal schools, the Hanafi, the Maliki, the Shafi’i, and the Hanbali, did not like listening to music, for a variety of reasons, and decided against its legality, although many treatises have been written to prove the opposite. Although there is no censure in the Quran, there are no conclusions whether listening to music is unlawful in Islam.

In pre-Islamic times, the oral recitation of poetry was the mark of artistic achievement “which has not been matched in subsequent periods” (Virani). At the time, the common form of poetry was the qasida – a long monorhyme (aa, ba, ca) in praise of someone although it was also used for preaching morals as well as, after the advent of Islam, to praise God and honour the Prophet and his family. An important aspect was the growing awareness of the potential expressiveness of the human voice, which was considered a reflection of the soul’s mysteries and feelings.

As Islam spread, the music of the community became entwined with the musical traditions of the conquered lands. The elite, who were enriched by the influx of wealth, sought amusement that was best expressed in music and song. The migrants brought their art and music with them, thereby influencing the cultures of the local peoples. As long as it did not contradict with Islamic teaching, the Arabs assimilated the new artistic forms creating unique styles. The musicians enjoyed high status as a result of increased importance given to musical activity by the wealthy rulers.

[email protected]

Sources:
Ahmet T. Karamustafa, “Muslim Literature in Persian and Turkish,” The Muslim Almanac Edited by Azim A. Nanji
Amnon Shiloah, Music in the World of Islam, Wayne State University Press, Detroit,1995
Ellen Koskoff, Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Greenwood Press Inc, Westport, 1987
Hanif Virani, “A Historical Sketch of Muslim Education,” Hikmat, July 1984
Henry George Farmer, A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century, Luzac & Co. London, 1929

https://nimirasblog.wordpress.com/2020/ ... and-music/

[kmaherali]

Prince Amyn: Music “binds people together and unites them…”
Posted by Nimira Dewji

“Music has always been an art of special importance to me: Its power of communication is special, enormous and universal; it binds people together and unites them….At a time when strengthening tolerance and pluralism has become an acute worldwide priority, music is one of the arts which offers a medium for reaching, involving and uniting global audiences by engendering emotions which we all share as human beings.”
Prince Amyn
Lisbon, Portugal, March 29, 2019

Prince Amyn delivers his remarks at the inauguration of the Aga Khan Music Awards in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Aga Khan Development Network/Akbar Hakim

In pre-Islamic Arabia, the oldest and simplest type of melodic rhythm, the huda, broke the silence of the desert, enchanting the lonely traveller. Other simple genres emerged, such as songs performed during the watering of animals, and other daily chores. Among the more musically developed forms were the variety of communal songs and dances at family celebrations, pilgrimages to holy shrines, and social evenings.

The oral recitation of poetry was the mark of artistic achievement. At the time, the common form of poetry was the qasida – a long monorhyme (aa, ba, ca) in praise of someone. The form of poetry was also used for preaching morals and subsequently to praise God and honour the Prophet and his family. An important aspect was the growing awareness of the potential expressiveness of the human voice, which was considered a reflection of the human soul’s mysteries and feelings. Instruments, then, were believed to have been created to enrich vocal music.

The high status enjoyed by musicians brought about the increased importance of musical activity, which consequently started to develop its own means of expression, evolving into more refined and sophisticated musical features.

For the first three centuries after the emergence of Islam, the Hijaz (west of present-day Saudi Arabia along the Red Sea), and specifically Medina, was considered the musical centre with the most talented male and female singers throughout the Arabian empire. Under the Umayyad caliphate (661–750) the classical style of Islamic music developed further at their capital, Damascus (in modern-day Syria), and the courts were thronged with male and female musicians. The singers from the Hijaz remained influential for several generations until the onset of the Abbasid era (750-1258).

As Islam spread, the music of the community became entwined with the musical traditions of the conquered lands. The elite, who were enriched by the influx of wealth, sought amusement that was best expressed in music and song. The migrants brought their art and music with them, thereby influencing the cultures of the local peoples. As long as it did not contradict with Islamic teaching, the Arabs assimilated the new artistic forms creating unique styles.

The prominent singers of Mecca and Medina established a school of singing that lasted for more than a century (Touma, The Music of the Arabs p 7). Many women had respectable careers as musicians and singers. Koskoff reports that in “Fatimid times, there seems to have been self-employed female singers, who lived in respectable districts, sang at private parties.” (Touma, The Music of the Arabs p 72).

The bulk of the information on music and musicians of this period comes from the monumental work Kitab al-aghani (Book of Songs) by the historian and poet Abu’l-Faradj al-Isfahani (d.967). The Book of Songs, one of the most celebrated works in Arabic literature, contains a collection of poems from the pre-Islamic period to the ninth century, all of which had been set to music and includes biographical details about authors, composers, singers, and writers of music.

kitab al-aghani music songs isfahani

Kitab al-aghani (Book of Songs). Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Greek and Arabic literature refer to the healing of patients with music played on lyres and aulos. The Ikhwan al-Safa (Brethren of Purity), a brotherhood that flourished in Basra, in Iraq, in the second half of the tenth century, wrote an encyclopedic work (Rasa’il) of fifty-two epistles dealing with sciences and philosophy. The section on music focuses on harmony, emphasising that music reflects the harmonious beauty of the universe. Similarly, said the Ikhwan, the proper use of music at the right time has a healing influence on the body. The Ikhwan devoted a special section to the making and tuning of instruments.

rasail ikhwan music

Source: The Institute of Ismaili Studies
Ibn Hindu (d. 1019), in his encyclopedia, Mitfah al-tibb (The Key to Medicine), acknowledges the healing qualities of music for some ailments so long as the services of professional musicians are employed. In his monumental work Qanun fi’l-tibb (Canon of Medicine), which was a standard medical textbook in Europe until the seventeenth century, Ibn Sina (d. 1037) wrote about the musical nature of the pulse, and discussed a special relationship between music and medicine that recurs in Arabic and European texts as late as the nineteenth century. Shiloah states that “from about the fifteenth century on, the theory of music therapy held a prominent place in literature about music” (Shiloah, Music in the World of Islam p 52).

The introduction of new instruments and new techniques of playing altered the forms of interaction between a singer and the traditional instruments. The concept of a concert performed on stage by a large ensemble changed the intimate relationship between the musicians and the audience that had prevailed. These new conditions, and the need to keep pace with technological progress, led to electronic means of amplification. In turn, the singer no longer relied solely on the power of the voice.

Sources:
Ahmet T. Karamustafa. “Muslim Literature in Persian and Turkish.” The Muslim Almanac, Edited by Azim A. Nanji
Amnon Shiloah, Music in the World of Islam, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1995
Ellen Koskoff, Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Greenwood Press Inc, Westport, 1987
Habib Hassan Touma, The Music of the Arabs, Edited by Reinhard G. Pauly, Amadeus Press, Portland Oregon, 1996
Henry George Farmer, A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century, Luzac & Co. London, 1929
The Ikwan al-Safa and their Rasa’il: An Introduction Edited by Nader Al-Bizri, Oxford University Press, New York, 2008
nimirasblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/prince-amyn-music-binds-people-together-and-unites-them/

[swamidada_2]

kmaherali

Joined: 27 Mar 2003
Posts: 20536

PostPosted: 29 Mar 2020 05:54 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Mawlana Hazar Imam: “…every individual can respond to art and music”
Posted by Nimira Dewji

“Now I know that in some parts of the world, the words “Muslim” and “music” are not often linked together in the public mind. But they should be… The cultural heritage of Islam has long embraced musical language as an elemental expression of human spirituality. Listening to music, practising music, sharing music, performing music – have long been an intimate part of life for Muslim communities across the world, as has been the chanting of devotional and historical or epic texts…every individual can respond to art and music, whether it emanates from a different culture or not. For after all, art is a matter of humanity just as much as it is a matter of identity. As the Islamic tradition has reminded us for many centuries, the Divine spark that bestows upon us our individuality also bonds individuals in a common human family.”
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Lisbon, Portugal, March 31, 2019


In above paragraph Hazar Imam has mentioned about art of music and not about dancing!!

[kmaherali]

In above paragraph Hazar Imam has mentioned about art of music and not about dancing!!

MHI says: "Listening to music, practising music, sharing music, performing music...."

Performing music entails bodily movements, which can be considered dancing. Haven't the Imams danced with the Jamats?

[swamidada_2]

In above paragraph Hazar Imam has mentioned about art of music and not about dancing!!

MHI says: "Listening to music, practising music, sharing music, performing music...."

Performing music entails bodily movements, which can be considered dancing. Haven't the Imams danced with the Jamats?

“Now I know that in some parts of the world, the words “Muslim” and “music” are not often linked together in the public mind. But they should be… The cultural heritage of Islam has long embraced musical language as an elemental expression of human spirituality. Listening to music, practising music, sharing music, performing music – have long been an intimate part of life for Muslim communities across the world, as has been the chanting of devotional and historical or epic texts…every individual can respond to art and music, whether it emanates from a different culture or not. For after all, art is a matter of humanity just as much as it is a matter of identity. As the Islamic tradition has reminded us for many centuries, the Divine spark that bestows upon us our individuality also bonds individuals in a common human family.”
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Lisbon, Portugal, March 31, 2019

In the above quote by Hazar Imam there is no mention of dancing. You wrote" MHI says: "Listening to music, practising music, sharing music, performing music....", from where you got this quote?

[kmaherali]

In the above quote by Hazar Imam there is no mention of dancing. You wrote" MHI says: "Listening to music, practising music, sharing music, performing music....", from where you got this quote?

From your own quote from the Lisbon speech! It seems you have not even bothered to read the quote.

[swamidada_2]

In the above quote by Hazar Imam there is no mention of dancing. You wrote" MHI says: "Listening to music, practising music, sharing music, performing music....", from where you got this quote?

From your own quote from the Lisbon speech! It seems you have not even bothered to read the quote.

Thanks for pointing. My attention was at word DANCING which is not mentioned in that particular paragraph. Let us analyse was Imam said," Listening to music, practising music, sharing music, performing music – have long been an intimate part of life for Muslim communities across the world".
In the flow of sentence there is no where the word dancing is mentioned. Here performing music means singing or reciting with musical instruments.

[Admin]

Here performing music means singing or reciting with musical instruments.

God has allow each person to have his own interpretation of his words. There is no need to be formalist and there is no need to start a fight over each and every post. I have requested you not to post anything in the doctrinal subjects please stick to your commitments so I can do the same for mine.

Admin

[kmaherali]

MUSIC IN ISLAM | FORBIDDEN VERSUS THERAPEUTIC

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... e=emb_logo

The reception of Music as a therapeutic tool to address mental health concerns has always encountered an argument about the legitimacy of the Expression of Music in the contemporary Muslim World.

[kmaherali]

Horizons Series: Music, Islam, and Spirituality - Devotional Music from South Asia

Description

Do you know why the term “music” is extremely debatable in the Muslim world? What is the relationship between music, Islam, and spirituality

There is profound mystical music from South Asia, including Qawwalis, Kafis and Ginans. Dr. Karim Gillani is an expert in the field of music and Islam, and inthis session he will explore the mystical music from South Asia, including Qawwalis, Kafis and Ginans, including a musical demonstration.

--

Dr Karim Gillani teaches Music and Religious Studies at the University of Alberta. He is also an expert in Music and Islam, Sufism of South Asia, Popular Music and Literature in Pakistan, Muslim Faith and Practices, Muslim Migration, Diaspora and Transmission. He regularly presents papers at national and international conferences and has published various articles in academic journals. He has done extensive field research in devotional and contemporary popular music in the Indian subcontinent and amongst the western diaspora, and has written short documentaries.

Dr Gillani was one of the scholarship recipients of the IIS’s Doctoral Scholarship Programme in 2004. He obtained his PhD in Music and Religious Studies at the University of Alberta (Canada) in 2012. His PhD dissertation, entitled ‘Sound and Recitation of Khoja Ismaili Ginans: Tradition and Transformation’, represents pioneering ethno-musicological research that situates ginans (hymns) within the wider context of Muslim piety in general and South Asian poetic and musical contexts in particular.

Dr Gillani is also an accomplished vocalist, composer and songwriter. He has received training in Hindustani classical and Sufi music from various renowned musicians from India and Pakistan. He released his first album, Jhoom Jhoom: Celebration of A Lifetime, in 2007. Dr Gillani extensively performs in North America and some of his performance highlights include spots on CBC Television, CJSR and CKUA radio, as well as Radio Pakistan. In 2008, he performed at the opening ceremony of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat and at the foundation ceremony of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto in 2010.

https://iicanada.org/events/faith-tradi ... south-asia

[kmaherali]

Music, Islam and Spirituality - Devotional Music from South Asia

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QCcXii ... e=emb_logo

Profound mystical music can be found in South Asia, including Qawwalis, Kafis, and Ginans. Dr. Karim Gillani is an expert in the field of music and Islam, and in this session, he will explore the mystical music from South Asia, including a musical demonstration.

[kmaherali]

A Celebrated Afghan School Fears the Taliban Will Stop the Music

The Afghanistan National Institute of Music became a symbol of the country’s changing identity.

For more than a decade, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music has stood as a symbol of the country’s changing identity. The school trained hundreds of young artists, many of them orphans and street hawkers, in artistic traditions that were once forbidden by the Taliban. It formed an all-female orchestra that performed widely in Afghanistan and abroad.

But in recent days, as the Taliban have been consolidating control over Afghanistan again, the school’s future has come into doubt.

In interviews, several students and teachers said they feared the Taliban, who have a history of attacking the school’s leaders, would seek to punish people affiliated with the school as well as their families. Some said they worried the school will be shut down and they will not be allowed to play again. Several female students said they had been staying inside their homes since the capital was seized on Sunday.

“It’s a nightmare,” Ahmad Naser Sarmast, the head of the school, said in a telephone interview from Melbourne, Australia, where he arrived last month for medical treatment.

The Taliban banned most forms of music when they previously ruled Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001. This time, they have promised a more tolerant approach, vowing not to carry out reprisals against their former enemies and saying that women will be allowed to work and study “within the bounds of Islamic law.”

But the Taliban’s history of violence toward artists and its general intolerance for music without religious meaning has sowed doubts among many performers.

“My concern is that the people of Afghanistan will be deprived of their music,” Mr. Sarmast said. “There will be an attempt to silence the nation.”

In 2010, Mr. Sarmast, an Afghan music scholar who was trained in Australia and plays trumpet and piano, opened the school, which has more than 400 students and staff members, with the support of the American-backed government. It was a rarity: a coeducational institution devoted to teaching music from both Afghanistan and the West.

The school’s musicians were invited to perform on many of the world’s most renowned stages, including Carnegie Hall. They played Western classical music as well as traditional Afghan music and instruments, like the rubab, which resembles the lute and is one of the national instruments of Afghanistan.

The school placed special emphasis on supporting young women, who make up a third of the student body. The school’s all-female orchestra, Zohra, founded in 2015, earned wide acclaim. Many were the first women in their families to receive formal training. In a symbol of its modern ways, head scarves for girls at the school’s campus in Kabul were optional.

The school’s habit of challenging tradition made it a target. In 2014, Mr. Sarmast was injured by a Taliban suicide bomber who infiltrated a school play. The Taliban tried to attack the school again in the years that followed, but their attempts were thwarted, Mr. Sarmast said.

Now, female students say they are concerned about a return to a repressive past, when the Taliban eliminated schooling for girls and barred women from leaving home without male guardians.

Several female students — who were granted anonymity because they feared retaliation — said that it felt like their dreams to become professional musicians could disintegrate. They worried they might not be able to play music again in their lives, even as a hobby.

In recent weeks, as the Taliban swept through the country, the school’s network of overseas supporters tried to help by raising money to improve security on campus, including by installing an armed gate and walls.

But it’s now unclear if the school will even be permitted to operate under the Taliban. It is also increasingly difficult for citizens of Afghanistan to leave the country. Airport entrances have been chaotic and often impassable scenes for days, even for people with travel documentation. The Taliban control the streets, and though they say they are breaking up crowds at the airport to keep order, there are widespread reports that they are turning people away by force if they try to leave the country.

The State Department said in a statement that it was working to get American citizens, as well as locally employed staff and vulnerable Afghans, out of the country, though crowding at the airport had made it more difficult. The department said it was prioritizing Afghan women and girls, human rights defenders and journalists, among others.

“This effort is of utmost importance to the U.S. government,” the statement said.

In the 1990s, the Taliban permitted religious singing but banned other forms of music because they were seen as distractions to Islamic studies and could encourage impure behavior. Taliban officials destroyed instruments and smashed cassette tapes.

William Maley, an emeritus professor at Australian National University who has studied Afghanistan, said he was troubled by reports that the Taliban had recently sought to limit the spread of popular music in some parts of the country.

“The Taliban in the 1990s were extremely hostile to any form of music other than religious chants, and people had to hide their instruments and play music secretively,” Professor Maley said. “I would not be optimistic.”

Amid the chaos in Kabul, students, teachers and alumni of the school have exchanged frantic messages on chat groups. They have lamented the fact that they might need to hide their instruments or leave them in the care of others if they try to flee.

William Harvey, who taught violin and conducted the orchestra at the school from 2010 to 2014, said he felt despair thinking his former students might be in peril for pursuing their passion. Still, he said the school is an inspiration for artists and audiences around the world.

“It is to those students, then, that we owe a tremendous responsibility,” said Mr. Harvey, now the concertmaster of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional in Mexico. “They must live to lift their voices again another day.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/arts ... 778d3e6de3

[swamidada]

There is Mulla dance, there is Sufi dance, there is classic Indian dance, there is Movie dance, there is Belly dance, there is naked dance, there is dance of souls, which type of dance Islam allows?

[kmaherali]

A Ban on 19 Singers in Egypt Tests the Old Guard’s Power

Leaders of a musicians’ licensing group are trying to curb mahraganat, a bold genre wildly popular with young people. It is not clear if they can.

CAIRO — The song starts out like standard fare for Egyptian pop music: A secret infatuation between two young neighbors who, unable to marry, sneak flirtatious glances at each other and commit their hearts in a bittersweet dance of longing and waiting.

But then the lyrics take a radical turn.

“If you leave me,” blasts the singer, Hassan Shakosh, “I’ll be lost and gone, drinking alcohol and smoking hash.”

The song, “The Neighbors’ Daughter,” has become a giant hit, garnering more than a half- billion views of its video on YouTube alone and catapulting Mr. Shakosh to stardom. But the explicit reference to drugs and booze, culturally prohibited substances in Egypt, has made the song, released in 2019, a lightning rod in a culture war over what is an acceptable face and subject matter for popular music and who gets to decide.

The battle, which pits Egypt’s cultural establishment against a renegade musical genre embraced by millions of young Egyptians, has heated up recently after the organization that licenses musicians barred at least 19 young artists from singing and performing in Egypt.

The organization, the Egyptian Musicians’ Syndicate, accused Mr. Shakosh and other singers of the genre, known as mahraganat, of normalizing, and thus encouraging, decadent behavior, of misrepresenting Egypt and of spoiling public taste.


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Hassan Shakosh appearing in the video for his song “The Neighbors’ Daughter.”
Hassan Shakosh appearing in the video for his song “The Neighbors’ Daughter.” Credit...Hassan Shakosh, vis YouTube
“They are creating a chaotic movement in the country,” said Tarek Mortada, the spokesman for the syndicate, a professional union that issues permits for artists to perform onstage and that while technically not an arm of the state, is governed by state law and its budget is supervised by the state. “What we’re confronting right now is the face of depravity and regression.”

The barred singers have been iced out of clubs, concerts and weddings. Some have continued to perform abroad or at private parties, but they have had to say no to advertising deals and other income opportunities.

The syndicate’s stance has also cast a pall over Egypt’s cultural scene, sending a strong message that artists are not free agents and must still toe restrictive lines set by civil and state institutions. The musicians see the syndicate as an outmoded entity desperately clinging to a strictly curated vision and image of Egyptian culture that is smashing against an inevitable wave of youth-driven change.

“They can’t get themselves to be convinced that we’re here to stay,” said Ibrahim Soliman, 33, Mr. Shakosh’s manager and childhood friend. “How can you say someone like Shakosh misrepresents Egypt when his songs are being heard and shared by the entire country?”

Fans were incensed. One meme depicted the leader of the syndicate, a pop singer of love classics from the 1970s, ordering people to stop singing in the bathroom.

The battle mirrors cultural conflicts across the region where autocratic governments in socially conservative countries have tried to censor any expression that challenges traditional mores. For example, Iran has arrested teenage girls who posted videos of themselves dancing, which is a crime there. And in 2020, Northwestern University in Qatar called off a concert by a Lebanese indie rock band whose lead singer is openly gay.

But online streaming and social media platforms have poked giant holes in that effort, allowing artists to bypass state-sanctioned media, like television and record companies, and reach a generation of new fans hungry for what they see as more authentic and relevant content.

Iran’s draconian restrictions on unacceptable music have produced a flourishing underground rock and hip-hop scene. The question facing Egypt is who now has the power to regulate matters of taste — the 12 men and one woman who run the syndicate, or the millions of fans who have been streaming and downloading mahraganat.

Mahraganat first rose out of the dense, rowdy working-class neighborhoods of Cairo more than a decade ago and is still generally made in low-tech home studios, often with no more equipment than a cheap microphone and pirated software.


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The head of the Egyptian Musicians’ Syndicate, Hany Shaker, center, during voting for the group’s board members in 2019.
The head of the Egyptian Musicians’ Syndicate, Hany Shaker, center, during voting for the group’s board members in 2019. Credit...Mahmoud Ahmed/EPA, via Shutterstock
The raw, straight-talking genre — with blunt lyrics about love, sex, power and poverty — mirrors the experience and culture of a broad section of the disenfranchised youth who live in those districts set to a danceable, throbbing beat.

But its catchy rhymes and electronic rhythms quickly went mainstream and now echo from the glamorous wedding ballrooms of Egypt’s French-speaking elite to exclusive nightclubs in Mediterranean resorts to concert halls in oil-rich Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“Mahraganat is a true representation of this moment in time, of globalization and information technology, and of social media in directing our tastes,” said Sayed Mahmoud, a culture writer and former editor of a weekly newspaper called “Alkahera” issued by the Ministry of Culture. “If you remove the reference to drugs and alcohol, does it mean they don’t exist? The songs represent real life and real culture.”

They are certainly more direct, avoiding the sanitized euphemisms and poetic hints of sexuality that characterize traditional lyrics.

“We use the words that are close to our tongue, without embellishing or beautifying, and it reaches people,” said Islam Ramadan, who goes by the name DJ Saso, the 27-year-old producer of Mr. Shakosh’s blockbuster hit.

Many lawyers and experts say the syndicate has no legal right to ban artists, insisting that Egypt’s Constitution explicitly protects creative liberty. But these arguments seem academic in the authoritarian state of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which has stifled freedom of speech, tightened control on the media and passed laws to help monitor and criminalize so-called immoral behavior on the internet.

The syndicate’s executive members have adamantly defended their move, arguing that a key part of their job is to safeguard the profession against inferior work that they say is made by uncultured impostors who tarnish the image of the country.

And government authorities have reinforced the message.

In 2017, a special division of the police that targets moral crimes arrested the makers of a mahraganat song, and promised to continue searching for work that “presents offensive content for the Egyptian viewer or contains sexual insinuations.”


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A wedding in 2015 in Salam City, a suburb on the outskirts of Cairo.
A wedding in 2015 in Salam City, a suburb on the outskirts of Cairo.Credit...Mosa’ab Elshamy/Associated Press
In 2020, after a video circulated showing dozens of students at an all-girls high school singing along to “The Neighbors’ Daughter,” the Ministry of Education warned schools against the “noticeable” spread of songs that incite “bad behavior.”

A short time later, the minister of youth and sports vowed to “combat depravity” by banning mahraganat music from being played in athletic arenas and sports facilities.

The head of the syndicate, Hany Shaker, defended the ban on a late-night television show, saying, “We can’t be in the era of Sisi and allow this to be the leading art.”

So far, the syndicate claims to be winning the fight.

“We have in fact stopped them because they can’t get onstage in Egypt,” said Mr. Mortada, the organization’s spokesman, adding that it went so far as to ask YouTube to remove videos of the banned singers. It has not received a response from YouTube, he said.

But who will win in the long run remains to be seen.

The syndicate’s very structure smacks of a bygone era. To be admitted and allowed to sing and perform onstage, an artist must pass a test that includes a classical singing audition. The test is anathema to a genre that relies on autotune and prioritizes rhythm and flow over melody.

While the syndicate’s efforts may be keeping mahraganat out of clubs and concert halls, the music has never stopped.

Mr. Shakosh’s popularity continues to rise. He has more than six million followers on Facebook and over four million on Instagram and TikTok, and his music videos have exceeded two billion views on YouTube.

He is one of the Arab world’s leading performers. Since he was barred, he has performed in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iraq, and “The Neighbors’ Daughter” has become one of the biggest Arabic hits to date.

“It’s not the same old love songs,” said Yasmine el-Assal, a 41-year-old bank executive, after attending one of Mr. Shakosh’s concerts before the ban. “His stage presence, the music, the vibe, it’s fresh and it’s all about having fun.”

Mr. Shakosh would not agree to be interviewed, preferring to keep a low profile, his manager said, rather than to appear to publicly challenge the authorities. The ban has been harder on other artists, many of whom do not have the wherewithal or the international profile to tour abroad.

They have mostly kept quiet, refusing to make statements that they fear could ruffle more feathers.

Despite the squeeze, however, many are confident that their music falls beyond the grip of any single authority or government.

Kareem Gaber, a 23-year-old experimental music producer known by the stage name El Waili, is still burning tracks, sitting in his bedroom with a twin mattress on the floor, bare walls and his instrument, a personal computer with $100 MIDI keyboard.

“Mahraganat taught us that you can do something new,” he said, “and it will be heard.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/16/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[Admin]

It had just been posted and has been removed, on the average we do remove most post as soon as they appear or we delete spammers account before allowing them in the Forum.

However sometimes spammers get around the security. It is not only spammers, some members also post garbage here which increases our work load as we have to delete them subsequently.

[kmaherali]

REVIEW FOR THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF RELIGION

Memory, Music and Religion - Morocco’s Mystical Chanters by EARLE H. WAUGH.Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005, N.P. Pp. xx+260. Cloth: alk.paper(ISBN 1-57003-567-9).

Earle Waugh’s Memory, Music and Religion is a book with two subject matters : the Sufi chanters in Morocco on the one hand, and the role of memory in the religious system on the other. The first research is not only an innovative and welcome work on the Moroccan Sufi culture, but it also affords an opportunity to examine the complex processes of the re-invention of tradition and the re-shaping and localizing of Islamic culture. Waugh’s point of departure for the second investigation was the Islamic concept of dhikr --a very rich Arabic and Islamic concept simplistically translated into English as “remembrance”–which led him to the deployment of intricate and difficult ponderings on memory, music and religion.

The author approached the subject of the chanter tradition in Morocco from various angles and relied on several social research methods: textual analysis, observation, informal conversations and formal interviews. There resulted a painstakingly built composition which may serve as source material for the student and scholar of religion, Islamic mysticism, and Moroccan religious culture in particular. The author, who was particularly attentive not to contradict the insiders’ explanations and discourse, treated his source material through the sifting and codifying of the observed experience, filling up the gray zones left untouched upon by the insiders, drawing approximate conclusions and sometimes making leaps in the realm of speculation. The tentative and repetitive elaborations on memory belong to these speculative constructions. That is why the reader welcomes with a great deal of relief the straight forward exposition of the author’s thesis at the end of the book: “Memory – Waugh wrote -- is crucial to any comprehensive idea about religious development; both what is remembered and how it is recalled are part of a complex religious act” (p.192). Obviously, no specialist of religious studies and no historian of religion can go against this analysis. Waugh’s conclusion looks all the more conventional that he positions himself in the continuity with Eliade Mircea’s theory of the“regular return to origins” by so-called archaic religions. For Waugh, memory as he identified it through his study of the Moroccan munshidin, represents the mechanism or the tool for a“return to origin” (192-193).

Earle Waughhas nonetheless produced a new compelling work on another Muslim munshid tradition which substantiates the legitimacy of music and musicality in Islamic practice. For aren’t Quranic chanting an adhan forms of musicality shared by all Muslim cultures? And isn’t dhikr, whether in the form of the repetition of the names of God, the litanies of the Sufi orders or the supplications chanted by Muslim on different occasions, an acknowledged and authorized form of musicality? Waugh’s Memory, Music and Religion, like his other committed scholarship on music and musicality in Islam,is a welcome addition to the Islamic library particularly today when Western Orientalists and Muslims fundamentalists persist in pronouncing Islam and music as incompatible.

Waugh’s research has made obvious that music is an integral and fundamental part in Islamic practice and worldview, as this is attested by the centrality of dhikr , whether exercised within or outside the Sufi lodges (zawiya-s). Indeed,as a tool for reclaiming the past, re-enacting the original message in a local context --i.e. revitalizing the tradition--dhikr participates in the perpetuation of the prophetic ideal of Islam. Waugh’s discussion of the“ Burda” poems– these poems which have been, and still are, re-produced in various local Muslim contexts-- is a very powerful illustration of the importance of dhikr . Roy Mottahedah chose the title of The Mantle of the Prophet for his remarkable book on the Iranian Islamic revolution (Mottahedeh,1986). As for Eliade Mircea’s “archaic religions”dhikr , just like prayer or any other religious ritual , serves as a recapitulation of the original message of Islam and a reminder of the primordial unity of Man and God. In fact, the role played by dhikr in Islam is not unlike that played by prophecy and the “Revealed Books”– also referred to as dhikr in the Qur’an-- in the rest of the Abrahamic tradition.

Sufi Dhikr brings Muslims together and draws Muslims closer to other believers and to humankind at large ; but it also partakes to the expression of local identity. By being immersed in the local musical tradition dhikr contributes to the preservation of cultural diversity and regional specificity. For, Sufi chanting varies according to the culture and civilization in which it is created. The Quran, the litanies and even the poems sang by Moroccan, Egyptian, English, Pakistani or Iranian murid-s and munshid-s may be the same, but their modes of expression are radically different. It is in this vein that Amhadou Ampâté Bah, a Sufi Muslim from Mali, compared “African Islam”to water because it takes the form, the color and the taste of its container– a parable which applies to dhikr as well as other aspects of the Islamic practice.

Waugh’s lessons about dhikr are thus unambiguous. His treatment of the role of those he called the munshidin of Morocco in the transmission of the Sufi tradition, however, is more debatable. This is explained, at least partially, by the inadequacies of some basic definitions.

It is common knowledge that Sufi sama’(listening), also referred to as Sufi inshad, consists of names of God, litanies, supplications and poems chanted in a formal Sufi gathering by one or more dhakir-s(reciters) with the purpose of developing and heightening mystical feelings among the participants. Thesechanting always involvesrefrains that are sung by all the attending murid-s .Often the poems sung are from the collected poemsof the sufi lodge founder or current shaykh of that particular Sufi order.

The Sufi munshid is usually a leading reciter from a Sufi congregation singled out by thezawiya shaykh or muqaddam. He is chosen from among the murid -s of the order who, throughhis regular attendance to the hadra(ecstasy) ceremonies, has acquired a certain musicalknowledge, memorized the litanies, poems and supplications under the tutelage of his Sufi master and learned how to convey his mystical experience through his chanting . Thus, a munshid needs to have some knowledge of music and needs to know by heart a number of texts; but he is neither a singer (musician) nor a hafidh (memorizer). More than any of these competences, a Sufi munshid needs to be a real Sufi, his fundamental responsibility being the expression and transferring of his powerful inner feelings to his listeners. A Sufi munshid is thus a tool in the service of his/her Sufi order and a medium between the Sufi shaykh and the spectator !

It becomes obvious then that, outside a religious order, a practitioner of dhikr becomes a professional munshid or a sort of “religious singer” , but not a Sufi munshid or a Sufi musammi’ . Certainly, a Sufi munshid may develop a career as a musical composer, a singer ora member of a religious choir while continuing to be an active member of a Sufi order. But,unless authorized by his Sufi order , a munshid may not use the zawiya’s “ repertoire” in a private or non-Sufi concert. So,one cannot speak of the existence of professional and independent “Sufi munshidin” in Morocco, as this may be the case in Egypt. The professional munshidin or musammi’in who are usually engaged for recitals during religious festivals,funerals or other social occasions, are not Sufis and do not need not be so; their role being basically formal and ceremonial. They are entertainers of a special kind!

Nevertheless, and in spite of its complexity Memory, Music and Religion remains a provocative piece of research , a worthy and respectable contribution to the study of Maghribi Sufi culture. Let us hope that, after his books on the Egyptian and the Moroccan munshidin Earle Waugh will now attempt a comparative study of sama’ in different cultural and confessional contexts.

Fatima Harrak, Ph.D.
Institute of African Studies Université Mohammed V, Raba