Provides basic musicological information about a vast variety of Middle Eastern musical genres within an ethnomusical context.
The first of its kind, this book contains 3,816 references to the music and dance of the world's religions, large and small, tribal, regional, and global.
Explores the terms, concepts, personalities, historical events, and institutions that helped shape the history of this religion and the way it is practiced today.
Women, the Recited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Contemporary Indonesia takes readers to the heart of religious musical praxis in Indonesia, home to the largest Muslim population in the world. Anne K. Rasmussen explores a rich public soundscape, where women recite the divine texts of the Qur'an, and where an extraordinary diversity of Arab-influenced Islamic musical styles and genres, also performed by women, flourishes. Based on unique and revealing ethnographic research beginning at the end of Suharto's "New Order" and continuing into the era of "Reformation," the book considers the powerful role of music in the expression of religious nationalism. In particular, it focuses on musical style, women's roles, and the ideological and aesthetic issues raised by the Indonesian style of recitation.
From the rhythmic grooves of dang dut, the archipelago's tenacious pop music, to the oft-quoted image of the wayang shadow puppet-theater, this book investigates the expression of the Muslim religion through a diversity of art forms in this region.
This surveys the philosophies of music of the most important thinkers in Islam between the 9th and the 15th centuries A.D. It covers topics ranging from the physics and aesthetics of sound, the nature of music, its place in the total scheme of things and in human life, the relation between music, astronomy, astrology and meteorology, the relation between music and human feelings, character and behavour, to the question of whether a good Muslim should be allowed to listen to music at all, and if so, to which sorts. The book traces the influence of Greek, in particular Pythagorean and Aristoxenian, thinking in Islam on this subject, and aims to provide a philosophically coherent statement of thinking of the Islamic writers concerned, a clarification of their central arguments, as well as a critical evaluation of their line of thought. The author introduces a wide range of material from manuscript sources, including much that has not been published before. This work will be of interest to Islamicists, but also to medievalists, musicologists, historians of the philosophy of music and classicists.
“We play heavy metal because our lives are heavy metal.” —Reda Zine, one of the founders of the Moroccan heavy-metal scene “Music is the weapon of the future.” —Fela Kuti An eighteen-year-old Moroccan who loves Black Sabbath. A twenty-two-year-old rapper from the Gaza Strip. A young Lebanese singer who quotes Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” They are as representative of the world of Islam today as the conservatives and extremists we see every night on the news. Heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, and reggae are each the music of protest, and in many cases considered immoral in the Muslim world. This music may also turn out to be the soundtrack of a revolution unfolding across that world. Why, despite governmental attempts to control and censor them, do these musicians and fans keep playing and listening? Partly, of course, for the joy of self-expression, but also because, in this region, everything is political. In Heavy Metal Islam, Mark LeVine explores the influence of Western music on the Middle East through interviews with musicians and fans, introducing us young Muslims struggling to reconcile their religion with a passion for music and a desire for change. The result is a revealing tour of contemporary Islamic culture through the evolving music scene in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Heavy Metal Islam is a surprising, wildly entertaining foray into a historically authoritarian region where music just might be the true democratizing force. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Al-Farabi (870–950) war einer der bedeutendsten arabischen Philosophen, der sich um die Vermittlung der islamischen Philosophie mit dem Denken der griechischen Antike besondere Verdienste erwarb. Seine Schrift "Über die Wissenschaften" erlangte durch die Übersetzung von Gerhard von Cremona eine nachhaltige Rezeption in der Philosophie des lateinischen Mittelalters. Denn in dieser Schrift beschreibt und bewertet Al-Farabi alle zu seiner Zeit bekannten Wissenschaften, erörtert sie in ihren Funktionen und Untergliederungen und setzt sie zueinander in Beziehung. Die eigentliche Bedeutung dieser Schrift liegt jedoch darin, den Erkenntnissen der beschriebenen Wissenschaften ihr eigenes Recht gegenüber den überlieferten Lehren der Religion zuzuschreiben und das Verhältnis zwischen Glauben und Wissen neu zu bestimmen.
Culture shapes every aspect of the relationship between God and the believer in Islam - as well as among believers, and with those beyond the fold. Fasts, prayers and pilgrimages are attuned to social rhythms old and new, no less than the designs of mosques and public gardens, the making of ‘religious’ music, and ways of thinking about technology and wellbeing. Ancient deserts and modern urban landscapes may echo with the same call for transcendence, but in voices that emerge from very different everyday realities. Scripture itself, as the Prophet Muhammad knew, is ever seen through a cultural lens; both language and what it communicates are intimately tied to context. And the cosmopolitanism that runs through Muslim history from the outset recalls T.S. Eliot’s remark that culture is ‘that which makes life worth living’. It frames how the deepest religious values are understood and practiced, from modesty in adornment and solidarity with the underprivileged, to integrity and accountability in political life. Muslims have never been content with a passive separation of faith from their daily lives, whether public or private. What are the implications of this holistic view in a diverse world of Muslims and non-Muslims? How do core ethical values interface with the particulars of local cultures in all their complexity, especially when it comes to matters like the status of women and the scope of individual religious freedom? The answers - at a time when secular and Muslim identities appear to be locked in conflict- are explored in this Companion by some of today’s finest scholars.
This work provides a pragmatic approach to teaching world music traditions in upper elementary through high school classes. This updated and expanded edition of MENC's landmark 1989 publication goes much further than its predecessor in providing materials to assist music teachers in modifying their classes and involving their students in new forms of music making and new understandings about sounds. It includes illustrations, diagrams, and music examples; extensive, annotated resource lists; and ideas for integrating multicultural music study with other subjects. It features new subjects, expanded sections, and new lessons added to every chapter. It is adaptable for use in undergraduate college courses.
'Music as Concept and Practice in the Late Middle Ages' is an entirely new addition to the New Oxford History of Music series rather than a revision of the volume's predecessor published in 1960. It takes account not only of the developments in late-medieval music scholarship during the latterdecades of the twentieth century, but also of the experience gained through significant changes in the performance practice of the late-medieval repertory witnessed during this period. All the chapters include areas of discussion whose coverage in the series hitherto has been either wholly lackingor, at best, marginal: Muslim and Jewish musical traditions of the Middle Ages, late-medieval office chant, medieval dance music, musical instruments in society, music in Central and Eastern Europe, music theory of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, music and early Renaissance humanism. Thefirst chapter and the last three present the conceptualization of music in speculative theory, philosophy, compositional and didactic practice, and musical historiography. Four chapters, and part of the first, illustrate important musical repertories and genres as they were developed within diversesocieties. The eight authors - all of them with a long-standing interest in their respective subjects - have created through their collaboration a blend of mature scholarship and original investigation. The volume's novelty of approach and content is complemented by a firm anchorage in thespecialist literature and documentary source material. Today, no single view of 'the Middle Ages' can be acceptable to the musician or to the historian. The present volume, which addresses itself to both, provides solid information on formerly marginal themes, and advocates further exploration ofthe 'other' Middle Ages.
The history of the Islamic faith on the continent of Africa spans fourteen centuries. For the first time in a single volume, The History of Islam in Africa presents a detailed historic mapping of the cultural, political, geographic, and religious past of this significant presence on a continent-wide scale. Bringing together two dozen leading scholars, this comprehensive work treats the historical development of the religion in each major region and examines its effects. Without assuming prior knowledge of the subject on the part of its readers, The History of Islam in Africa is broken down into discrete areas, each devoted to a particular place or theme and each written by experts in that particular arena. The introductory chapters examine the principal "gateways" from abroad through which Islam traditionally has influenced Africans. The following two parts present overviews of Islamic history in West Africa and the Sudanic zone, and in subequatorial Africa. In the final section, the authors discuss important themes that have had an impact on Muslim communities in Africa. Designed as both a reference and a text, The History of Islam in Africa will be an essential tool for libraries, scholars, and students of this growing field.
This first full-length study of women and the Fatimids is a groundbreaking work investigating an unexplored area in the field of Islamic and medieval studies. The authors have unearthed a wealth of references to women, thus re-inscribing their role in the history of one of the most fascinating Islamic dynasties, the only one to be named after a woman. At last some light is thrown on the erstwhile silent and shadowy figures of women under the Fatimids which gives them a presence in the history of women in medieval and pre-modern dynasties. Basing their research on a variety of sources from historical works to chronicles, official correspondence, documentary sources and archaeological findings, the authors have provided a richly informative analysis of the status and influence of women in this period. Their contribution is explored first within the context of Isma'ili and Fatimid genealogical history, and then within the courts in their roles as mothers, courtesans, wives and daughters, and as workers and servants. Throughout the book comparison is drawn with the status and roles of women in earlier, contemporary and subsequent Islamic as well as non-Islamic courts.