Voices of Islam (197 page)

Summarizing the teachings of numerous masters of Sufism in his glossary of Sufi technical terms, the Moroccan Sufi Ahmad ibn ‘Ajiba (d. 1809
CE
) describes four successive degrees of approach toward ecstasy:

First, the ‘‘seeking out of ecstasy’’ (
tawajud
), in which one affects the appearan- ces of ecstatic emotion (
wajd
) and one uses them methodically; thus, one employs dance (
raqs
), rhythmic movements, etc. This seeking out is only admissible among the
fuqara’
[Sufi adepts] who have made vows of total renunciation. For them, there is nothing wrong in simulating ecstasy and in repeating its gestures in order to respond to an inner call (
hal
)
...
. It is, certainly, the station of the weak, but the strong practice it nevertheless, either in order to sustain and encourage the weaker ones, or because they find a sweetness in it
...
. Myself, when I participated in a session of spiritual concert with our Shaykh al-Buzidi, I saw him sway from right to left. One of the disciples of Mawlay al-‘Arabi al-Darqawi told me that his master would not stop dancing until the end of the concert.
19

In the second place comes ‘‘ecstatic emotion’’ (
wajd
), through which must be heard ‘‘that which befalls the heart’’ and takes hold of it unexpectedly, without the person having any part in it. It can be an ardent and anxious desire or a troubling fear
...
.

Thirdly, one speaks of ‘‘ecstatic meting’’ (
wijdan
), when the sweetness of the presence is prolonged, accompanied most frequently by intoxication and stupor.

Finally, if the meeting lasts until the stupor and hindrances dissipate and the faculties of meditation and insight are purified, it becomes ecstasy (
wujud
), the station to which Junayd (d. 911
CE
)
20
alluded in this verse: ‘‘My ecstasy is that I disappear from existence, by the grace of what appears to me of the Presence.’’
21

Music and Spirituality in Islam
67

ELEMENTS OF MUSICAL EXPRESSION

The animating power of music comes, as we have seen, from what music is in essence—a manifestation of the Divine Word, a language that reminds the human being of the state in which, before creation, one was still united with the Universal Soul, radiated from the original Light, which reminds the person of the instant in preeternity when, according to a Qur’anic verse frequently cited by the Sufis, the Lord asked souls before their manifestation: ‘‘Am I not your Lord?’’ and they answered, ‘‘Indeed, we do so testify’’ (Qur’an 7:172). It is the memory of this primordial covenant and the nostalgia for it that music evokes in hearts trapped within their earthly attachments.

There is in music an interpenetration of two aspects inherent in Allah, the Supreme Being. One is the aspect of Majesty (
jalal
), which translates into rhythm, and the other is the aspect of Beauty (
jamal
), which melody renders. The drum, which is beaten rhythmically, announces the arrival and the presence of the all-powerful King. It is a symbol of transcendence, of the discontinuity that separates us, impoverished and dependent, from God, the Highest, who subsists in Himself. Conversely, the human voice and the fl which express melody, sing of the Immanence, of the inexhaustible Wealth (
ghina’
) that no human imagination will ever comprehend, but whose every manifestation, mode, or station (
maqam
) is capable of becoming a grace and a blessing for the believer.

Musical Instruments

Each of the elements of the spiritual concert is invested with a symbolic value and becomes an aid for recollection or remembrance (
dhikr
) for those who are attentive to the language of signs. According to Ahmad Ghazali (d. 1126
CE
), who taught the elements of a whirling Sufi dance approximately a century and a half before Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi made the whirling dance of the Sufis famous:

The saints of Allah apply the forms to the realities (
ma‘ani
) on account of their abandoning the ranks of the forms and their moving in the ranks of the branches of gnosis. So among them the tambourine is a reference to the cycle of existing things (
da’irat al-akwan
); the skin which is fitted on to it is a reference to Absolute Being, the striking which takes place on the tambourine is a reference to the descent of the divine visitations from the innermost arcana within the Absolute Being to bring forth the things pertaining to the essence from the interior to the exterior
...
. And the breath of the musician is the form of the rank of the Truth (Exalted and holy is He!), since it is He who sets them in motion, brings them into existence, and enriches them. And the voice of the singer is a reference to the divine life, which comes down from the innermost arcana to

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Voices of Art, Beauty, and Science

the levels of the spirits, the hearts, and the consciences (
asrar
). The [reed] flute (
qasab
) is a reference to the human essence, and the nine holes [in the fl

are a reference to the openings in the outer frame (
zahir
), which are nine, viz. the ears, the nostrils, the eyes, the mouth, and the private parts. And the breath which penetrates the flute is a reference to the light of Allah penetrating the reed of man’s essence. And the dancing is a reference to the circling of the spirit round the cycle of existing things in order to receive the effects of the unveilings and revelations; and this is the state of the gnostic. The whirling is a reference to the spirit’s standing with Allah in its inner nature (
sirr
) and being (
wujud
), the circling of its look and thought, and its penetrating the ranks of existing things; and this is the state of the assured one. And his leaping up is a reference to his being drawn from the human station to the station of unity and to existing things acquiring from him spiritual effects and illuminative

aids.
22

It will be noted that in this passage Ahmad Ghazali makes no mention of stringed instruments. That is because he, like his more famous brother Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, considered stringed instruments forbidden ‘‘by general consensus’’ (
ijma‘
). This was because, during the first centuries of Islam, fre- quent use of stringed instruments was made by effeminates (
mukhannathun
) for evenings of entertainment that were hardly compatible with the concerns of the men of God. Their disapproval of stringed instruments, however, was not universal and only refl the uncertainties that, even in mystical circles, existed on the subject of musical practice. It did not prevent the lute, the
tanbur
(pandore), the
rabab
(rebec), and the
qanun
(zither) from finding their place next to the drums and the reed fl (
nay
) in the oratorios of several Sufi orders, such as the Mevlevis (‘‘Whirling Dervishes’’) and the Bektashis of Turkey, the Chistis of India, and much later (mid-ninteenth century), the Shadhilis-Harraqis of Morocco, who adopted for their sessions of remembrance the instruments of the classical Andalusian musical session, the
nawba.

Musical instruments were held in the highest esteem by the philosopher- musicologists of Islam, who based scholarly studies concerning the groupings and divisions of notes on them. It must be remembered that the philosopher Farabi, among others, was himself such a marvelous lute player that he was able, according to his contemporaries, to hold his listeners in rapt attention, to put them to sleep, to make them laugh or cry, and to inspire in them feelings that matched his own spiritual ‘‘moments.’’ Although such accounts may seem exaggerated today, they are consistent with the theory of the tuning of the lute, formulated by the Arab philosopher al-Kindi among others, according to which the four strings of the instrument corresponded to fundamental micro- and macrocosmic quaternaries, such as the Animal Tendencies (gentleness, cowardice, intelligence, and courage), the Faculties of the Soul (mnemonic, attentive, imaginative, and cognitive), and the

Elements (water, earth, air, and fire).
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Music and Spirituality in Islam
69

Melodic Modes

The effect that Islamic music, whether vocal or instrumental, has on the soul is directly connected with its modal structure, which, technically speaking, is without doubt its fundamental characteristic. In contrast to Western music, which has only two modes, the major and the minor, Oriental modes are quite numerous. Contemporary Arab, Turkish, and Persian musicians list them most often as numbering either 32 or 24. Of these modes, 12 are very commonly used, but in the classical epoch, more than a hundred modes were used.
24

A ‘‘mode’’ (Arabic
maqam,
Turkish
makam,
Persian
dastgah
or
avaz
) is a type of melody that is expressed by a series of well-defined sounds.
25
It is a series (
sullam,
literally, ‘‘ladder’’) of sounds, corresponding approximately to a Western scale, that does not have to use the same notes for ascending and descending to the octave. Each mode carries a specifi name that may denote, for example, its geographic origin (
Hijaz, Nahawand,
or
‘Iraqi
), the position of its dominant note on the lute—
Dugah
(second position, or A),
Sikah
(third position, or B)—or suggests the state of the soul or the phe- nomenon that the mode is supposed to translate into music (
Farahfaza,
‘‘joyous,’’
Nasim,
‘‘breeze;’’
Saba,
’’morning wind’’ the bringer of longing; or
Zamzama,
‘‘murmur’’). It is said that musicians in former times had a precise knowledge of the virtues of the modes and performed them in accordance with this knowledge. This still occurs in Pakistan and northern India, where the system of
ragas
obeys rules very similar to those of Persian, Turkish, and Arabic modes. Thus, medieval Muslim musicians played certain melodies only during certain seasons, at certain hours of the day, or on special occasions in conjunction with the places and the ceremonies for which they wished to create a propitious ambience, a spiritual or emotional aura. In the opinion of specialists of Turkish music: ‘‘The emancipation of music, its detachment from the complex base of human activities, has certainly taken from the
makam
much of its original character, but a portion remains alive, even if it is unconscious. Musicians recognize a
makam
right from the fi

notes
...
. Therefore, the
makam
always exerts an infl but only long practice permits one to feel it.’’
26

From the mystical perspective, the exploration of a mode by a performer who on the one hand, humbly adapts himself to the preexisting pattern that makes up the mode and, on the other hand, improvises a series of melodic passages and vocalizations around the essential notes, constitutes a true spiritual discipline. It demands as its basic condition a sort of poverty (
faqr
) through a sense of detachment or interior emptiness, and in compensation brings about the unveiling of a state (
hal
) or contemplative station, which, in Sufi terminology, is also called a
maqam.
This terminological correspondence is not accidental. Lifted up on the wings of the melody, the musician progresses from
maqam
to
maqam,
up to the extreme limits of

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Voices of Art, Beauty, and Science

joy and plenitude, carrying along in his wake those listeners whose hearts have been opened.

Rhythm

The rhythmic structures of Arabo-Islamic music (
usul,
from
asl,
‘‘root,’’ or
iqa’at,
singular
iqa,
‘‘beat’’) serve the function of sustaining the melody while providing it with conceptual divisions, a temporal framework, and sometimes also a profound and majestic sonorous base. They produce periods of equal duration, which, like the meters of prosody, are composed of beats that are at times regular or uneven, broken, and precipitous. The beats themselves are of two kinds: muffled and clear. Their varied combi- nations evoke the alternation of complementary principles—such as heat and cold, dry and humid, active and passive—in the sustenance and renewal of cosmic harmony. The effect of rhythm on the human soul is described in the following way by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a contemporary scholar of the science and sacred art of Islam: ‘‘The rhythm, the meter of the music changes the relation of man with ordinary time which is the most important charac- teristic of the life of this world. Persian music possesses extremely fast and regular rhythms in which there are no beats or any form of temporal determi- nation. In the fi instance man is united with the pulsation of cosmic life, which in the human individual is always present in the form of the beating of the heart. Man’s life and the life of the cosmos become one, the micro- cosm is united to the macrocosm.... In the second case, which transcends all rhythm and temporal distinction, man is suddenly cut off from the world of time; he feels himself situated face to face with eternity and for a moment

benefits from the joy of extinction (
fana’
) and permanence (
baqa’
).’’
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The Human Voice

Among the Arabs as among the ancient Semites, music was primarily a vocal art, designated by the word
ghina’,
‘‘song,’’ which for a long time served to signify music, before it was supplanted by the term
musiqa,
derived from the Greek. In pre-Islamic Arabia, music was sung in verses, which the soothsayers and magicians used to render their oracles and utter their incantations. And even if bards and professional singers (
qa’inat
) played instruments, these served above all to introduce or to accompany the sung poems.