Sam
‘
(Arab., ‘hearing’, ‘listening’).
S
f
practice
of making and listening to music to encourage attention to God, and the states ensuing therefrom. The common human experience of mood alteration through music, leading at an extreme to trance and other ecstatic states, was developed among S
f
s, especially in association with
dance
, and both music and dance may now be referred to through the term
a
ra (‘presence’; see
GHAIBA
), i.e. that which brings one into the presence of God.
Sam
dhi