Voices of Islam (199 page)

The lyrics of
Qawwali
songs, sometimes in Urdu and sometimes in Persian, are borrowed from the repertoire of the fi ative type of Sufi poetry. This poetry is noted for evocations of terrestrial beauty, such as the garden, with its fl and perfumes, wine, taverns and cupbearers, and the face of the beloved and the sighs of the lover. These evocations are

76
Voices of Art, Beauty, and Science

believed to elevate the soul toward contemplation of celestial realities and to lead it back to its true existence. Repetitive formulas drawn from the Qur’an such, as
Huwa Allah,
‘‘He is God,’’ often separate the stanzas of the songs and are taken up as a refrain by the audience. As in the Shadhili or Mevlevi
sama‘
sessions, certain songs are praises of the Prophet Muhammad or his Companions and the saints who came after them. Others are connected with the Arabic poetic tradition, especially the Persian love song (
ghazal
). Here in the ambience of the Sufi brotherhoods is a musical art, which, while expressing itself at a popular level, remains spiritually rich through its permeation by the rhythms and melodic modes (
ragas
) of Hindustani music.

The Music of the Kurdish ‘‘People of the Truth’’ (Ahl-i Haqq)

In Iranian Kurdistan (especially in the province of Kirmanshah), and in other regions where Kurdish communities are numerous such as Iraq, Turkey, and Azerbaijan, there exists a Shiite sect of an esoteric nature, the
Ahl-i Haqq
or ‘‘People of the Truth,’’ for whom music plays an important role during their ritual assemblies.
31
The importance given to music by this sect rests in doctrinal and theosophical considerations that are heavily influenced by Ismailism and are close to Sufism. Central to these considera- tions is the notion that music awakens the aspiration of the believer and links him once again to the God the Beloved (
Yar
), with whom a covenant was sealed in Pre-Eternity.

Technically speaking, the principal characteristic of Ahl-i Haqq music is the almost exclusive use that it makes of the
tanbur,
a type of long-necked man- dolin having two, sometimes three, metallic strings and sixteen frets, which, when touched with the fi ertips, produce one low sound and one high- pitched sound. The high-pitched sound is used especially for performing solos, while the low sound is used for accompanying singers. Each spiritual guide (
pir
) of the Ahl-i Haqq is a musician who, while playing the melodies transmitted by the tradition (certain among them dating from the eleventh century
CE
), renews the primordial covenant in the manner in which the Angel Gabriel,
Pir-Binyanun,
celebrated it with the angels and later on the occasion of his earthly appearances.

The spiritual and musical assembly (
jam‘
) of the Ahl-i Haqq includes a series of chanted recitations, during which the chanter (
kalam-khwan
), who accompanies himself on the
tanbur,
sings religious poems. Those who are in attendance take up the refrain in a chorus and at times clap their hands to mark the rhythm. They often return to the invocation, ‘‘My beginning and my end are the Beloved (
Yar
),’’ in order, they say, to attract the heart’s attention to the divine Principle. One of the remarkable traits of this music is that it has kept many of the characteristics of the ancient Iranian tradition of court music, which, following several periods of persecution, especially in

Music and Spirituality in Islam
77

the late Safavid period (seventeenth to eighteenth centuries
CE
), were com- pletely lost. This is why both Iranian musicians and Western musicologists are academically interested in the 12 melodic modes (
dastgah
) that are expressed in the sacred songs and hymns that resonate throughout the rural sanctuaries of the Ahl-i-Haqq: ‘‘The Eternal Hunter, oh my soul, has cast the net of the Pact, oh my soul.’’

The Spiritual Audition of Classical Music

Throughout the Muslim world very close threads have been woven between the mystical path and the principal expressions of classical music, this music having shown itself capable, as the Ikhwan al-Safa’ affirmed, not only of arousing aesthetic emotion (
tarab
) but also of putting the soul in commu- nication with spiritual realities. The distinction between sacred music, devoted to worship, and profane music was often abolished, and music ‘‘for entertainment,’’ with its inseparable constituent of sung poetry, was retained in literary and artistic circles as well as in mystical gatherings. Because of the diverse levels of interpretation to which the majority of Muslim poetic compositions lent themselves, with their metaphorical and allegorical language, Sufi musicians did not hesitate, following the example of the
Qawwal
of India in the singing of
ghazals,
to introduce into their concerts ‘‘profane’’ poems that were charged with a supra-terrestrial resonance.

Conversely, musicians without a mystical affiliation appreciated the works of Sufi poets, if not for the profundity of their symbolism, then at least for their evocative power and formal beauty. Sufi poetical works used in musical concerts include the
Great Ta’iyya
(a poem with each verse ending in the Arabic letter
ta’
) and the
Khamriyya
(wine poem) of the Egyptian Sufi ‘Umar ibn al-Farid (d. 1234
CE
) in Arabic, selections from the poems of Hafiz (d. 1389
CE
), Jami (d. 1492
CE
), or Rumi in Persian and the poems of Yunus Emre (d. ca. 1321
CE
) and Ismail Hakki (d. 1724
CE
) in Turkish. Thus, music allowed a breath of spirituality to penetrate as far as the interiors of the princely courts and noble residences of the cities. The association between Sufi groups and classical musicians was a quasi-permanent characteristic of medieval Muslim society and it continues to the present day. The importance of this can be illustrated by some examples taken from the great cultural regions of the Islamic world.

Arabo-Andalusian Music

In the Arabic-speaking world, a constant quest for the perfection of musi- cal knowledge was carried on during the fi three or four centuries of Islamic history. From the mid-eighth century
CE
, at the end of the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, there existed a formal Arabic music, which, being an

78
Voices of Art, Beauty, and Science

elaborated version of the former popular recital, was enriched by Persian and Hellenistic elements borrowed from the new urban environments of the Islamic empire. To ancient poetic meters there came to be added new rhythmic formulas, including the one furnished by the quatrain. Through the infl of such devices, Arabic music assimilated the modal systems of the Byzantines and Persians. To the traditional reed fl and the single-stringed
rabab,
were added the
‘ud
(lute), the
qanun
(zither) and the three-stringed violin (
kamanja
), as well as several percussion instruments such as the frame drum (
daff
). This music reached its full development during the long reign of the Abbassids, from 750 to 1258
CE
.

Then came the Mongol invasion, the destruction of Baghdad, and the end of the great epoch of Arabo-Islamic civilization. Some musicians survived this disaster and continued to transmit their art in various Oriental cities. However, it would not be possible today to form any kind of precise notion as to what this music was in its plenitude if a branch of this art had not been transplanted from Baghdad to the land of al-Andalus or Islamic Spain, and if it had not later been taken up in North Africa, where it has been per- petuated to the present day. A major figure in this process of transplantation was Ziryab, a musician of genius, who, after having studied with Ishaq al-Mawsili in Baghdad, found himself forced to immigrate to Cordoba in order to escape the jealousy of his teacher. Received there with full honors at the court of the Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd al-Rahman II in 821
CE
, Ziryab developed an original musical style, which was based on the canons of classical music as performed in Iraq. Relying on the correspondences established by the philosopher Kindi between the four strings of the lute, the four cosmic qualities (cold-humid and hot-dry), the four basic colors (yellow, red, white, and black), and the four human temperaments (bilious, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic), Ziryab went far in increasing the knowledge and utilization of the psycho-physiological effects of musical modes. He also added a fifth string to the lute, which represented the soul, and elaborated a musical style called the
nawba,
which was thoroughly imbued with these symbolic understandings.
32

A
nawba,
a word that could be translated approximately as ‘‘suite,’’ contains four (five, in Morocco) melodic and rhythmic movements (
dawr
) performed with song and orchestra in an order fixed by Ziryab and that never varied. The order of the movements of the
nawba
is as follows: (1) a free recitative movement (
nashid
), (2) moderato movement (
basit
), (3) rapid passages (
muharrakat
), and (4) a lively finale (
hazajat
). There are currently 11
nawbas,
each of which is performed in a particular musical mode (
maqam
),
33
which expresses a specific feeling or sentiment: the major mode (
rasd
) expresses pride; the mode of lovers (
‘ushshaq
) expresses joy and is played in the morning; the mode of
maya
evokes the sadness of separation and is played in the evening; the mode of
ramelmaya
is reserved for praise of the Prophet Muhammad.

Music and Spirituality in Islam
79

A concert of Andalusian music always has a soothing and purifying effect on the souls of listeners, whether it be in a light style (
kalam al-hazl
) or a seri- ous style (
kalam al-jadd
), or whether its recitatives are borrowed from classical prosody (
kalam mawzun
) or popular poetry (
kalam malhun
), or whether, as often happens, it alternates different styles. All vulgarity is excluded from this music and the numerous allusions and conventional but always effi cious images with which it is punctuated are a constant call to return toward the Source of Beauty. Themes that are evoked in Andalusian music include the divine or earthly beloved; the personifi Night (
Layla
), whose presence is awaited with hope and longing; the earthly and paradisal Garden with its fl its fruits, and its streams of nectar; the Friend of God (the Prophet Muhammad) and God Himself, named by his ‘‘Beautiful Names’’ (Qur’an 77:180). The continued popularity of these themes is why in the Moroccan city of Fez, for example, the authorities and dignitaries of the city have patronized Andalusian music for over 700 years and still encourage the practice of an art felt to be supremely compatible with their religious sentiments.

This is also why, despite the rule usually followed in the cities of North Africa, where the performance of instrumental music was excluded from the religious context, some forms of
sama‘
derived directly from Andalusian music and using its instruments (the lute, the
rabab,
the tambourine, and the flute) found blessings in the eyes of certain Sufi masters. In the northern Moroccan city of Tetouan, which has been a refuge for Andalusian artistic traditions from the time of the exodus of the Muslims from Spain in the fi and sixteenth centuries, an eminently ‘‘orthodox’’ Sufi order can be found—the Harraqiyya founded around 1845 by Muhammad al-Harraq, a disciple of Mawlay al-‘Arabi al-Darqawi—which uses the instruments and the melodies of the
nawba.
The spiritual sessions of the Harraqiyya are built around the singing of the poems (
diwan
) of Muhammad al-Harraq, whose name alludes to his having been ‘‘burned’’ or consumed with the fires of divine love. Listening to the Andalusian
nawba
prepares the participants for the performance of the sacred dance (
‘imara
) of the Harraqiyya, which is sustained by a chorus of singers (
munshidun
) and by beats of a drum.

Iranian Music

Heir to the rich Sassanian musical tradition, then impregnated by Islamic influences, first Arab and later Turkish and Indian, the music of Iran has man- aged to preserve its personality and its distinctive characteristics throughout the centuries. The efficacy of music as an agent for the transmutation of the soul has perhaps never been explained as explicitly as by the Sufi Ruzbihan Baqli of Shiraz (d. 1209
CE
), a master of theology, music, and poetry, who was ‘‘one of the
fi d’amore
of Islam.’’
34
All of Ruzbihan’s written

80
Voices of Art, Beauty, and Science

works—treatises, commentaries, and poems—are exhortations to return to the Divine Source that calls to the human being, issuing from Itself, by means of the voice of the Qur’anic Word and that of spiritual music, the
sama‘:
‘‘Sometimes He says, ‘You are myself,’ and sometimes He says, ‘I am you’
...
. Sometimes, He rejects [the seeker] and sometimes He grants him peace in divine intimacy
.. .
. Sometimes He throws him into complete slavery, and sometimes He plunges him into the essence of Lordship. Sometimes He makes him drunken from the Beauty of God, sometimes He belittles him before His Majesty
...
. All this happens during the
sama‘
and still much more.’’
35

This is the same message that Rumi delivers in his
Masnavi:
‘‘The believers say that the effects of Paradise will make every voice beautiful. We were all part of Adam and heard those melodies in Paradise. Though water and clay have covered us with doubt, we still remember something of those sounds
...
. Sounds and songs strengthen the images within the mind, or rather, turn them into forms.’’
36