The Materiality of Sound, Mediation, and Practices of Listening: Observations from Historic and Contemporary Muslim Practices

Abstract

In his book on the etiquette of listening, the eleventh-century scholar Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī develops a scenario which includes the context, the performer, and the listener who all contribute to turn listening into a transformative experience by which the soul of the listener is moved, his or her inner qualities are revealed, and his or her transactions with the Divine are set in motion. This paper explores in what way these elaborations are relevant for contemporary performers of religious chanting in Arab Sunni communities in the Eastern Levant. It understands chanting in Muslim religious practice as “sensational forms” (Birgit Meyer) that serve religious mediation. These sensational forms are both authorised and contested, and al-Ghazālī’s ideas constitute an eminent reference for many practitioners. The paper captures al-Ghazālī’s elaborations in two aspects: first, his conditioned licence of listening to music and singing as a way to engage with the Divine and earn religious merits. Second, an understanding of music’s materiality that is not necessarily bound to sonic properties but becomes evident in the effect music has on listeners. Taking the concept of sorrow (ḥuzn) as an example, I show how al-Ghazālī’s understanding of mediating sorrow, rooted in the appropriation of ancient Greek music philosophy, has given way to a broader understanding of how to convey and evoke sorrow among contemporary performers.

Atmospheric resonance: sonic motion and the question of religious mediation

“…Understanding religious sound and sonic events as atmospheric is also in potential tension with established approaches to religious listening as auditory cultures, acoustemologies, and learned techniques of the body (Erlmann 2004; Feld 1996; Feld, Fox, Porcello & Samuels 2004; Weinrich 2020). It evokes a difference between the facticity and agency of the sonic as an energetic force that is powerful in itself, and the notion, current among anthropologists and historians, that humans invest sound with power, especially in religious settings.…”

“…55Al‐Ghazali's theology of listening, whose influence on Islamic engagements with music continues (Weinrich 2020), is a prime example. Al‐Ghazali's approach is not a sonic metaphysics, but a practical account of the ethical implications of listening to music for the relationship between Muslims and God.…”

Jihadi Audiovisuality and its Entanglements

“…This pertains to the definitions of what is music and what it is not, to attitudes towards music's effect and usage, or to the ban of particular instruments or musical techniques. Only a few examples from the Muslim context will be mentioned: on the overlapping of Quran recitation and the Arab secular music system and the demarcation of both domains, seeNelson (2001); on the appropriation of Greek musical philosophy on the effect of music on the human soul and the body, seeBlum (2013),Weinrich (2020b) andWright (2008). For a general introduction to Arab music, evaluating a wide range of treatises on both musical theory and Muslim theology, seePoché et al (2001).…”