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Art. XXVI.—Emotional Religion in Islām as affected by Music and Singing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Duncan B. Macdonald
Duncan B. Macdonald
Affiliation:
Hartford, Conn.
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Extract

Know that the first step in Hearing is understanding what is heard, and applying it to an idea which occurs to the hearer. Then this understanding has as fruit ecstasy, and ecstasy moving of the members. Let there be a consideration, then, of these three stages.

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , October 1901 , pp. 705 - 748
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1901

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References

page 706 note 1 I so translate mu‘āmala, ‘transaction’ or ‘transacting.’ The word in the plural is applied to one of the divisions of law (shar‘), and denotes then such duties as enter between men in the various sections of jurisprudence, e.g., sale, loan, partnership, claims of all kinds, etc. For the mystical sense, compare the title of al-Ghazzālī's collection of poems, Asrār al-mu‘āmalāt.

page 707 note 1 This a locus classicus on the mystical use of poetry. It should be noticed how absolute is the position laid down; the interpretation may be purely subjective. We have not here the question of the second meaning or of allegory as it is understood in Western literature; there may be any number of interpretations, according to the number of the listeners, all alike undreamt of by the poet. We shall see hereafter how such treatment of the Qur’ān is disliked. It is the word of God, and may only be applied with the meaning which God gave it, and is thus sharply distinguished from human words. Poetry, then, is treated as music is with us; it is vague, indefinite, suggestive of emotions, not of things. This is easy in Arabic. As has been well said, “Place, time, and circumstance give the Arab song its meaning.” In the same sense Hoffmann in Der Majorat (ed. Reclam, pp. 28 ff.) said, “Ein Geheimnissvoller Zauber liegt in den unbedeutenden Worten des Textes, der zur Hieroglyphe des Unausprechlichen wird, von dem unsere Brust erfüllt.” Compare, too, an interesting passage by the same writer in his Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr, ed. Reclam, ii, pp. 197 f.; and MacLaurel's remarks on poetry and music in Peacocke's Headlong Hall, chap. xiii.

page 708 note 1 Abū-l-Ḥasan ad-Darrāj b. al-Ḥusayn ar-Rāzī, nazīl Baghdad. He is mentioned several times in the Rīsāla of al-Qushayrī.

page 708 note 2 I cannot identify this Ibn al-Fuwaṭī. In Flügel's Hanefiten, p. 43, No. 170, there is an Ibn al-Fuwaṭī quoted through adh-Dhahabī. The name occurs in adh-Dhahabī's Mushtabih, pp. 410, 422, but with no reference that suits. Are we to read al-Qūṭī and refer to Sulaymān b. Ayyūb al-Qūṭī al-Qurṭuī, a mystic of eminence who died 377? Al-Fuwaṭī means a dealer in towels and napkins.

page 708 note 3 Compare al-Qushayrī, p. 204. I have added from that source the parts of the song in square brackets. For an instance of death due to religious excitement on hearing a poem recited, see Ibn Khall., i, pp. 292 ff. This case fell in Ibn Khallikān's own experience, and the verses have on their face no religious meaning or intention. Ath-Tha‘labī wrote a book on those who died with emotīon when they heard the Qur’ān read; Leyden Cat., No. 1979, Ḥkh. No. 3932.

page 708 note 4 That he may see the face of God in Paradise as a reward.

page 709 note 1 That is, he reduced his clothing to the simplest possible as a sign of entrance on the ascetic life. It may also mean that he went on pilgrimage, for the Iḥrām clothing consists, as here, of an izār and a ridā, and some pilgrims, out of devotion, assume it from their first setting out.

page 710 note 1 The Murīd is a beginner, one who has just set out on the Path of the mystical life; the ‘Ārif, or ‘ knower,’ is an advanced disciple who has attained immediate knowledge for himself.

page 711 note 1 Surādiqāt al-jalāl: surādiq is explained by the lexicons as anything surrounded by something by way of wall or as a tent set up; in this phrase it appears to be used of the inmost pavilion in which the very Majesty of God is veiled. See the Durra, pp. 2, 12, 54, 66 of the version.

page 712 note 1 The SM. ascribes the saying to Abū ‘Alī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad ar-Rudhbāri; d. 322 or 323. Ibn Khall., i, p. 86, note 4; al-Qush., p. 33.

page 712 note 2 Ra’san bi-ra’sin. The SM. explains lā lanā walā ‘alaynā. It is a horseracing phrase, equal to our neck and neck ; see Ibn Khall., i, p. 48, note 5, and p. 59, note 1.

page 712 note 3 ‘Utba b. Abbān b. Taghlib al-Ghulām ; so the SM. There are anecdotes of him in Dā’ūd al-Anḥākī's Tazyīn al-aswāq, e.g. pp. 45 and 48 of lithog. of 1279, and in the Lawāqiḥ, p. 37. According to the Fihrist, p. 185, he wrote a Risāla fī-z-zuhd.

page 713 note 1 Abū-l-Qāsim was a comrade of Dhū-n-Nūn and Sarī ; he died in 277.

page 713 note 2 Abu Sa‘īd Aḥmad b. ‘Īsà al-Baghdādī al-Kharrāz was a companion of Dhū-n-Nūn, an-Nabbāzī, Abū ‘Ubayd al-Baṣrī, Sarī, and Bīshr; d. 277. Al-Qushayri, pp. 28 f. Lawāqiḥ, i, p. 73.

page 713 note 3 Karāmāt; cf. note 2 on p. 95 of Life, and add to the references there Ibn Ḥazm in ZDMG., lii, p. 475.

page 714 note 1 Abū Bakr Dulaf b. Jahdar b. Yūnus ash-Shiblī; d. 334. Ibn Khall., i, ṕp. 511 ff. ; al-Qush, p. 32.

page 714 note 2 Abū Manṣūr ath-Tha‘ālibī (d. 429), the author of the Fiqh al-lugha and the compiler of the Yatīma, published at Damaṣcus in a.h. 1302. See, too, Dieterici, Mutannabi und Seifuddaula, Leipzig, 1847Google Scholar.

page 715 note 1 Apparently he means that there is a great deal of effort but little progress forward.

page 715 note 2 Al-Gharūr; may be either the World or the Devil. On the word in the broad sense see the Kitāb dhamm al-gharūr, the tenth of the third Rub‘ of the Ihyā.

page 715 note 3 Qaḍa and qadar; for an examination of these two terms see Abd ar-Razzāq in J. A.; 2e sér., i, 160.

page 716 note 1 See the story of Joseph in Sūra xii of the Qur’ān. This is the standard Muslim illustration of complete absorption.

page 716 note 2 Abū-l-Ḥusayn AḤmad b. Muḥammad an-Nūrī al-Baghdādī, a comrade of Sarī; d. 295 or 298. Al-Qush., p. 25; de Sacy in Notices et Extraits, xii, p. 427, note 9.

page 717 note 1 In the story of Joseph.

page 718 note 1 The Ṣāḥib, Ibn ‘Abbād ; see Ibn Khall., i, 215.

page 718 note 2 Al-Ḥallāj; killed 309. Ibn Khall., i, pp. 423 ff.; von Kremer, Herrschende Ideen, pp. 70 ff.; ZDMG., lii, pp. 468 ff.; Fihrist, pp. 190 ff.; al-Mas‘udī, Tanbīh, p. 387; ‘Arīb (ed. de Goeje), pp. 86 ff.; al-Bērūnī, Athār, p. 211 ; Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, viii, pp. 57, 92.

page 719 note 1 Abū ‘Abd Allāh ‘Amr b. ‘Uthmān al-Makkī, a comrade of Abū Sa‘īd al-Kharrāz; he died in Baghdad, 291. Al-Qush., p. 327.

page 720 note 1 Abū Sa‘īd Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ziyād al-Baṣri ibn al-‘Arābī; he settled at Mecca and died there in 341. He was a companion of al-Junayd, ‘Amr b. ‘Uthmān, and an-Nūrī. Al-Qush., p. 35.

page 720 note 2 Ar-Raqīb, one of the names of God, because, as the Lisān says, nothing is hidden from Him. See Lane, Lexicon, p. 1134a, and Lisān, i, p. 408. It is the forty-third in the numbering of the Most Beautiful Names as usually given.

page 721 note 1 I am by no means certain of my translation of the last few sentences.

page 723 note 1 Al-Malakūt; see p. 116 of Life.

page 723 note 2 For the Hātif see Life, note 2 on p. 108, and compare the δαíμων of Socrates.

page 724 note 1 There is a tradition that Muḥammad said, “ Dreaming is one six and fortieth part of prophecy.” See note 2 on p. 90 of Life, and add al-Bērūnī's dream, text vol. of Āthār, Introduction, p. xiii.

page 724 note 2 Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad b. Masrūq al-Baghdādī. A son of his, Ahū-l-‘Abbās Aḥmad, was of the people of Ṭūs, but lived in Baghdād and was a companion of al-Muḥāsibī and Sarī. He died in Baghdad 298 or 299. Al-Qush., p. 29 ; Lawāqiḥ, i, p. 74.

page 724 note 3 Bi-ṭūri saynā’a karmun mā marartū bihā; so the vulgate text. The SM. quotes it in his commentary as the reading of some MSS., but reads in his text from other MSS. ; he suggests that this is the name of some valley, biq‘a.

page 724 note 4 For ‘Abbādān see Yāqūt, iii, pp. 597 f.; he says that many ascetics have their nisba from it. It is on the left bank of the Shaṭṭ el-‘Arab, now about twenty-five miles from the sea. I can find nothing about this Muslim.

page 724 note 5 Abū Yasīr ṣāliḥ b. Bashīr al-qārī’, known as al-Marrī, of the people of al-Baṣra ; d. 196. So No. 303 in Wustenfeld's Ibn Khall., but it is not in the autograph. See, too, Lawāqiḥ, i, p. 37.

page 724 note 6 Abū ‘Ubayda ‘Abd al-Wāḥid b. Zayd al-Baṣri, a wā‘iz ; d. 128 or 177 (?). See Abū-l-Maḥāsin, i, pp. 342 and 485. Muḥyī ad-Dīn b. al-‘Arabī gives anecdotes of him in his Musāmarāt, ii, p. 202 of ed. of Cairo, 1305. See, too, Lawāqih, i, p. 37.

page 725 note 1 Muslim al-Aswārī. The nisba is to al-Aswārīya, a village of Ispahan. Yāqūt, i, 317 and 834, gives the spellings As and Us, but adh - Dhahabī, Mushtabih, p. 12, distinguishes and assigns Us to the family of Tamīm. I cannot identify this Muslim.

page 725 note 2 By “the possessors of hearts” al-Ghazzālī seems to mean those who are of an emotional nature and can be affected through the heart.

page 725 note 3 Qur’ān, liii, 5 ff. Jibrīl is Gabriel, the angel of revelation. No prophet has seen him in his own form except Muḥammad, and he only twice.

page 725 note 4 Firāsa, reckoned as one of the karāmāt of the Saints. It is an insight or intuitive perception with which they are divinely gifted and by which they can pierce beneath the surface to the real nature of things. At the present day the word is used most in the sense of physiognomy. See Lane, p. 2368a, and the section devoted to the subject in al-Qushayrī, pp. 137 ff.

page 726 note 1 Apparently it was worn secretly, and he posed as a Muslim. The same story is told of Junayd; see de Saey, , Notices et Extraits, xii, pp. 429 fGoogle Scholar.

page 726 note 2 Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Aḥmad al-Khawwās, a contemporary of al-Junayd and an-Nūrī. He died in ar-Rayy in 291. Al-Qush., p. 30; this story is on p. 141.

page 727 note 1 Qawwāl; this seems to mean the chanter or singer of poems as opposed to the qāri’, who chants the Qur’ān.

page 727 note 2 Qur’an, xxvi, 218; we are apparently to understand that this man was making only an appearance of ecstasy or had not reached the point at which ecstasy was allowable. The rule is to repress external ecstasy until it burst out and can be suppressed no longer. Tawājada means both to feign ecstasy and to press it.

page 729 note 1 This passage is worthy of very careful attention. As an analysis of the spiritual effects of music I know nothing like it in Arabic literature; nor in English, except the book of Mr. Haweis referred to in the Life, p. 73.

page 730 note 1 The Sidratu-l-muntahà, the farthest point in heaven to which the knowledge of creatures reaches (Qur’ān, liii, 14). On the unspeakable joys of Paradise, see Life, p. 76, note 2.

page 731 note 1 Al-‘āda ṭābi‘a khāmisa. Tābi‘a means ‘a humour’ in the Hippocratic sense of the four humours, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. It then comes to mean the mizāj, constitution or temperament of an animal body, literally, mixture.

page 733 note 1 Sūra xi; it is full of stories of the judgments of God.

page 734 note 1 I can find nothing definite about this authority. In the Aghānī there is mention of a daughter of his, , bint Zurāra b. Awfà al-Jarshīya (sic), to whom al-Farazdaq wrote love-poetry. One Isnād, as given by the SM., goes back to Bahz b. Ḥakīm (an-Naw., p. 178). Dā’ūd b. Abī Hind al-Qushayrī (Ṭabaqāt of adh-Dhahabī, Wusten., iv, 42), who d. 40, related traditions from him. In the Cairo vulgate text he is called Zurāra b. Abī Awfà, but that is an error. The SM. gives his full name as Zurāra b. Awfà al-‘Āmirī al-Ḥarīhī al-Baṣrī Abū Hājib. His line thus goes to al-ṣarīsh b. Ka‘b b. Rabī‘a b. ‘Āmir b. Ṣaṣa‘a (Wüsten., Tabellen, D 17; Ibn Qut., p. 43) ; in Rabī‘a it joins that of the Zurāra b. Yazīd b. ‘Amr, who gave his name to Zurāra in al-Kūfa: see al-Balādhurī, ed. de Goeje, p. 282, and Yāqūt, ii, 921, where we must read for . I cannot explain the kunya Abū Ḥājib ; it looks very like a confusion with the more celebrated pre-Islamic Zurāra b. ‘Udas and his son Ḥājib: see Ibn Durayd, Kitāb al-ishtiqāq, p. 144 ; Caussin de Perceval, Essai, ii, pp. 152 f., 464, 467–470, 483 f., 569; Wüsten., K 19, and Register, p. 196; Abū-l-Fidā, Hist. Anteisl., pp. 144 ff. For the form of the name Zurāra see Ishtiqāq, pp. 98 and 128. The nisba al-Ḥarīshī seems to be in doubt. The Lubb al-lubab gives from and from , as though irregular like ; compare Wright, Grammar 3, i, p. 155.

page 735 note 1 The name is Abū Jarīr in the text from which I translate. The SM. gives Abū Ḥamīm, but adds that other MSS. read Abū Juhaym, and Abū ‘Umayr. He does not seem to know who is meant, nor do I.

page 735 note 2 Qur., lxxxiii, 6. The SM. adds that ‘Alī died before his father al-Fuḍayl. For al-Fuḍayl see note 5 on p. 248.

page 736 note 1 See the story of Joseph in Sūra xii of the Qur’ān. Jacob lost his sight by weeping for the loss of Joseph, but recovered it when Joseph's inner garment was brought to him and thrown over his eyes.

page 736 note 2 Occurs in the Qur’an three times, iii, 182; xxi, 36 ; xxix, 57. For a mystery connected with the threefold occurrence, see the Durra, p. 2 of translation.

page 736 note 3 Out of humility.

page 736 note 4 Ash-Shiblī d. 334 ; as to Abū ‘Alī I know nothing ; there is an Abū Bakral-Maghāzilī in Jāmī's list of Ṣūfīs. Al-Maghāzilī means a dealer in, or a parèr of, spindles.

page 737 note 1 Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Adham b. Manṣūr of Balkh. He was a contemporary of Sufyān ath-Thawrī and al-Fuḍayl b. ‘Iyād. Al-Qush. gives almost a page to him, Ris., pp. 9 f. See, too, Lawāqiḥ, i, p. 55.

page 737 note 2 Abū-l-‘Abbās Muḥammad b. Ṣabīḥ, known as al-Madhkūr and as Ibn as-Sammāk; d. 183. See Ibn Khall., iii, 18, and Abū-l-Mahāṣin, i, 512. Also Lawāqiḥ, i, p. 48.

page 737 note 3 Abū ‘Abd Allāh Salmān al-Khayr al-Fārisī; d. 35 or 36? See an-Naw., pp. 292 ff.

page 737 note 4 With this personifying of a condition compare the personifying of the Qur’ān, Islām, Friday, etc., in the worlds of malakūt and jabarūt; see Life, p. 116.

page 737 note 5 The SM. explains “an illuminated heart,” but this is al-Ghazzālī's usual phrase for those capable of devout ecstasy.

page 737 note 6 Abū Muḥammad Ja‘far b. Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr (or Naṣr) al-Khuldīal-Baghdādī; 'd. 348. Al-Qush., p. 35.

page 740 note 1 These verses are by ‘Adī b. ar-Ruqā‘; see Ḥarīrī's preface to his Maqāmāt and Chenery's translation, i, pp. 106, 274.

page 742 note 1 For ṭarīqa see note on p. 220. Here, too, the form appears to be the plural ṭuruq. On dastānāt, as used here, I can shed no light. The SM. reads (i.e. the Cairo printed text of hia commentary does) dastanīyāt, and he adds that some MSS. have a variant reading , and that it is a Persian (or foreign) word. In the Mafātiḥ al-‘ulūm the dasātīn (pl. of dastān) are the frets on which the fingers are placed in playing the lute. It is also a name for all melodies referred to Bārbud (Istakhrī, p. 262, line 12). Land renders ‘ligatures.’

page 742 note 2 Iqā‘āt = rhythms; see Mafātiḥ, p. 245.

page 743 note 1 Al-Ghazzālī rightly distrusts his memory. The tradition is given in different forms, but the nearest to that quoted here is given by the SM. and in the Lisān (sub ghirbāl, xiv, p. 3) as A‘linū-n-nikāḥ waḍribū ‘alayhi-lghirbāl, “publish the marriage and beat for it the ghirbāl.” In al-Ghazzālī's the ghirbāl is taken in its original meaning of a sieve; the Lisān explains that the word was also used to indicate a duff on account of its likeness of form to a sieve.

page 743 note 2 Ar-Rubayyi‘ bint Mu‘awwidh b. ‘Afrā’ al-Anṣārīya, one of those who swore allegiance to the Prophet under the tree in the Bay‘atu-r-riḍwān. An-Naw., pp. 839 ff.

page 745 note 1 The SM. says that Abū Ḥātim as-Sijistānī (d. 248; Ibn Khall., i, 603) gives traditions from him and that he is quoted several times in the Risāla. I know nothing more of him.

page 745 note 2 So I translate tentatively ḥuẓūẓ and ḥuqūq. As thus used these words belong to the technical language of the Ṣūfīs and, between them, indicate all the things sought by the nafs, or fleshly nature, with the distinction that the ḥuqūq are the things which are essentially necessary to the existence of the nafs, and the ḥuẓūẓ are those which are not essentially necessary, which are mere fancies or pastimes. For the classical use of haẓẓ see Lane sub voce; for the modern in the sense of caprice, pastime, passion, even sin, see Dozy sub voce, and De Sacy, Chrest., i, p. 447 ; tor the Ṣūfī use see Dict. Techn. Terms, sub ḥaẓẓ and ḥuqūq an-nafs, and especially, khaṭra, vol. i, p. 417, 11. 10 ff.

page 746 note 1 Died 304; al-Qush., p. 28. Rāzī is, of course, the nisba of ar-Rayy, the Ῥ⋯γοι of Tobit.

page 746 note 2 Atuḥsin an; a noticeably early case (al-Qush. died 465) of the modern colloquial idiom.

page 746 note 3 These verses are an interesting example of Sūfī manipulation of the most unpromising material. I have translated them from the text of the SM. (vi, p. 560) and with the assistance of the version in the Risāla of al-Qushayrī and the commentaries upon it by Muṣṭafà al-‘Arūsī and Zakarīya al-Anṣārī (vol. iv, p. 140 of ed. of Būlāq, a.h. 1290). The verses as I read them run—

“Ra’aytuka tabnī dā’iman fī qaṭī‘ati

Walau kunta dha ḥazmin lahaddamta mā tabnī

Ka’annī bikūm walaytu afḍalu qawlikum

Alā laytanā kunnā idhā-llaytu lā yughnī.”

But in the Aghānī, vi, 140, we have the original form and environment. They are by the far from pious al-Walīd b. Yazīd b. ‘Abd al-Malik, afterwards Walīd II of the Umayyad dynasty (reigned a.h. 125–126), written by him against his uncle Hishām, who had usurped the throne. For the story at length see Von Kremer, Culturgeschichte, i, 152, and for the verses Aghānī, loc. cit. I do not think there was any deliberate change on the part of the Ṣūfī reciters. Rather, the changes that have arisen are due to oral transmission. That the verses of al-Walīd directed in anger against his uncle could be so turned as to become words of God addressed to the human soul illumines the possibilities in the interpretation of Arabic poetry.

page 747 note 1 A remarkable proof that a Sacred Book requires a human side to exercise its full influence.

page 747 note 2 Is this Isrāfīl the Shukrānal-‘ābid mentioned in Ibn Khall., i, pp. 292, 294? The printed text of the SM. reads Isrā’īl, but Isrāfīl is certainly right. It stands in Jāmī’s list of Ṣūfīs.