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‘Ishaq and Ibrahim al-Mawsili actively participated in the contemporary* controversy between modernism, a Persian romantic** style tending towards exuberance of embellishments, and Arabian classicism,*** characterised by simplicity and artistic severity.’

****

*(ie c[irca]8thC[entury][ce])

**

{G~

|

v[ersus]

|

M~}

***

[?But simplicity, or at least simplification, = R~]

**** – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 67-68

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‘By the end of the Umayyid period, the disparate elements of conqueror and conquered were fused into the style of classical Islamic music. With the establishment of the Abbasid caliphate in 750[ce],* Baghdad (in modern Iraq) became the leading musical centre. The Abbasid caliphate is the period of the Golden Age in Islamic music. Music, obligatory for every learned man, was dealt with in varied aspects – among them virtuosity, aesthetic theory, ethical and therapeutic goals, mystical experience, and mathematical speculation. The artist was required to possess technical proficiency, ** creative power and almost encyclopaedic knowledge.’***

****

*{2048J~768[ce]}

**{U~, j~?}

***U~}

**** – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:67]

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‘In the belief of the [Pre-Islamic]* Mazduk sect (a dualistic Persian religion related to Manichaeanism, a Gnostic religion), music was considered as one of the four spiritual powers.’

**

*[Square brackets per ms]

** – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 67

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‘By the 9^th century,* many Greek treatises had been translated into Arabic. Arabic culture preserved Greek musical writings, and most of those that reached the West did so in their Arabic versions. Arab theorists followed Greek models, often developing them further. ...The influence of Islamic music on European music is, at present, a subject of controversy.’

**

*{2048J~A~896[ce]}

** – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 66

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‘Islamic music is monophonic;* ie. It consists of a single line of melody. In performance everything is related to the refinement of the melodic line and the complexity of the rhythm. The notion of harmony is completely absent, although occasionally a simple combination of notes, octaves, fifths, and fourths, usually below the melody notes, may be used as an ornamentation. Among the elements contributing to the enrichment of the melody are microtonality (the use of intervals smaller than a Western half-step or lying between a half-step and a Western whole step) and the variety of the intervals used.’

**

*{cf Development of polyphony in Christian Europe by c[irca]900CE (2048J~A~896)}

[[Redbook8:214-227][19910205:1412c]{The History of Western Music}[5th February 1991]]

** – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 65-66

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‘After the advent of Islam a deep change occurred in the social function of music. Emphasis was laid on music as entertainment * and sensual pleasure, rather than as a source of high spiritual emotion, a change mainly resulting from Persian influence.** Knowledge of music was obligatory for the cultured person. Skilled professional musicians were highly paid and were admitted to the caliph’s palaces as courtesans and trusted companions. The term tarab, which designated a whole scale of emotions, characterises the musical conception of the time and even came to mean music itself.

‘Fashionable secular music – and its clear association with erotic dancing and drinking – stimulated hostile reactions from religious authorities. As Muslim doctrine does not sanction permitting or prohibiting a given practice by personal decision, the antagonists relied on forced interpretations of a few unclear passages in the Quran… or the Hadith. Thus both supporters and adversaries of music found arguments for their theses.

‘In the controversy, four main groups emerged:

(1) uncompromising purists opposed to any musical expression;

(2) religious authorities admitting only the cantillation of the Quran and the call to prayer, or adhan;

(3) scholars and musicians favouring music, believing there to be no musical difference between secular and religious music; and

(4) important mystical fraternities, for whom music and dance were a means towards unity with God.***

‘Except in the Sufi brotherhoods, Muslim religious music is relatively curtailed because of the opposition of religious leaders.’

****

*{cf [?] 65}

**NB: A pattern emerges, throughout, of Persian G~ to Arabic Muslim M~.

[Hmm....]

***

**** – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:65]

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‘Words and rhetorical speech were the principal means through which the *Bedouin expressed feelings. The shair, or poet-musician, said to be possessed by supernatural powers, was feared and respected. His satirical song-poems were a formidable arm against enemies, and his poems of praise enhanced the prestige of his tribe. Musician-poets, especially women,** accompanied the warriors, inciting them by their songs, and those who fell in battle benefited from the elegies of the singer-poets.’

***

*[pre-Islamic]

**NB

[Underlining in hatched in ms, inserted later]

*** – ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:65]

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‘Islamic music is characterised by a highly subtle organisation of melody and rhythm, in which the vocal component predominates over the instrumental.* It is based on the skill of the individual artist, who is both composer and performer and who benefits from a relatively high degree of artistic freedom. The artist is permitted, and indeed encouraged, to improvise. He generally concentrates on the details forming a work, being less concerned with following a preconceived plan than with allowing the music’s structure to emerge empirically from its details. Melodies are organised in terms of maqamat (singular maqam), or “modes”, characteristic melodic patterns with prescribed scales, preferential notes, typical melodies and rhythmic formulas, variety of intonations, and other conventional devices. The performer improvises within the framework of the maqam, which is also imbued with ethos (Arabic tathir), a specific emotional or philosophical meaning attached to a musical mode. Rhythms are organised into rhythmic modes, or iqaat (singular iqa), cyclical patterns of strong and weak beats.’

**

*{cf early Christian European music (to c[irca]1500/1600[ce])

(VIII. [[Redbook8:214-227][19910205:1412c]{The History of Western Music}[5th February 1991],] 214ff}

**– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 65

[& see [Redbook9:75][19910411:0935l]{[Music in Islam]}[11th April 1991];

[Redbook9:99][19910414:1104e]{Islamic Art – The Word (1) [continued (5)]}[14th April 1991]]

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‘… The Polish scholar Tadeusz Kowalski tried to interpret the “molecular” structure of Arabic literature – the absence of large units of thought or architectural structure – typical of the greater part of Islamic literatures, which might be described as “carpet-like”. * This “molecular” structure can be related to the atomist theories and occasionalist world view embodied in Islamic theology, which, unlike Christianity, does not admit of secondary causes and requires only short spans of hope from the faithful.’

**

*{U~}***

**– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:64]

***{I hope this analogy is helpful. I have earlier**** typified the U~ type in the Army Sergeant – the man who runs the Army; and indeed the type who may have run the [British] Empire. This type is frequently characterised by the considerable extent of his knowledge: that (and bullying) being generally a part of the method by which he maintains his position. The knowledge will be considerable, in a depth limited to that necessary to perform practical functions; and, often, in an extent of mostly unrelated facts. But there is almost always completely lacking any significant ability to manipulate (eg analyse, synthesise) the knowledge at a higher level, necessary for strategic decisions and for theoretical advances.}

#

#*

****{ref earlier Vol[ume] []}

#{See [[Redbook9:158][19910421:1410p]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] Periods of Islamic Art [continued (6) – ]{Leo.... [continued (4)]}}[21st April 1991],] 158.

[[Redbook9:146][19910420:0953gg]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued:] Late Period of Islamic Art [continued (9)]}[20th April 1991],] 146,

[[Redbook9:147][19910420:0953#]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued (#)]}[20th April 1991],] 147,

[[Redbook9:173][19910421:1410#]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued (#):] The Late Period [continued (#)]}[21st April 1991],] 173}

#*{2048M~512[ce]

Birth of Muhammad 570[ce]

A[nno] H[egirae] (Medina) 622[ce]

Death of Muhammad 632[ce]

2048M~U~640[ce]}

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‘The relation between lafz (word) and mana (meaning) has been a matter of some controversy – many earlier critics stress the importance of outward form rather than content. There was some question, too, as to whether the most “poetical” verse was that which was the most “untrue” – that is to say, hyperbolic – or that which was closer to the heart of things. The matter was debated along with the problem of inspiration and imagination and their function in poetry.’

*

*– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 64

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‘Free rhythm and a colourful imagination distinguish the best poems of the younger Arabs: even when their poems do not succeed, their experimentation, their striving for sincerity, their burning quest for identity, their rebellion against social injustice can be readily perceived. Indeed, one of the most noticeable aspects of contemporary Arabic poetry is its political engagement....’

*

*– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:63]

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‘The new attitudes that have informed literature are even more conspicuous in poetry than in prose. Arabic poetry has at last freed itself from the fetters of classical tradition. Both French and English influences helped to shape the new art. The danger is that Western fashions are imitated uncritically, just as Arabic, Persian, or Turkish models were slavishly followed in the past. TS Eliot’s poetry and criticism were influential in dethroning the Romanticism that many poets had adopted earlier, in the 1920s and ’30s.’*

**

*{2048R~C1920[ce]}

**– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:63]

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‘… Almost every current of modern Western philosophy and psychology, every artistic trend and attitude, has been eagerly adopted – though often only half-understood – by young Arab, Turkish or Persian writers.* Some of them, nevertheless, have achieved interesting results from time to time....’

**

No wonder Islamic commentators get mad at us sometimes.

*[Snap]

**– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 63

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[continued]

[EUROPEAN AND COLONIAL INFLUENCES: EMERGENCE OF WESTERN FORMS]

*[Ref marginal ms * below]

**

*The notion that ‘the once flourishing Muslim civilisation had for a long while been at a near-stagnation point despite its remarkable artistic achievements’ – suggests possibly a c[irca]1024-year sub-cycle, which ended c[irca]1536CE, in the Muslim heartlands. This is, however[,] clearly not the only cycle traceable in the Islamic world (see above, this Vol[ume]).***

**– ibid [Encyclopaedia Britannica 22:] 61

***[]

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