Gendering Emotions: Ṭarab, Women and Musical Performance in Three Biographical Narratives from ‘The Book of Songs’

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-183
Author(s):  
Karen Moukheiber
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Slave Women ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
Literary Biographies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Book Of Songs

Musical performance was a distinctive feature of urban culture in the formative period of Islamic history. At the court of the Abbasid caliphs, and in the residences of the ruling elite, men and women singers performed to predominantly male audiences. The success of a performer was linked to his or her ability to elicit ṭarab, namely a spectrum of emotions and affects, in their audiences. Ṭarab was criticized by religious scholars due, in part, to the controversial performances at court of slave women singers depicted as using music to induce passion in men, diverting them from normative ethical social conduct. This critique, in turn, shaped the ethical boundaries of musical performances and affective responses to them. Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Aghānī (‘The Book of Songs’) compiles literary biographies of prominent male and female singers from the formative period of Islamic history. It offers rich descriptions of musical performances as well as ensuing manifestations of ṭarab in audiences, revealing at times the polemics with which they were associated. Investigating three biographical narratives from Kitāb al-Aghānī, this paper seeks to answer the following question: How did emotions, gender and status shape on the one hand the musical performances of women singers and on the other their audiences’ emotional responses, holistically referred to as ṭarab. Through this question, this paper seeks to nuance and complicate our understanding of the constraints and opportunities that shaped slave and free women's musical performances, as well as men's performances, at the Abbasid court.

Governance in Classical Islamic Thought

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ovamir Anjum
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
The Self ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Persian Empire ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Islamic Society

Governance in Islamic history has taken many different forms. The formative period saw most innovative deployment of the Arab tribal norms under the guidance of Islamic norms and the pressure of the rapid expansion. After the conquests, the ruling elite augmented their Arab tribal form of governance with numerous institutions and practices from the surrounding empires, particularly the Persian empire. The Umayyads ruled as Arab chiefs, whereas the Abbasids ruled as Persian emperors. Local influences further asserted themselves in governance after the Abbasids weakened and as Islamization took root. After the fragmentation of the Abbasid empire by the ah 4th century/10th century ce, a distinctively Islamic society emerged whose regional rulers upheld its law and institutions such as land-grants (iqṭāʿ), taxation (kharāj and jizya), education (legal madhhab, jāmiʿ and madrasah), and judiciary (qaḍāh). A triangle of governmental authority was established, with the caliph as the source of legitimacy, symbol of community unity, and leader of religious rites; the sultan as the territorial king who maintained the army and monopoly over violence; and the scholars (ulama’) as socioreligious leaders of their respective communities. The caliph or the sultan appointed the local qāḍīs from among the ulama’, who served not only as judges and mediators but also as moral guides and administers of endowments and jurisconsults and counselors, and thus played a key role in the self-governance of classical Islamic societies.

scholarly journals Humility in Islamic Contemplative Ethics

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 223-252
Author(s):  
Atif Khalil
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
The One

Abstract From the origins of Islamic history, humility (khushūʿ/tawāḍuʿ) has occupied a central place in Muslim piety. This has been in large part due to its defining role in the Qurʾān and ḥadīths, and no less because it stands as the opposite of pride (kibr)—the cardinal sin of both Iblīs and Pharaoh in Scripture. By drawing on the literature of Sufism or taṣawwuf from its formative period to the 20th century—spanning the writings of such figures as al-Makkī (d. 386/996), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072), Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), Rūmī (d. 672/1273), al-Sha⁠ʿrānī (d. 973/1565), al-Darqāwī (d. 1239/1823), and al-Sharnūbī (d. 1348/1929)—the article examines the defining characteristics of this virtue, its marks or signs, and the dangers that lie in its embodiment. In the process, we shall see how humility occupies a place somewhere in between pride, conceit, and self-admiration, on the one hand, and self-loathing, self-denigration, and outright self-hatred, on the other. Although humility is, in theory, to be exercised towards both God and other human beings, the precise nature of its embodiment, as we might expect, varies in relation to both. The article ends with an epilogue on what it means to transcend humility altogether.

scholarly journals The Crisis of Muslim History

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 118-121
Author(s):  
Junaid Quadri
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
System P ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Religious Crisis

A host of recent events – well known to all and not in need of rehearsal here– have had, among a variety of other consequences, the unexpected effect of focusing the world’s attention on the diversity of Muslims and the Islamic tradition.The constant talk of “Sunni triangles,” “Shi`ite clerics,” and “Wahhabiradicals,” however, raises important questions about what precisely dividesthe Muslim community along these lines. For Ayoub, the roots of this sectarianismcan be found, at least in part, in the crucial historical time periodknown as the Rashidite (or “Rightly Guided”) caliphate. It is the “politicaland socio-religious crisis” (p. 4) of this era (stretching from the death of theProphet until `Ali’s assassination) and its implications for subsequent generations,that form the subject matter of this book.Ayoub envisions his work as filling a void found in most general introductionsto Islam, which for all their other merits, often fail to provide a clearaccount of this formative period of Islamic history. As for those who haveventured to write in the area, Ayoub considers the works of both Muslim andwestern scholars to be fraught with the political and theological biases oftheir authors. His desire to avoid this pitfall motivates him to adopt thenovel approach of letting the “primary sources of Muslim thought and history”(p. 4) speak for themselves, a tack not unlike the one he uses in hisimportant contribution to tafsir studies: The Qur’an and Its Interpreters.Using this methodology, Ayoub seeks to construct and present a balancedaccount of the major historical events of the Rashidite era in an effortto explore the interaction between considerations of religion and politics inearly Islamic understandings of the nature of authority. His analysis of thevarious claims to the caliphate advanced by Abu Bakr, `Umar, `Uthman,and `Ali, as well as by less successful contenders, is aimed at supporting hiscentral assertion that because “the Prophet died without leaving a clearpolitical system” (p. 22), the Companions did not agree – indeed they vehementlydisagreed – on answers to questions of political authority: ...

scholarly journals Features of the Political Development of Africa in the Postcolonial Period

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-38
Author(s):  
Wolde Mikhael Kassaye Nigusie ◽  
Natalia Viktorovna Ivkina
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
National Leaders ◽  
Common Opinion ◽  
The One ◽  
Effective Development ◽  
The Impact

The article is devoted to the features of the formation and development of Africa in the postcolonial period. The authors study such fundamental issues as the formation of modern States in Africa, the formation of the ruling elite and its influence on the political and socio-economic system, the role of the army and ethnic conflicts in the process of state formation. The relevance of the research is due to the fact that Russian and foreign historical science has not yet formed a common opinion on how to assess the consequences of the colonial period for Africa. Pluralism of opinions, on the one hand, generates the discussion for research, on the other, introduces a destructive imbalance in the representation of the region. As a novelty of the study, it’s necessary to note the neo-patrimonial approach to studying the features of the postcolonial period in Africa. It identifies separate thematic blocks that help assess the impact of colonization on the development of countries on the continent. The article also considers the correlation between the traditional and westernized elements within African political culture. The borrowing of political institutions and statehood theories is also considered not only as a consequence of the colonial past, but also as the political choice of the first national leaders of Africa, in the framework of their aspiration to choose an effective development way and to find a balance between the tradition and modernization. The main purpose of the study is to assess the results of decolonization in the context of ethnic, military and political aspects of the formation of African States. The polemic nature of the principles of understanding the postcolonial period of African development has led to the need to use a functional approach as a methodological basis. This is due to the need to study the principles of functioning of the political system of the region, rather than individual states. The neo-patrimonialist approach also gave rise to the use of a comparative method to compare the main theoretical postulates with the real situation in Africa. A vast array of sources and literature in Russian and English is needed to reflect the multi-vector possibilities of research on African issues.

A Jariya’s Prospects in Abbasid Baghdad

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pernilla Myrne
Keyword(s):  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Cautious Approach ◽  
Slave Women ◽  
Female Slave ◽  
The Book Of Songs

The chapter takes up several related questions surrounding slave women in Abbasid culture. It considers the image of the jawari (slave women) in modern scholarship, arguing for a cautious approach to the Arabic sources. It also looks at elite women’s relations to slave women, and the manner in which the dichotomy of free/slave intersected with gender in shaping Abbasid social hierarchies. The career of the slave poet Inan al-Natifi illustrates both the vulnerabilities and possibilities inherent to the lives of jawari. Her main biographer is Abu al-Faraj al-Isbahani, who accords her the first and longest biographical entry in al-Ima al-Shawa’ir (The Female Slave Poets), and an entry in the Kitab al-Aghani (The Book of Songs).

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew S. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Female Slaves ◽  
Late Ottoman ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Early Training

Concubines and Courtesans examines the intersection of slavery, gender, social networking, cultural production (music, poetry, and dance), sexuality, Islamic family law, and religion. The essays that make up the volume range over nearly a thousand years of Islamic history—from the early, formative period (7th–10th century CE) to the late Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal eras (16th–18th century CE)—and regions from al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) to Central Asia (Timurid Iran). The close, common thread is an effort to account for the lives, careers, and representations of female slaves participating in and contributing to elite, mostly urban, Islamicate society. The classical Arabic sources evince a trajectory from enslavement and early training of these women to a status as mature and dynamic social actors. Sources in other Near Eastern languages, notably Ottoman Turkish and Persian, provide much the same kind of evidence.

Descent and Inheritance in Zoroastrian and Shiʿite Law: A Preliminary Study

Der Islam ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Macuch
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Sasanian Empire ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
The One ◽  
Law Of Succession ◽  
Traditional Norms

Abstract:The Twelver Shiʿite law of inheritance constitutes one of the most distinctive features of the legal system in comparison with Sunni law. Although there are major and even irreconcilable divergences between the Sunnite law of succession according to all four legal schools on the one hand and Twelver Shiʿite law on the other, no convincing explanations for this striking development within Islamic law itself, leading to two fundamentally distinct systems, have hitherto been put forward. The aim of this preliminary study is to call attention to several remarkable correspondences between the complex Iranian (Zoroastrian) law of succession, conceived to support the specific needs of aristocratic descent groups in the Sasanian period, and Twelver Shiʿite regulations, reflecting a very similar underlying concept of family ties and descent groups as a whole. The question is, whether these congruencies are purely coincidental or based on age-old social and traditional norms, which continued to be practised in the regions of the former Sasanian empire after the Islamic conquest. As Sasanian norms remained operative in customary law (now documented by Pahlavi legal documents from 8th century Tabarestān) during the formative period of Islamic law and the Sunnite regulations, being based to a large extent on pre-Islamic tribal law in Arabia, contrast sharply with the Shiʿite concept, it would be consistent to assume that certain precepts in the pre-Islamic Iranian system had an important impact on the development of the Twelver Shiʿite law of inheritance.

The Clash of Civilizations in the Syrian Crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (31) ◽  
pp. 302-322
Author(s):  
Shoayb Mohammadi ◽  
Vladyslav Butenko ◽  
Zohreh Ghadbeigi ◽  
Masoumeh Ahangaran
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Syrian Crisis ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
The Persian Gulf

The Syrian crisis may be the beginning of a new conflict of civilizations. Ethnic and religious pluralism is clearly evident in this country: Muslims (Sunnis, Druze, Alawites, Shiites and Ismailis); Christians (Orthodox, Catholics, Maronites, Protestants) and Turkmen and Kurdish ethnic minorities. The Syrian crisis of 2011 seemed to go against the ruling elite (Alawis). With the escalation of the conflict, the country gradually became the scene of a civil war characterized by international dimensions. In this way, the conflict became a multilateral battle in which, on the one hand, the participants in it were the local element in the form of the government of Bashar al-Assad and extremist terrorist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIL and Ahrar al-Sham; and on the other hand, the United States and its European allies, Saudi Arabia and some States of the Persian Gulf; and Iran and the axis of resistance, as well as Russia and China. Due to the presence of diverse cultures and religions, it appears that this will make the Syrian crisis a prelude to a renewed clash of civilizations. This research seeks to answer these questions: What are the basic propositions of the theory of the clash of civilizations and how is it represented in the Syrian crisis? Since, according to Samuel Huntington, the main sources of the clash of civilizations are the foundation of civilizations, religious and cultural antecedents, and cultural and religious identities. Consequently, they are expressions of the clash of civilizations: the war on terrorism, the Syrian crisis, the rise of ISIL and the presence of US military and international interventions, the competition of regional and transnational powers.

The Relation of the Slave and the Client to the Master or Patron in Medieval Islam

1971 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul G. Forand
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Near East ◽  
The Other ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The One ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

In antiquity and in the Middle Ages slavery played a significant role in the military, economic, political and social life of the Near East. Many studies have been made of these aspects of life, but little has been said in the context of Islam about the psychological bonds which, at least to some extent, characterize the relationship between slave or freedman and master. The institution of ‘mutual alliance’ also played an important part in Islamic history, and there were certain similarities between the relation of the ‘ally’ to the patron on the one hand, and of the freedman to the former master on the other. But it is the purpose of this discussion, in part, to point out some basic differences between the two relationships.

The Role of Timing Patterns in Recognition of Emotional Expression from Musical Performance

1999 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrik N. Juslin ◽  
Guy Madison
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Decoding Accuracy ◽  
Better Than

The purpose of this study was to explore whether listeners can use timing patterns to decode the intended emotional expression of musical performances. We gradually removed different acoustic cues (tempo, dynamics, timing, articulation) from piano performances rendered with various intended expressions (anger, sadness, happiness, fear) to see how such manipulations would affect a listener's ability to decode the emotional expression. The results show that (a) removing the timing patterns yielded a significant decrease in listeners' decoding accuracy, (b) timing patterns were by themselves capable of communicating some emotions with accuracy better than chance, and (c) timing patterns were less effective in communicating emotions than were tempo and dynamics. Implications for research on timing in performance are discussed.

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