Music
Many Muslims are very familiar to listening to music. Islamic music is Muslim religious music, as sung or played in public services or private devotions. The classic heartland of Islam is Arabia and the Middle East, North Africa and Egypt, Iran, Central Asia, and northern India and Pakistan. Because Islam is a multicultural religion, the musical expression of its adherents is diverse. The indigenous musical styles of these areas have shaped the devotional music enjoyed by contemporary Muslims:
- Arab classical music
- Religious music in Iran
- Hindustani classical music
- Qawwali music
The Seljuk Turks, a nomadic tribe that converted to Islam, conquered Anatolia (now Turkey), and held the Caliphate as the Ottoman Empire, also had a strong influence on Islamic music. See:
- Turkish classical music.
Sub-Saharan Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the southern Philippines also have large Muslim populations, but these areas have had less influence than the heartland on the various traditions of Islamic music.
South India: Mappila Songs, Duff Muttu
All these regions were connected by trade long before the Islamic conquests of the 600s and later, and it is likely that musical styles traveled the same routes as trade goods. However, lacking recordings, we can only speculate as to the pre-Islamic music of these areas. Islam must have had a great influence on music, as it united vast areas under the first caliphs, and facilitated trade between distant lands. Certainly the Sufis, brotherhoods of Muslim mystics, spread their music far and wide.
Read more about this topic: Islamic Culture
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.... Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
—Harper Lee (b. 1926)
“It was a poetic recreation to watch those distant sails steering for half-fabulous ports, whose very names are a mysterious music to our ears.... It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.”
—James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)