Page 191 - Key Words in Religion Media and Culture

174 Dorothea E. Schulz

practices in Muslim societies. After all, aurality and orality are foundational
to Muslim religious practice and experience. According to Muslims, God’s
ultimate revelation, the Qur’an (literally, recitation) was made accessible
to human understanding not through vision, inspiration, or writing but
through sound and, more specifically, the sound of the word. Because God
cannot be heard or seen, his message was rendered audible by the archangel
Gabriel, who admonished the Prophet Mohammad to “recite” and thereby
acquaint humankind with God’s will (Qureshi 2006: 89f). Accordingly, the
Muslim art of recitation, conceived as the sonic form of rendering God’s
recited word, and the attendant “science” of correct articulation (based on
the precise memorization of both word and melodic-rhythmic pattern) both
emphasize the uniqueness of the Qur’an. They also establish the fundamental
distinctiveness of Qur’anic recitation from other sonic and “musical” forms,
be they rendered vocally or instrumentally.
The soundscape that forms the backdrop to Muslim mundane and
religious experience is produced not only by the conventional and all-
pervasive presence of Qur’anic recitation; adhan, the call to prayer, varying
from simple intonation to elaborate melodic patterning, adds to it as much
as sermons delivered to believers during Friday congregational worship in
and around the mosque (Tayob 1999). The melodiously murmuring chant
of children engaged in memorizing the Qur’an constitutes another building
block of the topography of sound sensation that, in its combination with
other forms of sensation, impresses “the sound of the divine” on Muslim
everyday experience (Nelson 1993; 2001[1985]), in and beyond the ritual
sphere. All these sound “bites” of divine presence have a strongly community-
generating dimension. They are evaluated according to their emotional and
ethical efficaciousness: a faithful rendition of God’s words and a truthful
sermon should have the effect of moving a believer’s heart to tears and to
ethical action. Touch through sound, and the experience of feeling touched
by sound, are thus central to the ways in which believers assess and validate
a compelling, truthful performance.
Similar understandings of the “moving” capacities of the sound and of the
spoken word inform the expressive (“poetry”) and sonic performances that
aim to enhance mystical forms (tasawwuf) of experiencing God’s presence
and to facilitate believers’ striving for a state of ecstatic communion with
God and his all-encompassing love.
Numerous Muslim societies cultivate additional expressive traditions
that are devotional—rather than liturgical—in nature and that combine
poetic texts with melodic-rhythmically patterned chants. Among them are
“hymns” (Arabic, inshad) that articulate devotion to the Prophet and his
family and sometimes take on the form of personal supplication (du’a).
Similar to recitation, they are conceptually distinct from other “musical”