THE MUSIC OF ISLAM By HENRY GEORGE FARMER
THE MUSIC OF ISLAM
By HENRY GEORGE FARMER
1.1. ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION
In the history of civilization, Islam stands as the chief animating idea culturally between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance. Yet when one speaks of Islamic civilization, a purely sociological connotation is implied, since in spite of its religious basis and its pristine insularity, it spread over and conditioned a quarter of the then known world, giving rise to a mode of life which became a cynosure for all eyes beyond its boundaries. The explanation of this is simple enough. When the revelations of Muhammad flashed on the world in the seventh century of the Christian era, a message was delivered which could not be confined to the Hijaz, the cradle of Islam. As a result, within three-quarters of a century, the banner of the Prophet was planted eastward at the extremities of Transoxiana, southward by the banks of the Indus, northward to the shores of the Black Sea, and westward on the slopes of the Pyrenees.
Out of this newly won empire arose a civilization which dwindled that of much of the rest of the world into insignificance. From Samarcand in the east to Cordova in the west, the grandeur of courts, the fame of colleges, and the wealth of bazaars became a byword. Not since the days of Grecian splendour had art, science, and literature shone with such radiance, nor had inventions, discoveries, and improvements excited so much wonderment. It was Islam in its sociological trend which produced this sublimation, although it was its religious basis that was the causa causans (1) since it preached a universal brotherhood which knew no racial or national distinctions, and saw no geographical boundaries. Similarly, while it was an Arabian polity which made this cultural elevation possible, and while the medium of most of its dissemination was Arabic, many other peoples of the Near and Middle East, and even of the European West, were producers and partakers of this culture.
In such wide dominions it was inevitable that alien notions should impose themselves on the culture of the Arab conquerors and, in consequence, what was once purely Arabian became considerably modified, tempered, and even replaced by other cultures, yet it was this fusion of ideas that gave greater mobility to the new civilization which was to have so vital an influence on the western world. Many peoples of the Near and Middle East, and of western Europe also, contributed to this Islamic civilization: Arab, Turk, Kurd, Persian, Aramaean, Syrian, Egyptian, Greek, and Goth. In the East, two lands especially played a prominent part in the music of this new cultural uprising, Persia and Syria; and in the West, Spain. The role of Greece was more in the theoretical sphere, through the influence- of the works of authors centuries dead.
Mesopotamia and Persia Syria and Egypt Spain and North Africa
Orthodox Caliphs 632
Conquest of Syria 638
Conquest of Persia 642
Conquest of Egypt 647
Umayyad Caliphs Umayyad Caliphs 661
Conquest of N. Africa 708
Conquest of Spain 713
'Abbasid Caliphs 'Abbasid Caliphs Umayyad Caliphs (Spain) 750
Fatimid Caliphs 909
Buwaihids 932
Petty Kings (Spain) 1016
Saljuqs 1037
Khwarizmi Shahs 1077
Almoravides (Spain & Africa) 1086
Saljuqs (Syria) 1094
Almohades (Spain & Africa) 1130
Ayyubids 1169
Nasrids (Granada) 1232
Mamluk Turks 1250
Mughals, Fall of Baghdad 1256
Timurids 1369
` Mamluk Circassians 1382 1382
Fall of Granada 1492
Safawids 1502
Ottoman Turks Ottoman Turks 1517
1.2. THE CULTURAL BACKGROUND
The idea that Arabia has ever been a land of nomads and barbarism as long disappeared. Archaeological remains have revealed traces of high stage of civilization in the ancient Arabian past, and we know now that this land was once a trading centre of the world which had profound influence on the destinies of the East.' This could scarcely have been otherwise, since not only Syria and Phoenicia, but much of Arabia, was under the irresistible influence of Mesopotamian culture as far back as the third millennium B.C. While political and commercial ties between these lands, where practically the same tongue prevailed, must have contributed to a certain level of melioration, there was also a fundamental reason for the persistence of cultural conformity, in that the urban population of both the Mesopotamian and Syrian plains was being continually reinforced by nomadic and country elements from the peninsula itself, a flux which secured the maintenance and revitalizing of the pristine Semitic features of their culture.' What we know of the outward visible signs of music and religion in ancient Arabia, partly confirms the view that the Arabs of the peninsula were the inheritors and conservators of much of the great Mesopotamian culture of the past.
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"سگ من با این حرفهای مولوی اشکال دارد چون خود را سمبل مهر و رقت میداند و من هم با او موافقم. بعد هم مولوی در انتدا گفت که پیامبر اسلام این حرفها را زده، پس چه ربطی..." on Bersabeh Bagheri's status.
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