Music, Culture and Identity in the Muslim World

Kamal Salhi (editor)
Paperback, 320 pages
9781138203969

In contrast to many books on Islam that focus on political rhetoric and activism, this book explores Islam's extraordinarily rich cultural and artistic diversity, showing how sound, music and bodily performance offer a window onto the subtleties and humanity of Islamic religious experience.  Through a wide range of case studies from West Asia, South Asia and North Africa and their diasporas - including studies of Sufi chanting in Egypt and Morocco, dance in Afghanistan, and "Muslim punk" on-line - the book demonstrates how Islam should not be conceived of as being monolithic or monocultural, how there is a large disagreement within Islam as to how music and performance should be approached, such disagreements being closely related to debates about orthodoxy, secularism, and moderate and fundamental Islam, and how important cultural activities have been, and continue to be, for the formation of Muslim identity.

Contents
1. New Islamist Popular Culture in Turkey
2. Social forces shaping the heterodoxy of Sufi performance in contemporary Egypt
3. Singing Dissent: Sufi Chant as a Vehicle for Alternative Perspectives
4. Debating Piety and Performing Arts in the Public Sphere: The ‘caravan’ of veiled actresses in Egypt
5. Wah Wah! Meida Meida! The changing roles of dance in Afghan society
6. The Manifest and the Hidden: Agency and loss in Muslim performance traditions of south and west Asia
7. ‘Muslim Punk’ Music Online: Piety and Protest in the Digital Age Dhiraj Murthy
8. Devotion or Pleasure? Music and Meaning in the Celluloid Performances of Qawwali in South Asia and the Diaspora
9. Multicultural Harmony? Pakistani Muslims and music in Bradford
10. Hip-hop Bismillah: Subcultural Worship of Allah in Western Europe
11. Lil Maaz’s Mange du kebab: challenging clichés or serving up an immigrant stereotype for mass consumption online?