The Score Magazine - Archive April 2009 issue! | Page 28

Beyond the Dargah

Ashok Subramaniam

It is often said that music and melody are above all man made borders, divisions of geography, religion, race and the like. That’ s probably true because the human race has always used music as an instrument of devotion and prayer ever since the first notes were discovered and sung by a human soul. Music of some form or other has always been part of religious worship across the world.“ Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened,” noted the great Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi in the 13th century.“ Don’ t open the door to the study and begin reading,” he writes. Instead,“ Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do.” Sufism is the mystical and ancient branch of Islam that emphasizes the seeker’ s path toward blissful unity with God. This path is richly woven with many means to‘ remembering God’, or dhikr( zhikr), including chanting the names of God, prayer, meditation, poetry, Qur’ anic recitation, praise and music. While‘ orthodox’ Islam looks down on music, many Sufi traditions seek to utilize its emotive and communal power towards the goal of dhikr. One central form of group dhikr is called sama. While sama literally means‘ listening’, it has the connotation of a spiritual concert of sacred music, often with dance. Sufi music is collectively branded as Qawwali music. They usually have a hamd- in praise of Allah, A naat- in praise of the Prophet Muhammad, Manqabats- songs in praise of the illustrious teachers of the Sufi brotherhood, and Ghazals- songs of intoxication and yearning. The ideas are surprisingly similar to Bhakti hymns of the Alwars and Nayanmars of Tamil literature who had combined music with high esoteric lyricism to worship God.