Toto

Qawwali is the usual spelling.

premjan

Gazal is just a poetic-musical form, not necessarily religious - a lot of them are about people, relationships etc. Qawwali is Sufi I think and can be very uplifting.
ETA - scratch that, I think both of them originate with Sufis.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (qawwali) and Ghulam Ali (ghazal) are worth listening to.

dlawbailey

Wordy,

Every prayer in every mosque begins with a song - the adhan.

What the extremists fight against is ANYTHING remotely sexual which means anything outside the mosque and prayer.

The Salafists are just simple "holier than thou" extremists who pretend that they are the "true" faithful by constantly being more severe than the severest Muslim they run into. It's an idiotic game.

wordy

Jay, he was really good at it. Had I had his ability to "read" then I would feel proud of me. If we agree it is not music it is at least suggestive or artful in performance, not only functional but kind of persuasive?

Like a social demand to heed to the call. A kind of proclamation.

The message is: It is time to think of and relate to your God!

Yes I agree they play a Holier than you game. It is a political power game I guess. To get status in the community. They would not do it if not enough people voted for the extremists. It is a sad reality. All these that think we will get a different form of Muslim identity in Europe. An EuroIslam, I doubt that. The Salafists are determined to see to it that their form will win. The most motivated will win and the reformists has not same deep drive to win.

Thanks Toto.

premjan, that is a good example. I've heard both of them I guess. They have shown them on our TV too but only short glmpses doing reportage on WorldMusic. Nusrat has a following even among rock musicians as I remember .
Clive, yes our Western pop music fill this need too but is not decidedly seen as devotion but functionally it could be used that way.

I don't mean devotion as in worshiping a god, I mean more like human animal ritual. Not shaman totem ritual. More basic and less formalised ritual.

Like smiling and nodding ones head to acknowledge one know the other has recognized we met before but has no need to talk to each other.

Like headbanging or what the word is. Like swaying or jumping in sync with the rhythm of the music.

wordy

There are no atheist muslims who like to recitate maybe?

Salam

I'm a Sunni Muslim, singing is not prohibited in Islam, music instruments are prohibited except the drums in weddings by the strict scholars. Different ways of reading the Quran are called "Readings" -qira'at. We have songs called "anasheed" which doesn't include music instruments only vocals.

premjan

http://trumpet.sdsu.edu/M151/Arab_Music1.html
Apparently the Arabs during Islamic times have enjoyed the use of musical instruments like the lute (though it may not be strictly Islamic).

Salam

What do you mean by Islamic times?. If you mean Umayyad and Abassid dynasties, then you are right. Some of the Caliphs use to have music and dancing party, but it's still a sin according to the Salafis (conservative Sunni school) .

wordy

Salam, listen to this man:
http://www.balaams-ass.com/alhaj/calltoprayer.htm

He is calling us to the Friday prayer? Or maybe what they do five times a day maybe.

To me this is singing. Very good melody and he is good at singing it too.

I bet he fail to see it as him singing it. He recite it or read it maybe? But it obvious to me that it is a melody that he knows.

http://www.al-quran.ca/en_index.html

Compare with these 8 who do reads from a Sura. They read but use a kind of melody too. Some more than the others. The Koran being holy maybe they are more strict with melody while calling to prayer allow them to use more elaborated melodies.

Salam? If you ask a salafi who are very strict. Could some of them be so strict that they are critical of the first example or all of the examples above. Seeing all of them as too much melody and thus too sinful?

Some are very strict. One Turkey such one doing outreach in Germany forbade them to sit on a seat in a subway train where a woman just have arise from cause the warmth of her body still was on the seat so to sit down while it still is warm would to do adultery to her Husband. One have to wait until it cool down first before taking such a seat. This is true. A Turk guy translated from turkey. One of our famous music ambassador for music from the orient.

So I could guess that to call to prayer using such good melody could be seen as sinful to Allah?

Ray Moscow

I remember in Saudi Arabia telling a guy about the Sufi tradition of dancing prayers, and he just couldn't believe it.

It's not a place for ecumenical religious discussions, I soon learned.