Sound is an intrinsic part of all our lives, an important component of what we consider “home.” The soundtracks of our lives, if you will, are made up of the sounds that normally surround us in our home environment and those that we chose to add to it, like music. The tracks on the “Sound of Islam” are diverse and compelling, with some elements that come out of the Islamic tradition, and others that are akin to the contemporary musical choices of people from non-Muslim cultures and communities.

We are going to survey this diversity through a quick sample of Muslim sounds which both showcase the range of sounds that can be part of contemporary Muslim cultures across the globe. We will concentrate here on sound that has some religious resonance or component, since of course Muslims also (just like anyone else) can and do listen to secular music as well.

First, the term music can be a complicated one in some strands of the Islamic traditions. Some more conservative thinkers have argued that music is forbidden in Islam, since by its compelling nature it may pull believers away from worship. In that vein, some have argued that it is permissible only to create religious sound, and that instrumentation should not be added to the human voice and percussion. When the well-known singer Cat Stevens converted to Islam and took the name Yusuf Islam, he abided by this strict interpretation for many years, making only albums using a capella singing and rhythm accompaniment.

In this essay, we will discuss the fundamental sounds of Islam: the call to prayer and the recitation of the Quran. Further essays will explore how these original building blocks are taken up by different cultures in fascinating ways over time, from songs praising the Prophet in Pakistan to hip hop in London today.

In every Muslim majority country, perhaps the most striking element of the soundscape is the call to prayer or izan, heard five times a day. In fact, since the calls to prayer aren’t exactly synchronized, you may hear it twenty or thirty times from any particular point in a city, echoing and re-echoing from speakers on multiple minarets. The call to prayer begins with the shahada, the profession of faith that is one of the core pillars of Islam: “I bear witness that there is no God but God…I bear witness that Muhammad is the prophet of God.” The tradition of the call to prayer begins with the early Muslim community, when Muhammad asked an Ethiopian named Bilal, known for his beautiful voice, to be the muezzin. The izan spread with Islam to all the new Muslim communities, but it is always done in Arabic (although the Turkish government at one point tried to institute calling to prayer in Turkish, it was strongly resisted and quickly abandoned).

Here are three options for hearing diversity even in the call to prayer. There are also several versions on the izan on the CD accompanying Michael Sells’ excellent book Approaching the Quran (widely available online and in bookstores). Another interesting recording is from the Radio and Television orchestra of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has a very unusual instrumental accompaniment (available on B'ismillah: Highlights From the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music).

Of course, the next important sound essential to Islam is the recitation of the Quran. The Quran is called, literally, the Recitation, and for many Muslims it is heard as much as it is read. Recitation of the Quran forms an important part of many life rituals, from birth to funerals. Recitation of the first verse of the Quran, the Fatihah, is also part of every daily prayer. Here is one English rendering of the Fatihah:

The first element of the Fatihah, “In the name of God, the Benificent, the Merciful,” is in Arabic “bismillahi ar-rahman ar-rahim,” and observant Muslims use this phrase every time they begin an activity, from writing the heading of a letter to entering a taxi to drive across town.

People train rigorously in the izan and the proper recitation of the Quran, although there are some regional differences and different formal styles of recitation. As the izan and Islam moved through a newly Muslim world, different musical traditions came into play, so while the words are always the same, the sound shifted a bit so it sounded appropriate or normative in its society. Again, the accompanying CD to Sells’ Approaching the Quran has a variety of Qur’anic recitations, or you can find them online here:

The Islamicity site provides a variety of Quran recitations in Arabic, along with some oral renditions of Quran interpretations in different languages:

http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/quran/#Recitations

If you want to see and well as hear the Quran recited, there is a video on YouTube of the Quran recitation competition of Amin Pouya from Iran at the International Quran Competitions(First Prize) held at Calicut, India, in August 2006:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jivNz_i9QTU

Many thanks to Hussein Rashid for his insight on the sound arts in Islam, which form the basis for this article. For further information, see his website at www.husseinrashid.com.