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Music and Muslims

by Daniel Pipes
August 3, 2007
updated Sep 28, 2009

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My 1998 article, "You Need Beethoven to Modernize," proposed that proficiency at Western classical music can, surprisingly, serve as an index for how well non-Westerners modernize. This weblog follows the theme by looking at the continuing difficulties between music and Muslims.

Before starting, though, two backward nods: For the fate and symbolism of classical music in post-Saddam Iraq, see "'Iraqi Symphony Performs for Bush'" from late 2003 and the attempt by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, to ban Western music from Iran in late 2005.

With the Hamas takeover in Gaza, music, even indigenous, is nearly banned, according to a musician named Salaheddin:

I lead a group of 26 musicians - we play traditional Palestinian music. But for the last two months we haven't been able to work. This group, Hamas, believe they are the leaders of Islam. The violin, piano, flute, all these instruments are banned. Only the drum is allowed. They say any other instrument is not mentioned in the Koran. ... Hamas have already beaten one of my singers for singing for Fatah. He was attacked at the wedding where he went to perform. We had to send him to Israel for hospital treatment. We have to keep our traditional music because it is Palestinian. People without traditions are not civilised, they are nothing.

(August 3, 2007)

May 5, 2008 update: If music is threatened in Iran and Gaza, it has a new opening in Saudi Arabia, reports Donna Abu-Nasr of the Associated Press:

A German-based quartet staged Saudi Arabia's first-ever performance of European classical music in a public venue before a mixed-gender audience. The concert, held at a government-run cultural center, broke many taboos in a country where public music is banned and the sexes are segregated even in lines at fast-food outlets.

The Friday night performance could be yet another indication that this strict Muslim kingdom is looking to open up to the rest of the world. A few weeks ago, King Abdullah made an unprecedented call for interfaith dialogue with Christians and Jews — the first such proposal from a nation that forbids non-Muslim religious services and symbols. "The concert is a sign that things are changing rapidly here," said German Ambassador Juergen Krieghoff, whose embassy sponsored the concert as part of the first-ever German Cultural Weeks in Saudi Arabia. ...

Friday's concert of works by Mozart, Brahms and Paul Juon was the first classical performance held in public in Saudi Arabia, said German press attache Georg Klussmann. It was advertised on the embassy's Web site with free tickets that could be downloaded and printed.

The excitement in the 500-seat hall was palpable as the largely expatriate audience walked in. "We have not done a concert like this before," German diplomat Tobias Krause told the audience at the start of a performance by the Artis Piano Quartet. Those gathered applauded enthusiastically after each piece and were treated to an encore.

Sebastian Bischoff, the German cultural attaché, said the mission had received permission for the event from the Ministry of Information and Culture, which runs the King Fahd Cultural Center, where the concert took place.

Japanese pianist Hiroko Atsumi, the quartet's only woman, said there was some debate before the concert about whether she should perform in an abaya, the enveloping black cloak all women must wear in public. She settled on a long green top and black trousers. ...

For the expatriates, the evening was an opportunity to have a normal evening out in Riyadh, a city with no movie theaters and where women are not allowed in outdoor cafes. One foreign couple held hands, while another husband put his arm around his wife's shoulders — rare public displays of affection in the kingdom. The mutawwa, the dreaded religious police tasked with enforcing public morality, were nowhere to be seen for a change.

The Saudi oud player, Mohammed Abdo.

July 20, 2009 update: The tensions in Saudi Arabia over music and movies is reaching a boiling point, as evidenced by the sudden, last minute cancellation of the Jeddah film festival. According to Agence France-Presse, "Most Saudis want music and movies like everyone else," but the country's top religious leaders are standing in the way. The article notes that "Saudi Arabia's most famous entertainer Mohammed Abdo, for instance, plays the oud, sings, and recites classical poetry in sold-out concerts around the Arab world, but he cannot give a normal public performance in Saudi Arabia."

But the ulema do not win every round:

In May a French embassy-sponsored concert by operatic soprano Isabelle Poulenard, performing with a female accompanist to a women-only audience in Riyadh, was forbidden just two days before the date after gaining full permissions. The concert finally went ahead following an apparent high-level skirmish between religious and other officials, said a person associated with the event.

The former Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam.

With the rigour of the zealous convert, he stopped playing music. The first guitar to re-enter his life was brought into his home in Dubai (where he also runs Jamal Records) by his son Muhammad. "He awoke within me my deep conviction that there was nothing wrong with this. Music has never been forbidden in the Muslim world."

Aug. 26, 2009 update: Some Saudis are trying to develop artistic festivals that include musical performances but the Mutaween, the religious police, are having none of it.

Jeddah's summer film festival was cancelled this year despite the support of local governor Prince Khaled al-Faisal. King Abdullah, who ascended the throne in 2005, is seen as backing the reformers but he must balance the opposing forces. "Unfortunately such actions carried on by religious police do not adhere to the official political will and they sabotage the government efforts to improve and maintain the internal tourism industry," said Mahmoud Sabbagh, a newspaper columnist. This month music concerts were also banned from the Abha tourism festival, in the mountainous southwest of the kingdom.

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