Performing Islam - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2013

This article argues that ‘music’ is unsatisfactory to reference sounds of ritual performance in Islam, not only because the term has been controversial for Muslims, but especially due to its unremovable pre-existing semantic load centred on non-referential aesthetic sound, resulting in drawing of arbitrary boundaries, incompatibility with local ontologies and under-emphasis on the referential language lying at the core of nearly all Islamic ritual. From the standpoint of the human sciences, this study is interested in the understanding of such rituals as combining metaphysical and social impact. Use of ‘music’ tends to distort and even preclude holistic ritual analysis capable of producing such understanding. As a result, ethnomusicology is misdirected. Theoretically and methodologically, this article develops an alternative concept, ‘language performance’ (LP), including four aspects – syntactic, semantic, sonic and pragmatic – especially designed for Islamic ritual performance. Applying a linguistic theory of communication developed by Jakobson, it shows how LP can be developed as a comprehensive, descriptive framework for comparative ritual analysis, akin to Lomax’s global Cantometrics, but avoiding its flaws through a more flexible design and modest scope, enabling systematic, comparative investigations of performance in Islamic ritual. The article closes with an example of such analysis centred on Sufi rituals in contemporary Egypt.

The place of Islam and Muslims in contemporary France has occupied the public sphere for well over two decades now, taking the form of a series of well-documented confrontations over the visibility of ‘Islamic’ symbols in schools and the public sphere. What generally attracts less scrutiny is the concurrent emergence of a number of organizations that define themselves as being simultaneously Muslim and secular. This article explores the phenomenon of secular Muslim organizations in France by posing a series of questions that highlight the paradoxical position that these groupings can find themselves in. One key aspect of the dilemma is illustrated by the curious nature of the musulman laïque (secular) label, which hints at an anxiety amongst these French Muslims to prove themselves as ‘exemplary citizens’. This article argues that an unintended consequence of such a public stance is that religion becomes the main identifier for this population, and instead of transcending religious belonging through secularism secular Muslim organizations illustrate the ways in which tensions between secularism and Islam magnify Muslim affiliation in France.

This article is situated within cultural, performance, political and feminist theory. It looks at the place of women singers in Pakistan and assesses their mediation of secular and sacred spaces, providing some understanding of the impact of women in Pakistani culture. A secondary aim of this article is to help dislodge some pervasive stereotypes in the West about the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, its culture and its women, while encouraging a self-critical move on the part of the Pakistani state and its citizenry to help halt the dangerous turn towards a regressive Islamist national politics.

Over the last few years, humour has provided many Muslims with a means of seeking to establish a positive sense of self-identity, as well as a means of challenging misconceptions and fears of Islam in a wide variety of countries on both sides of the Atlantic. This article brings together two interviews with performers who use comedy to engage with perceptions of Islam and (re-)present Muslims in a generally non-threatening and everyday context. It compares and contrasts atrio of American stand-up comedians who tour under the name ‘Allah Made Me Funny’ and the two French performers who created ‘À part ça tout va bien’/‘Apart from that everything’s fine’, a humorous web series in France. The interviews provide an insight into processes of identity negotiation and (re)presentation by performers based in countries with very differing approaches to multiculturalism and diversity.