Music, emotions and reform in South Asian Islam: perspectives from the eighteenth to the twentieth century

Abstract

This article explores the ‘reformist discourse’ on mystical audition (samā‘) in South Asia (from the eighteenth to the twentieth century). Reform in the Islamicate world has been studied conventionally from the perspective of compliance with or deviation from the sharī‘a. This narrative holds that ecstasy is the result of intoxication that transgresses the boundaries of doctrinal Islam which privileges sobriety. However, this article argues that sharī‘a was subject to various and/or contested interpretations. The article discusses how emotion knowledge derived from ‘psychology’ (‘Ilm al-Nafs or ‘Ilm al-Nafsiyāt), with the circulation of ideas and concepts across the Indo-Persian and Arabic regions, was appropriated by Muslim scholars to privilege or discourage certain emotional practices and styles. Sufi scholars, in this period, were drawing upon various disciplines – theology, philosophy, medical knowledge (ṭibb) and Sufi psychology. They have attributed different emotions (discussed in Sufi texts as moral virtues or vices and mystical states and stages) to different ‘subtle components’ such as heart, spirit, soul intellect and others. The various ways of conceptualizing emotions influenced the attitudes of Muslim scholars who privileged different emotional styles towards the mystical practice of samā‘. Thus, the reformist discourse in South Asian Islam, informed by emotion knowledge, was contested. The article analyzes the writings of Muslim scholars on Sufi ideas and practices, sharī‘a, and psychology and shows how notions about the (physiological/psychological) mystical effects (experienced in the assembly of samā‘) and ideological positions shaped diverse attitudes to mystical audition.

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