Muwashshah: A Vocal Form in Islamic Culture

Abstract

Art has been repeatedly defined by scholars in East and West as a sensory expression of the world-view of a people or culture. Despite the apparent agreement that religio-philosophical ideas have a determining influence on the arts as well as on other features of a culture, little has been done by ethnomusicologists to bring into focus the relationships between religions and music. It is true that many studies have been made of religious or liturgical music belonging to particular sects or cultures. This has usually involved the overt type of influence exerted by religion on music. What prayers are sung? For what religious occasion is the liturgy performed? Who performs it? Such questions have been dealt with at length. But there is another type of influence that should be considered and investigated. It is the kind which, over long periods of formation and evolution, has molded in subtle ways the content as well as the form of a culture's musical heritage. This influence affects equally the musical expression which forms a component of the religious institutional life of that culture as well as music of a non-religious or secular nature.