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The Qur'ān Recited in Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Volume 6:

The Middle East Danielson, Virginia (editor); Routledge (publisher); published
01 Aug 2001; 1200 pp

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Author/Ethnographer:
Davies, Kristina Nelson
Language of Edition: English
Content Type: Encyclopedia
Original Language: English
Cultural Group: Chinese;
People: Rasmussen, Anne K.; al-Faruqi, Ismail
Arab; Turk; Malay; Egyptian;
Raji & Prophet Mohammed
Indonesian & Saudi
Place: Asia; United States; Egypt; Malaysia;
Cultural Place: China; Egypt;
Europe; Cairo, Cairo; Syria; Turkey; Saudi
United Arab Emirates; Turkey
Arabia; Pakistan; Tunisia & Sudan
& Indonesia
Published: 01 Aug 2001
Editor: Danielson, Virginia;
Marcus, Scott & Reynolds, Publisher: Routledge
Dwight Title Parent Bibliographic Details: Garland
General Subject: Islam & Encyclopedia of World Music Volume 6: The
Sufism Middle East
Instrument: Voice

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The Qur'ān Recited Next Item

[p. 157 | Page Image]

The Oral Nature of the Qur'ān

The Qur'ān and Music

The Recitation Curriculum

Styles of Recitation

The Egyptian Mujawwad Tradition

Status of Current Scholarship

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The recited Qur'ān is one of the most characteristic sounds of everyday life in the Muslim world. It plays a
central role in such expressly religious contexts as collective prayer, the ceremonies accompanying the
signing of a marriage contract, funerals, wakes, and memorial services. On many such occasions, the sound
is projected by a loudspeaker into the surrounding streets (figure 1). Most radio and television stations
open and close their daily broadcasts with recitations from the Qur'ān, and many feature, as part of their
regular programming, memorial services and highlights of recitations from their archives. A recitation may
also be heard at the start of almost any enterprise for which God's blessing is sought, be it the opening of a
shop or an office, a political summit conference, an academic conference, or even a concert of secular
music. The sound of the recited Qur'ān may also be heard in a number of informal contexts, as on a bus, in
a taxi, in a market, or at a house where friends have gathered to listen to recordings of their favorite
reciters. Muslims and non-Muslims alike have testified to the power of this pervasive sound, recounting
personal experiences of conversion, repentance, swooning, and ecstasy on hearing it.

THE ORAL NATURE OF THE QUR'ĀN

For Muslims, the explanation of this power lies in the divine source and significance of the sound. The
Qur'ān, the generating source of and ultimate authority within Islam, revealed in Arabic to the Arabs over a
twenty-year period in the early decades of the sixth century C.E., is the word of God as it was "laid upon
the heart" of the Prophet Muhammad, who subsequently rehearsed it with the angel Gabriel. As such, it
represents in some sense the sound of a divine utterance, the sound of God. The Prophet transmitted the
revelation to his followers orally, and it was not written down until after his death, at which point the oral
text became the primary source for all subsequent written texts. When the written text of the Qur'ān was
first disseminated by the caliph 'Uthmān, he sent reciters to accompany it and to teach the unique
characteristic sounds of the oral Qur'ān.

Learning correct recitation continues to be the basis of Qur'ānic studies. The prevailing and sanctioned
method of instruction is oral and follows the model established by the Prophet when he rehearsed the text
with Gabriel: the teacher recites, the student imitates, the teacher corrects. Thus, although the rules for
correct recitation

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FIGURE 1 Shaykh Aḥmad al-Ruzayqī recites the Qur'ān. Photo by Kristina Nelson Davies, Cairo, 1978.

[p. 158 | Page Image]

(tajwīd) have been set down in many manuals, these rules function primarily as a point of reference for
oral instruction. Since the 1960s, when the first recording of the Qur'ān was produced in Egypt for
instructional purposes, recordings have proliferated, taking over the role of human teachers among
minority Muslim communities where teachers are few. The basic method of instruction still prevails: in a
relatively recent multimedia CD-ROM in Urdu, Turkish, Indonesian, Malay, Chinese, and Arabic that
includes three English translations of the text and recitations by two Egyptians, as well as a phonetic
pronunciation guide, the students are instructed to record, listen, and compare their pronunciation with the

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reciter's.

THE QUR'ĀN AND MUSIC

Muslims cite the aesthetic perfection of the Qur'ān as proof of its divine source. The exaltation of its
language and sound as inimitable has thus introduced aesthetic considerations into the expectations of
Muslims listening to it. The contribution of a beautiful voice to an effective recitation has been recognized
and documented in Islamic sources since the time of the Prophet Muhammad. All children are encouraged
to learn correct recitation as a religious duty, but in Egypt, where the tradition of artistic recitiation has
been cultivated most, many professionals recall that they began reciting in public with the support of
teachers who singled them out for the beauty of their voices. Scholarly religious consensus recognizes that
a reciter's musical artistry is critical in increasing the impact of the Qur'ān because it engages the listeners
more fully in the experience. In Egypt, the committee that auditions new reciters for radio and television
broadcasts and for the archives may turn down an applicant for aesthetic reasons even though his recitation
is correct.

Despite this acknowledgment of aesthetics, debate has continued throughout Islamic history over the
propriety of applying musical skills to the recitation of the Qur'ān. The literature on samā' 'listening',
specifically to music, considers the power of music to sway the emotions a danger as well as an advantage,
reflecting a wellestablished tradition of suspicion toward music because of its secular and even profane
associations. Practically speaking, the issue has been resolved by the acceptance by many Muslims of
music as an essentially neutral and value-free art. However, while scholarly consensus admits that music
may enhance recitation spiritually, melodic practice is not included in the disciplines surrounding Qur'ānic
recitation. Instead, this is left to the individual reciter's initiative.

THE RECITATION CURRICULUM

In the context of a body of religious or Qur'ānic studies ranging from grammar and exegesis to biography
and literary criticism, a number of disciplines and scholarly debates have served both to provide norms for
and to protect the meaning of the Qur'ān as expressed through recitation. The discipline of qirā'āt presents
and explains the seven (in some schools, ten or fourteen) authoritative variant "readings" representing the
traditions of prominent individual transmitters up to the tenth century

[p. 159 | Page Image]

and now associated with the four different schools of Islamic law and thus, to the degree that these
coincide, with different parts of the Muslim world. The disciplines of adab al-Qur'ān, adab al-tilāwa, and
adab al-qāri'wa'-mustamī '(etiquette regarding, respectively, the Qur'ān, recitation, and listener and reciter)
explicate recommended behavior and attitudes for reciters and listeners, including the appropriateness of a
teacher's or reciter's earning income from the Qur'ān, the merits and risks of different styles of recitation,
and the desired effect of the ideal recitation on listeners. The rules of tajwīd, codified in the tenth century,
seek to preserve the divine sound of the revelation and guard it from distortion. These rules govern the
correct pronunciation, timbre, and duration of individual phonemes (hence, rhythm) and link these to
meaning by indicating the most appropriate places to break the sound in order to avoid distorting or
confusing the meaning of the text. In addition, with regard to duration, tempo, and pauses the rules of
tajwīd present options that the individual reciter can manipulate for aesthetic effect.

STYLES OF RECITATION

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Murattal

The sound and rhythms of tajwīd signal the divine origin and nature of the text. A heightened performance
mode, distinguished from the pitch patterns of ordinary speech or declamation, marks recitation as an act
of worship or devotion. This performance mode encompasses two styles distinguished from each other not
only by sound but also by the intent of the reciter. Murattal (also called tartīl and tajwīd) is the
unembellished, subdued style heard in the context of prayers, pedagogic classes, and private devotions. It
is also a regular part of radio (though not television) programming, and prominent reciters in Egypt have
recorded commercially in the murattal style. Although emotional intensity and varied personal styles
figure in murattal, its most prominent feature is its focus on presenting the text simply and clearly. The
basic structural unit is the verse, which is performed in a single breath, followed by a pause that is only
long enough for the reciter to draw breath. The voice and posture of the reciter are relaxed; the volume is
no higher than that of ordinary conversation. Melodic movement is contiguous and kept to a range of a
fourth or fifth, although the register may be extended by gradual stepwise motion. The tempo is usually
quick. Maximum clarity is ensured by giving each syllable only one pitch or, at most, two pitches for
longer syllables; vocal ornamentation is rare. The accessibility of this style to the nonprofessional and its
particular suitability for transmitting the text, due to its clarity, make it the standard sound of Qur'ānic
recitation in contexts of learning and prayer.

It is the duty of every Muslim to learn correct recitation at least in this standard form, and men, women,
and children take advantage of special classes held at mosques and workplaces to learn not only the rules
of tajwīd but also the variant readings of the text. In addition, memorization and recitation of selected
verses are included in the curriculum of government schools in many parts of the Muslim world. Children
may also be encouraged to learn and recite the Qur'ān through national and regional competitions.

Murattal is also the public style of women reciters who, with the exception of professionals in Southeast
Asia, recite for groups of women only. It is not generally considered suitable for a woman's voice to
transmit the Qur'ān to male listeners, the argument being that a woman's voice will distract them from the
text. The fact that women reciters use the self-effacing murattal style even among themselves reveals the
extent to which a woman's voice is considered 'awra, that is, classed with the parts of the body that should
be covered during prayer. In Egypt in the early days of the broadcasting industry, women reciters were
heard on radio, and in some parts of Southeast Asia today women reciters perform publicly for mixed
audiences, record

[p. 160 | Page Image]

commercially, and enjoy a public reputation. However, in most of the Muslim world the intentionally
"beautiful" or mujawwad recitation is reserved for men.

Mujawwad

The mujawwad style (also called tilāwa and, confusingly, tartīl and tajwīd) is a more elaborately melodic
and intense performance style, identified in modern times with Egypt and widely disseminated throughout
the Muslim world by Egyptian reciters and the media. Although both the mujawwad style and the murattal
style should be executed according to the rules of tajwīd, with attention to the meaning of the text and with
humble and sincere intent (that is, not for personal or commercial gain or glory), a mujawwad reciter is
expected to engage listeners emotionally in the significance of the text, and the artistry of the individual
reciter is, consequently, a prominent feature of this style. Listeners are not necessarily musically literate or

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able to follow and appreciate the transpositions and modulations of a skilled musician, but they expect the
emotional intensity that characterizes an aesthetically satisfying musical perfomance. For this, the reciter
as artist, rather than the text, bears responsibility. A performance may last several hours, during which the
teciter, like a singer, manipulates text, melodic modulation and transposition, shifts in register, and the
emotional connotations of the maqām—the melodic mode—to create tension, build suspense, beguile, and
enchant his listeners. The slower tempo and longer syllabic durations of this style support melismatic
cadences and vocal ornamentation, and the long pauses function both to build and to release tension (figure
2). A mujawwad reciter faces the challenge that, unlike a singer, he must use his skills to focus his listeners
on the text, not on his own artistry.

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FIGURE 2 Shaykh Muḥammad Sallāmā reciting the Qur'ān at a public event. Photo by Kristina Nelson
Davies, Cairo, 1978.

While accepting that mujawwad tecitation has something in common with Arab music and indeed requires
musical elements to tealize its ideal objective of eliciting an emotional as well as an intellectual and
spiritual response from the listener, religious scholarship and public opinion have always been at pains to
distinguish it from music. The nature of the text excludes mujawwad recitation from the category of
"Islamic music" (religious texts set to music) and, of course, from secular music (nonreligious songs and
instrumental and dance music). Nor is this classification simply a question of bowing to the popularity of
the melodic performance. The melodic recitation of the Qur'ān is subject to unique constraints: rhythm is
divinely given, is codified in the rules of tajwīd, and must not be changed; melodies must be improvised,
inspired by the moment. Setting a text to music is proscribed because it is believed to compromise the text
as a divine phenomenon outside the sphere of human endeavor.

This concern for guarding the unique nature of the text carries over into training, practice, and
performance. The reciter learns the text and then learns the melodic principles of Arab music composition,
applying the one to the other in the context of performance. To ensure melodic spontaneity, reciters warm
up the voice with songs and hymns, practice melodic skills with other texts, and use murattal to review the
text. A performance is a working session: the reciter may repeat a phrase of text in order to polish it
musically. In practice, the audience may call for repetitions of the same text in a different register or
melodic mode, or for the repetition of an entire section, and recitets on their own initiative or on request
may "quote" melodic phrases of other reciters that have entered public memory. Although the availability
of recorded performances makes it easier to associate a text with a specific melody, and many reciters do
fall into "set texts," the mark of the best reciter continues to be his infinitely creative musicality.

THE EGYPTIAN MUJAWWAD TRADITION

Although the recitation of the Qur'ān is significant whoever the reciter may be, the Egyptian mujawwad
tradition has particular prestige and exerts particular influence.

[p. 161 | Page Image]

Egyptian reciters are in demand as teachers, performers, and judges of public recitation competitions in
Muslim communities all over the world. Cairo is a host city for reciters who come to learn their art from
Egyptian masters. The market for Egyptian recordings is global.

A number of factors contribute to the status of Egyptian reciters. First, most Egyptian reciters train at al-

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Azhar University in Cairo or at one of its affiliated institutes. Al-Azhar, which was founded more than a
thousand years ago, attracts students and scholars from all over the world who seek the authority and
prestige of its rigorous and long-established tradition of religious scholarship. Second, Egypt's reputation
as a center of musical creativity also extends beyond its borders, thanks to its film, broadcasting, and
recording industries. Many Egyptian musicians of the first half of the twentieth century were also reciters,
creating a high standard of musicality and aesthetic expectations on the part of the audience. Third, the
Egyptian broadcasting and recording industries were quick to exploit the popularity of recitation.
Opposition to the broadcasting of recitation was first overcome in Egypt; the first official recordings of
recitation were issued in Egypt; and two Egyptians were the first to record and market recitations—Shaykh
Muṣṭafā Ismā'īl on phonograph records and Shaykh 'Abd al-Bāsiṭ 'Abd al-Samad on cassette tapes.
Egyptian reciters continue to expand their audience through broadcasts, cassette tapes, and, increasingly,
CDs.

The high demand, in Egypt and elsewhere, for Egyptian reciters encouraged a development unique to that
country until the 1980s: the emergence of recitation as a profession. (The Mevlevi Sufis of Turkey, despite
their long-established elite tradition of melodic recitiation, do not constitute a profession, because Sufi
reciters are not independent of the ritual context.) Increasingly, reciters in other parts of the Muslim world,
such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the Sudan, Pakistan, and Malaysia, establish a professional reputation
by recording; but commercial production and distribution are still minimal except in Pakistan, whose
recording industry serves Muslim communities in Europe and the United States.

Although the authority and prestige of the Egyptian style of melodic recitation remain undisputed, the
largest audience is commanded by the recordings of the great reciters of the period from approximately
1930 to the mid-1980s, such as Shaykh Muḥammad Rif 'at, Shaykh Muḥammad Siddīq al-Minshāwī,
Shaykh Muṣṭafā Ismā 'īl, and Shaykh 'Abd al-Basit 'Abd al-Samad. Many listeners lament the passing of
what now seems a golden age of Qur'ānic recitation and the lack of sophisticated melodic skills, and
especially of improvisation, among the current generation of reciters and musicians. Following the
establishment in Egypt in the 1950s of a new style of classical Arab music that turned its back on
improvisation, soloists, and the oral transmission of the art in favor of set melodies, choruses, sheet music,
and training at Cairo's Higher Institute of Arab Music, musicians of the older generation and aficionados of
old-style Egyptian music (al-mūsīqā al-qadīma) increasingly looked to reciters as guardians of the
authentic musical patrimony [see ARAB MUSIC IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY]. Since the 1970s,
reciters have been increasingly affected by a shift to formal training and a corresponding loss of
improvisational skills. Audiences' expectations have also changed: reciters are no longer feted as superstars
commanding colossal fees, made the focus of fans and fan clubs, or featured along with singers and film
stars in popular magazines and on talk shows; rather, reciters are presented as pious men who put their
talent to the service of the Qur'ān. At the same time, melodic recitation, which has always been resisted in
more conservative Muslim societies, where it is said to sacrifice the text to the reciter's art and personality,
has suffered as this notion has gained currency in Egypt with the growth of religiously based social and
political conservatism. Around 1995, for the first time, the monopoly of the Egyptian sound of reciting on
the street and in taxis was challenged by Saudi reciters. The Saudi style shares with the Egyptian murattal
style a quick tempo and a narrow range of three to five pitches

[p. 162 | Page Image]

but features melisma on the longer durations, or, in the case of one reciter, on the ending syllables. At least
one Egyptian reciter, Mohammad Gibril, integrated this style into his own personal style and gained a large
popular following.
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STATUS OF CURRENT SCHOLARSHIP

Scholarly treatment of recitation has focused on the Qur'ān without regard for the human context. In both
Muslim and non-Muslim scholarship, ethnomusicological, sociological, and anthropological approaches to
Qur'ānic recitation are notably lacking. Although some Muslim scholarship may describe actual practice, it
generally limits itself to listing heretical and unnacceptable practices. For most Muslims, the approach
inherent in the social sciences has secular connotations inappropriate to the study of the divine. A notable
exception is the work of Labīb al-Sa'īd (1967 and 1976), which both acknowledges and contextualizes the
orality of the Qur'ān in culture of the Muslim community. Only in the past thirty years have scholars in
religion, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and literary and linguistic theory (Graham, Denny, Gade, al-
Faruqi, Touma, Hodgson, Sells, and Rasmussen) begun to apply a wider range of disciplines to the study
of the Qur'ān and acknowledge the centrality of oral tradition to the Muslim experience in general.

Building on a study by the present author (Nelson 1985), which focuses on the meaning of Qur'ānic
recitation in Egyptian society as a cultural performance, the subject would benefit from more research on
recitation in the different kinds of communities that make up the Muslim world. For example, the work of
Anne Rasmussen and Anna Gade can be counted as a significant contribution to the field: they compare
contexts, expectations, and meaning; explore different styles in relation to local music; and consider
aesthetic traditions, the influence of the Egyptian model on local traditions of learning and performance,
and the strategies by which local communities deal with the authority of the linguistic, aesthetic,
improvisational, affective, and musical systems of imported Egyptian styles in the Indonesian context.

A proliferation of recordings bringing the sound of the Qur'ān to non-Arab Muslims also gives non-
Muslims easier access to the tradition, and scholars and music producers in Europe and the United States
are responding with increased interest in the aesthetic dimensions of Qur'ānic recitation.

REFERENCES

Denny, Frederick. 1980. "The Adab of Qur'an Recitation: Text and Context." In International Congress for
the Study of the Qur'an, ed. Anthony Johns, 143-160. Canberra: Australian National University

-----. 1985. "The Great Indonesian Qur'an Chanting Tournament." William and Mary: Alumni Gazette
Magazine 54:33-37. (Also published 1986. The World and 16:216-223.)

-----. 1988. "Qur'an Recitation Training in Indonesia: A Survey of Contexts and Hand-books." In
Approaches to the History of Interpretation of the Qur'an, ed. Andrew Rippin, 288-306. Oxford:
Clarendon.

-----. 1989. "Qur'an Recitation: A Tradition of Oral Performance and Transmission." Oral Tradition 4(l-
2):5-26.

Eickelman, Dale F. 1978. "The Art of Memory: Islamic Education and Its Social Reproduction."
Comparative Studies in Society and History 20(4):485-516.

[p. 163 | Page Image]

al-Fārūqī, Lois Ibsen/Lamyā'. 1978. "Tartīl al-Qur'ān al-karīm." In Islamic Perspectives: Studies in Honor
of Sayyid Abul A'la Maivdūdī, ed. Khurshid Ahmad and Zafar Ishaq Ansari, 105-119. Leicester, U.K.:

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Islamic Foundation.

Graham, William A. 1985. "The Qur'an as Spoken Word: An Islamic Contribution to the Understanding of
Scripture." In Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies, ed. Richard C. Martin, 23-40. Tucson: University
of Arizona Press.

Hodgson, M. G. S. 1974. The Venture of Islam. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Nelson, Kristina. 1985. The Art of Reciting the Qur'an. Austin: University of Texas Press.

al-Qādī, Shukrī. 1999. 'Abāqirat al-tilāwa fī 'l-qarn al 'ishrīn (Twentieth-Century Genius of Qur'anic
Recitation). Cairo: Dar al-Kātib al-'Arabī.

Quershi, Regula. 1969. "Tarannum: The Chanting of Urdu Poetry." Ethomusicology 13(3):425-468.

-----. 1995. Sufi Music of India and Pakistan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rasmussen, Anne K. 2000. The "Qur'an in Indonesian Daily Life: The Public Project of Musical Oratory."
Ethnomusicology 45.

al-Sa'īd, Labīb. 1967. al-fam' al-ṣawtī al-awwal li 'l-Qur'ān al-karīm aw al-muṣhafal-murattal. Cairo: Dār
al-Kātib al-'Arabī.

-----. 1970. al-Taghannī-bi 'l-Qur'ān. Cairo: al-Maktabah al-Taqāfiyyah.

-----. 1976. al-Maqāri' wa l-qurra'. Cairo: Matba 'at al-Sa'ādah.

Sells, Michael. 1991. "Sound, Spirit, and Gender in Sûrat al-quadr." Journal of the American Oriental
Society lll(2):239-259.

-----, trans, and intro. 1999. Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations. Ashland, Ore.:White Cloud.

Shalihah, Khadijatus. 1983. Perkembangan seni baca al-Qur'an dan wiraat tujuj di Indonesia (The
Development of the Art of Reading the Qur'an and the Seven Readings in Indonesia). Jakarta: Pustaka
Alhusna.

Touma, Habib Hassan. 1975a. "Die Koranrezitation: Eine Form der religiösen Musik der Araber." Bessler-
Archiv, Neue Folge, 23:87-133.

-----. 1975b. Die Musik der Araber. Wilhelms-haven: Heinrichshofen's Verlag.

-----. 1976. "Relations between Aesthetics and Improvisation in Arab Music." World of Music 18(2):33-36.

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