of politics and ethics. Among the Jasmine Trees thus aims to fill part of a gap in our knowledge of the diverse Arab musical traditions by offering insights into music performance practice and ideologies of music and culture in contemporary Syria, as well as to establish an ethnographic framework for understanding them in Aleppo. In this sense it complements and extends the work of other scholars.
Music and Musicians in Syria: Ambivalences
According to one popular account, in early modern Syria musicians were grouped with thieves, dove trainers, and people who eat on the streets as those whose testimony was not permissible in court (Qaṣṣāb Ḥasan 1988: 85, passim). Dove trainers were suspect because they loiter on rooftops to train their birds, where they also have a view into the private domains of homes and thus are scandal-prone. People who eat in the streets were suspect (and remain so) because no one with a solid family and home would have to eat meals on the streets in the first place. As for musicians, their case is far more complex. As numerous scholars have indicated (for example, al-Faruqi 1985/1986), music and song have always occupied an ambiguous status in Islamic cultures, as in many other cultures. Despite the histories of celebrated court musicians of the Arab past, today musicians usually occupy a low position on the status hierarchy in the Arab lands, something clearly demonstrated by Karin Van Nieuwkerk in her research on dancers and musicians in Cairo (Van Nieuwkerk 1995). I found this to be the case in Syria, where muscians are looked upon by non-musicians with some distrust if not disdain, even among those who enjoy listening to music. Therefore the choice to be a musician or even to learn music is often a difficult one for Syrians, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
For example, my main teacher, Muḥhammad Qadrī Dalāl, hails from a prominent religious family in Aleppo, his father having served as the sheikh of a prominent mosque and his wife’s father having been the city’s chief religious authority (muftī). His desire to study music was met with resistance from his father, who only allowed him to study once he had demonstrated his serious intent in school and passed his preliminary school exams. Once he passed, his father hired the famous singer and composer Bakrī al-Kurdī to tutor him in music and song. Dalāl later went on to earn a degree in Arabic literature from Egypt’s al-Azhar University, a prominent religious institution, and taught Arabic literature and language in Syrian and Moroccan schools for many years before devoting himself full-time to music performance and research. Music alone would not have been an appropriate career.
Many older musicians, especially those from more prominent families, claimed that they had to practice music in secret for fear of their parents’ wrath. One man, an employee at the Syrian Ministry of Pious Endowments (awqāf27), hid an oud in his closet and would only play when no one else was at home. He reminisced with me about the old days when he could “croon” (yidandan) with his oud. Even respected and established musicians from an earlier generation are said to have had others carry their instruments for them in the streets to avoid public censure. To be seen on the streets with an oud was considered shameful (
At the same time, music has gained some prestige as a diversionary hobby and as a finishing element of polite education among the elite. One way of avoiding the public censure of music making in recent years has been for families to allow their children to study European music and instruments, such as the Western-style violin, cello, flute, clarinet, and piano. Many elite families and those struggling to join their ranks associate European classical music with modernity, progress, and civilization, and consider Arab music to be backward. A Moscow-trained violinist and instructor at the High Institute for Music in Damascus, the son of a well-known Syrian family of musicians that includes prominent performers of Arab music, claimed that Arab music is irrational, leads to irrational behavior, and in general is an “insult” (bahdalah). At the time of my research, the Arab Music Institute in Aleppo had long waiting lists of students wanting to study piano and violin, yet only five students were studying the oud and six the qānūn—two quintessentially Arabic instruments. One day, during a conversation with the Institute’s director, a woman came in to register her young son. When the director asked if the boy would like to study the oud, the woman proudly (and loudly) declaimed: “Oh no! My son would never play that kind of music. In fact he only listens to Beethoven and Mozart!” The director glanced over at me with a look in his eyes that said, “Not another one of those!”
Other families encourage the study of the “classical” repertoire as part of a heritage-based program of self-enrichment and study not dissimilar to classical notions of adab, polite education, which recommend study of the musical arts (Bonebakker 1988). One prominent Aleppine family includes members who, though all accomplished in music and the arts, earn their livings through more “respected” professions, such as medicine and engineering; for any one of them to become a professional musician would be unthinkable. I was often suspect because of my association with musicians and their domains, such as the Artists Syndicate, which conjures ignoble connotations of dancers and night clubs in the minds of elites ignorant of the syndicate’s important role in Syrian arts. My position as a foreign researcher, though anomalous because of the subject matter, allowed me to retain some status in the eyes of suspicious elites; my focus on the “classical” repertoire and not the contemporary pop song assuaged their concerns. Paradoxically, the great Arab musicians and especially singers are praised and enjoyed on a daily basis, but nevertheless the upper classes do not consider music to be a noble profession. Acting and to some extent even painting also are frowned upon. This is especially the case for women artists, whose activities are suspect in the eyes of conservative members of society, elites and others.
With respect to religious views on music, during my research I encountered individuals who told me that Islam prohibits music and that I might be better off leaving it alone. I recall attending a mawlid (a religious celebration, lit. “birthday”) held for a young man who had successfully passed Syria’s rigorous baccalaureate examination, a prerequisite for admission to university. A group of three munshid-s were invited to recite the Qur
A young hotel worker also claimed that I was endangering my soul by studying music and learning to play the oud. When I asked him about the fate of great Arab musicians such as Umm Kulthūm and Muḥammad
