Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to analyse how traditional, commercial and art music respond to, and reflect, the community or culture in which they were made. The museum offers two cases from the Muslim world: an institution of the early Abbasid court and a qawwali written for a film. Your own cases come from your class. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B2.1 analyse ways in which traditional, commercial, and art music are a response to and reflection of the community or culture in which they were created […]
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
Who made this music, and for whom?
For each record, write who heard this music and where, and who made it. Separate what the record says from what you guess.
What does the music show about its place?
Compare the two cases: what does each reflect about the community around it? Can you find something similar in music you know?
Go deeper
In Duha al-Islam, Ahmad Amin names a house in Kufa, the house of Ibn Ramni, and its singer Salama al-Zarqa', and lists those who visited: Rawh ibn Hatim al-Muhallabi, Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath, Ma'n ibn Za'ida and Ibn al-Muqaffa' 2. Salama belongs to the qiyan, whom he describes as singing slave women, a social institution of the early Abbasid period 2. He separates two kinds: some belonged to the caliph, the princes and the wealthy, and others were common qiyan, in houses where young men might listen to them 2. The record gives the house, the singer's name and four visitors. It gives no song and no date.
How do we know?
Everything the record says about the qiyan comes from one author, Ahmad Amin, and the one source the record cites is his Duha al-Islam 2. He points to a second witness, the Kitab al-Aghani, which he says is full of their biographies, among them 'Arib, Mutayyam, Badhl, Dhat al-Khal and Farida 2. Hajji Khalifa reports that the author of that book said he gathered it over fifty years 3. Ask how far each author stands from the singers; the records give no dates for either. The second case rests on the English Wikipedia article on the Rockstar soundtrack, which recounts what the director told the composer about the film's hero 4.
Think about it
The Kufa house and the song for a film both put music before a named public: the visitors of a house, a hero among the qawwals of a shrine. Take a position and answer the strongest objection to it: in these two records, does the music reflect the community around it, or only the people it was made for, a house's visitors and a film's audience?
Into the museum
- The qiyan: the two kinds of singing women, and the visitors of one Kufa house.
- Kitab al-Aghani: the book said to be full of their biographies, and how its author is reported to have gathered it.
- Kun Faya Kun: the film, the dargah and the qawwali composed out of the hero's journey.
- Nizam al-Din Awliya: the Chishti master of Delhi to whom the song is dedicated.
Try this
Read the records on the qiyan and Kun Faya Kun. For each, write two sentences: who the music was made for, and what the record tells you about the community around it.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does The qiyan — singing slave-girls have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Singing women of the Abbasid court. In Duha al-Islam, Ahmad Amin describes the qiyan, singing slave women, as a social institution of the early Abbasid period. Their masters and teachers of singing trained them in melodies and voices. Some belonged to the caliph, the princes and the wealthy. The Kitab al-Aghani is full of their biographies. Where was this music heard, and who made it?
In your own words: what does Kun Faya Kun (Rockstar, 2011) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A qawwali written for a film. Kun Faya Kun is a qawwali composed by A. R. Rahman for the 2011 Hindi film Rockstar and dedicated to the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya. The record's source recounts that the film's hero, who can express himself only through music, goes to the Nizamuddin Dargah in Delhi, spends time with the qawwals and plays with them, and that the qawwali was composed out of that journey. What does the song show about the place and the community it draws on?
I can now