conjured through the agency of words. Such conjuring functions within the
tradition ofwasf, which both reflected and transformed. As described by
the literary theorist ibn Rashiq al-Qairawani (d. 1065),wasf“enabled those
who listened to a poetic recital to envision the object described; thus the
literal act of hearing (sam) would be transformed into the imaginative act
of seeing or vision.”^22
A similar device appears in an eighteenth-century scene of lovers listen-
ing to music, depicted by the Mughal artist Mir Kalan Khan [Plate 2]. As
Singh elucidates, depiction of the musician through Hindu conventions
contrasts that of the lovers depicted in a Persian mode developed by the
artist Riza Abbasi (1570–1635), underscoring music as transcending cul-
tural and spatial boundaries, indicated by the river between musician and
audience.^23 The music not only conjures lovers, but also the union of lover
and beloved, believer and divine, constituting theophany. Music trans-
cends the apparent distinction between worldly cultures, religions, and
borders, by intoxicating with metaphysical union. The birds in the tree, the
ducks in the water, and the squirrels frolicking in the foreground under-
score the similitude of the human and the animal soul. Despite separation
across centuries and geographies, the confluence of these Andalusian and
Mughal depictions of audition suggest a shared understanding of how
music and narrative both engage their audiences. More than simply shared
origins or scriptures, such confluence indicates the discursive cohesion of
Islam across vast temporal and physical distances.
One source for this continuity may be widely circulated texts that
included music among the principles of Islamic spirituality. The semi-
secret, anonymous society called the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa)
indicated the importance of music to understanding the divine in the world
by devoting thefifth of theirfifty-two epistles to it. According to theBook of
Pleasure and Convivialityby Abu Hayyam al-Tawhidi (930–1023), the
Brethren were the senior companions of a Buyid officer in tenth-century
Basra. Later, Isma’ili missionaries claimed that their early Imams wrote
and secretly disseminated the epistles in mosques under the second
Abbasid caliph, al-Ma’mun (r. 813–833). The authorship remains
undetermined.^24 The frontispiece of a 1287 manuscript from Baghdad
suggests a convivial environment framed similarly as the contemporary
architectural depictions inThe Story of Bayad and Riyad[Plate 3]. The two-
page frontispiece depicts scholars deep in conversation. One of the sages
lies down, suggestive of the Greek symposium. A young man transcribes
(^22) Bush, 2018 : 88. (^23) Singh, 2017 :4–5. (^24) El-Bizri, 2008.
The Legality of Music 63