happen upon it. Just as one who is not yet pure can go into a mosque to seek
purity, so can one who“desires the purity of his soul, the cleansing of his
heart, and the serenity of his spirit by listening to wonderful things in
speech and comprehending delicate things in poems which uphold the
establishment of his relationship to the angels and the cutting offof his
relationship to the devils.”^39
He describes audition as a mode of mimetic representation articulating
the divine in its recipient without an audio-iconographic language. By
inciting ecstasy, it breaks through the resistance of selfhood, enabling
recognition of truth through the similitude of notes:
The audition of this party is a reference to the observation of strange secrets in the
delicate poems which theqawwalrecites while joined to the ecstasy which arises in
the heart of the gnostic who works and the novice who is perfect. It induces them to
put offresistance, to be drawn to the presence of the One, the Powerful, and to
ponder delicate things and secrets. And for the removal of these veils they have
chosen audition with beautiful voices...Then when there arises in him increase of
arrangements of notes and spiritual analogies which are called music, [man’s
nature] prefers them to everything else. So when a person hears the analogies
which pertain to notes which include the realities which pertain to taste and the
truths which pertain to the Unity, the being inclines to all those, and every bodily
member receives its portion separately. The hearing receives the things of the
unrestrained analogies; the sight, the analogies of the movements; the heart,
the delicate things of the realities; and the intellect, the inner consciousness of
the unrestrained analogies.^40
Engagement with divine presence takes place not only through the ear, but
through the apprehension of sound entering the heart and transforming
into the movement that often accompanies the practice of remembrance
(dhikr) undertaken in Sufibrotherhoods devoted to intrinsic rituals of
worship. Al-Ghazali’s position on music justifies ritualsama, the incor-
poration of audition into the process of remembrance. For this reason, he
expands on the logic of lawfulness from Quranic cantillation (taghbir);
sung poetry expressing elevated thoughts; and accompanied song with
appropriate instruments.^41
Al-Ghazali builds on these distinctions through a full iconography of the
similitudes and analogies inherent to instruments.
The [form of] the tambourine is a reference to the cycle of existing things; the skin
which isfitted on to it is a reference to general existence, the striking which takes
(^39) Robson, 1938 : 73. (^40) Robson, 1938 :71–73. (^41) Rouget, 1985 : 257.
The Legality of Music 67