Author Archive: Infoeditor
Rhymes forge Nationhood
Martin Stokes’ ‘Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy In Turkish Popular Music’ delves deep into the public life in Turkey mediated by the pop culture and pop music in particular with special reference to Zeki Muren, Orhan Grancebay and Sezan Aksu, ‘who are closely associated with the political transformations of the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s respectively.’ […]
Reconciling Cat And Yusuf
How well I remember the sixties and the seventies, that singular musical era! Styles and genres mixed and mingled in an effervescence of creativity and non-conformism, in a search for meaning and renewal that was as singular as it could be troubling. In the London of July 1975 the songs of Cat Stevens could be […]
Edward Said and Music: Love, Text and Metaphor
Despite being a vibrant music critic, Edward Said is rarely remembered as such. His magnum Opus Orientalism has established him as an analyst of texts, which, though music is a text too, most of us associate with literature. It does not mean that Said has not written extensively about music; indeed he did. But no […]
Music played in the Tunnel
To put in a nutshell, Bahman Ghobadi’s ‘None Knows about Persian Cats’ (Kasi az gorbehaye Irani khabar nadareh) is about the search for two young musicians, Negar (Negar Shaghaghi) and Ashkan (Ashkan Koshhanejad) with the help of Nader to form an indie-rock band to perform abroad from among 312 bands in the same genre and […]
Why Are Muslims So Boring?
For the last 25 years, my wife has been doing semi-voluntary work at a special school near where we live. It is a small school for pupils with physical disability or delicate health needs who need a structured and particularly supportive learning environment. Every year, the school holds a special assembly to celebrate the beginning […]
Modern Russian Islamic music traditions: History and relationships with Islamic regions
The relationships of Islamic music traditions in Russia and Islamic regions: Near and Middle East, Central Asia, have started from the 7th century. Since this time in the territory of Northern Caucasus has lived Arabian people, whose culture has rendered influence on local traditions.Derbent city in Dagestan has played the important role in spreading of Islamic traditions. […]
Thera hips around, We gonna hop
Wholesale destruction around someone can influence her in two ways: personally, the trauma can unsettle her; culturally she will begin venting anger to the trauma in a medium which she uses to express herself. This general statement regarding war and self-formation as well as war and creativity is eloquently expressed by YasinAlsalman, the hip-hop singer […]
Islam and Music
IT is often said that music is forbidden in Islam and this assertion is repeated by many contemporary Muslims as well as by orientalists. Yet, when one studies the Islamic world, either in its present form or during various stages of its history, one is startled by the presence of music in many of the […]
Intellectual Vitality as the Ideal Educational Climate
In 2009, my book Tradition and Future of Islamic Education appeared (Münster: Waxmann). The contemporary Dutch Islam debate is permeated by a caricatured opposition between reason and religion, and this prompted me to write the book. As a philosopher of education, schooled in the modern western discipline of education, I was happy to discover several […]
Education: What the Nomads Have to Teach Us
The lecture begins on an intense personal note. Sheik Hamza Yusuf narrates his own experience at school. He vividly remembers the moment when he was subjected to false testimony and that was when he started to think about justice and injustice. He remembers the bullying in the form of hazing (ragging) he underwent when he […]
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