h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

SWL, as our resident authority on the Koran, you might be able to shed light on a fascinating news item I just read in today's Washington Post (2 Dec '06). (Sorry, but no link currently is available.) "Muslim Clerics Decry Ringtones Using Koran," states the headline, "Clerics at the Darul Uloom seminary in the northern Indian town of Deoband issued an edict banning the use of the verses or Muslim call to prayers as ringtones, saying doing so violates Islamic law."

It just never ceases to amaze me how the world's religions, not just Islam, are able to provide the most detailed guidance regarding the proper way to live one's life. Stupid me; before reading this news item I hadn't even known that cell phone ring tones were addressed in Islamic law. Duh! Bob help us if the Danes now all decide, en masse, to adopt the Muslim call to prayers as their national ring tone of choice.

Hardliners do not allow music. The only "music" permitted is the rythmic chanting of the Koran. Regarding taped calls to prayers, the most prized people for calling the faithful to prayer are young boys due to the purity of their voices, (just like Christian choirs). Obviously not every Mosque has access to suitable small boys, so they are expected to make do with whoever is available. However, it is permissable to use a tape recording instead, but it has to be specifically approved by a senior Imam. I guess the objection to the ringtones is on two levels. Firstly that it is not approved and secondly that it trivialises the call to prayers.

http://www.freemuse.org/sw14339.asp

A link where Muslims discuss whether music is allowed or not.

Leaping in preemptively...

SWL may only (if at all) be considered an expert on certain readings of the Quran. Islam is as divese as, say, Christianity. Note eg the recent comments by various Iranian clerics that veil wearing is not necessary.

(Not a defence of Iranian Islam, btw. People should be free to wear whatever they damn well please).

I do agree - of course - that prescriptiveness is a major religious problem. One only has to look at how they are on sexuality. But on ringtones...Is it *particularly* daft that they lay down the law in this case? I, for example, would happily state that on no circumstances is Das Horst Wessel Lied an acceptable ringtone.

Merci, monsieur!

BTW, I would never describe myself as especially knowlegeable about Islam and I am sure that many would take great exception to your describing me as such.

I am extremely biaised when I examine Islam. Where a Muslim will ascribe the cuddly bits to Islam and the nasty bits to culture, I am more inclined to ascribe the cuddly bits to basic human decency and the nasty bits to religious control freakery.

>Hardliners do not allow music.<

So! Perhaps this could help explain the otherwise inexplicable!? Isn't there an old saying about music soothing the savage beast? If I were forbidden to listen to music I suspect I'd be more amenable to toying with the idea of becoming a suicide bomber myself. Spoil sports, imo!

>BTW, I would never describe myself as especially knowlegeable about Islam and I am sure that many would take great exception to your describing me as such.<

Methinks you are too modest. And at any rate, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Especially inasmuch as we have a serious dearth of self proclaimed Islamic scholars weighing in here.

Morning JCN

No surprise there, why would they wish to participate ?

Novo

On the other hand...there is a rich tradition of Muslim music. There's a town in Morocco which holds an annual festival of religious music (other faiths welcomed), and this year the Tramway Theatre here in Glasgow held a festival of Sufi music. Even atheists like me can groove to it. I have some wonderful recordings of Turkish dervish music, and one of the best gigs I ever went to was by the legendary Pakistani sufi singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Usted. (The other form of religious music I'm especially fond of is roots reggae).

And then there are two famous English-born muslim-convert performers, Yusuf Islam and Richard Thompson...although their music (especially Thompson's) isn't particularly religious.

I, like SWL, ascribe the cuddlier parts of people's beliefs and behaviour to basic human decency. But I also ascribe their bad parts to human wickedness. Perhaps that's why I am somewhat less pessimistic than SWL. While religion must, naturally, be opposed, there is no obvious reason why it might necessarily lead otherwise sensible and decent people on the path to darkness when other options are offered. Realistically, I don't see Quakers adopting southern fundamentalism.

Novo: >No surprise there, why would they [self proclaimed Islamic scholars] wish to participate ?<

Good point, Novo; it would be a bit like peeing into the wind for them around here I guess. What we really need is a Muslim version of SWL; i.e., a person having strong opinions and not afraid to express them even knowing that he/she may be verbally thrashed to within an inch of his/her life (justly or not) for having done so! Oh, and also like SWL, able seriously to consider opposing points of view and conceivably even modify their thinking as a result. That could make for some interesting exchanges! (And please don't get me wrong; there are others around here with these traits, too. I simply pick out SWL as being a suitable model for the Muslim counterpart of himself.)

Oh, I don't doubt there are Muslim counterparts to SWL out there.

There's a music festival is Essauria in Morrocco every year. I don't know whether it's religious, though.

TRiG.

This one's in Fes:
http://www.fesfestival.com/
It looks great! I'd love to go.

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A small point, actualy Cat Stevens wasn't English, I believe his parents are Greek or Turkish or somthing similar.
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I was at the one in Essauria, but only during the day. The bus left before the fun got properly started. (It's a week long festival, and we arrived on the morning of the last day and left in the afternoon. Nice place, though. Certainly prettier than Casablanca.)

TRiG.

>>A small point, actualy Cat Stevens wasn't English, I believe his parents are Greek or Turkish or somthing similar

Yes, indeed his parents were Greek Cypriot. However...I believe he was himself born in London (I may be mistaken) and grew up in Drury Lane. Makes him English in my book.

Correction. I've just discovered that his motherwas Swedish.

SWL and I have disagreed recently about whether there is evidence that local authorities are rebranding Christmas, and whether this is symptomatic of a desire not to offend Muslims.

So...before anyone else spots it I've just heard a R4 news item (strangely, not on the BBC site yet) about a survey that suggests that 70% of employers are concerned that Christmas celebrations may offend non-believers.

Obviously without further details I can't comment on whether this was a biased, agenda-setting questionnaire...watch this space... Intuitively, though, it doesn't make sense. As a completely non-scientific straw poll, has anyone here experienced their employer preventing them from celebrationg or marking Christmas at work? Because most workplaces that I go in (private or public sector) are starting to put up decorations, advertise parties, etc. etc. So immediately the needle on the bullshit detector is flickering.

Of course, even if it were true, it would say nothing about the sensibilities of non-believers. All it would say is that employers are profoundly ignorant of multicultural issues. You'd have to be wilfully stupid, wouldn't you? After all, schools - normally bastions of political correctness - routinely celebrate Christmas irrespective of the presence of non-Christians. Every year the Chief Rabbi has to give his 'There's no such thing as a Hannukhah bush' reminder to his flock. And you've not lived until you've met an Urdu-speaking Santa.

'scuse the quadruple post, but I've just twigged something in JCN's post:

>>"Clerics at the Darul Uloom seminary in the northern Indian town of Deoband issued an edict banning the use of the verses or Muslim call to prayers as ringtones, saying doing so violates Islamic law."

It's worth pointing out that Deoband is a centre for a variety of Wahabism. You'd kinda expect them to be atypically austere. They're roughly equivalent to the Free Presbyterians, besides not celebrating Christmas, also ban music. (After all, it might lead to unbridled sexual frenzy...and *that* might lead to dancing!)