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Blues and it's Islam connection

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#44
BobWestbrook said:
One "scholar" with an obvious Islamic objective does not equal solid scholarship.
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Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that only Christians can be scholars, and that anyone who says something remotely positive about Muslims that doesn't involve them blowing themselves up must be pushing an agenda.

Also, you don't seem to understand anything about Islam as it relates to culture. Islam is an extremely strict religion, and as such it has a profound impact on every separate culture it is a major part of. This results in numerous cultural constants amongst Muslims who appear to be from radically different places. Religion in general, not just Islam, also acts as a carrier of cultural memes from place to place. In other words, other cultural phenomenon such as language (and music) tend to travel WITH religion. When talking about music, we can see this VERY clearly in the history of Christianity. As Christianity spread from region to region, you see many pieces of religious music travel with it.

Secondly, you deny a relation between Islam and language, which is simply ignorant. The Quran, unlike the Bible, is not considered "pure" when translated. The Islamic prayers in question would not have been in the local language. They would have been in classical Arabic. It's the same reason that even today Muslims do not pray in their local language, but in the language of the Quran.

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding going on here about what this article is actually about, and I believe this misunderstand is due to the inability of some people to think that Islam is responsible for anything but 9/11. The article is not about how Islam created blues music. It's about how certain aspects of Islam may have been responsible for some of the things that slaves contributed to blues.

The article is taking the following simple logical steps and backing them up with fairly solid examples:

1. Blues is greatly influenced by slave music. This is not up for debate. Everyone already knows this.

2. Slave music was greatly influenced by the music they brought over from Africa. Again, this is not up for debate. This is very well established.

3. This is where we start breaking into her thesis. A large portion of Africans were Muslim (well known fact) and there is some evidence that their religion may have carried some stylistic developments into their music. This is really not a radical thesis, because of the things I stated above about Islam. Certain memes, especially the prayers, are fairly straightforward across all of Islam, and always have been. If you study the music of the Middle East, we can clearly see that the prevalence of worship music greatly impacted the musical development of the region, in an almost identical fashion to the way Christianity did the same in Europe.

It's not exactly a left field point to draw the exact same connection in another region, especially considering the uniformity of Islam across all of the cultures it existed in.
 
#45
I see a lot of anger in this thread, every time Islam comes up in general conversation most liberals get edgy and defensive and conservatives start hating all over the place.

Lets face it, people do dumb stuff in the name of religion, the crusades = dumb, Salem witch trials = dumb, 9/11 = dumb. However these events don't define a religion and most certainly not the people of the religion so let it gooooooo...

I don't subscribe to much of an ideology, but I do know life is too short to hate at all so it upsets me when I see hate like this coming from bass players. Musicians should understand this most of all, just look at the blues, it is parts Christianity and parts Islam however you look at it. So if you dig the music don't hate the roots okay?

Also I don't understand the Kool-aid conspiracy/ agenda going on here, care to explain?
 
#46
NineSpine said:
1. Blues is greatly influenced by slave music. This is not up for debate. Everyone already knows this.

2. Slave music was greatly influenced by the music they brought over from Africa. Again, this is not up for debate. This is very well established.

3. This is where we start breaking into her thesis. A large portion of Africans were Muslim (well known fact) and there is some evidence that their religion may have carried some stylistic developments into their music.
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I don't suppose the historical facts will mean much to anyone with an Islamic agenda, but I'll try to interject some anyway.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is ludicrous. Only a very small minority of slaves originally from Africa were Muslim. There is no historical evidence to the contrary, and the regions of Africa from which most of the slaves originated were not Muslim regions.

This is a blatant and shameful rewriting of history to advance an Islamic agenda. And no, it is not hateful to say so.
 
#48
BobWestbrook said:
I don't suppose the historical facts will mean much to anyone with an Islamic agenda, but I'll try to interject some anyway.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is ludicrous. Only a very small minority of slaves originally from Africa were Muslim. There is no historical evidence to the contrary, and the regions of Africa from which most of the slaves originated were not Muslim regions.

This is a blatant and shameful rewriting of history to advance an Islamic agenda. And no, it is not hateful to say so.
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Well said....
 
#50
BobWestbrook said:
I don't suppose the historical facts will mean much to anyone with an Islamic agenda, but I'll try to interject some anyway.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is ludicrous. Only a very small minority of slaves originally from Africa were Muslim. There is no historical evidence to the contrary, and the regions of Africa from which most of the slaves originated were not Muslim regions.

This is a blatant and shameful rewriting of history to advance an Islamic agenda. And no, it is not hateful to say so.
Click to expand...

What the heck is an Islamic agenda?

How is bringing to light the fact that there may be a Muslim influence in blues music pushing the Islamic agenda? Is there something wrong with Islamic influences in American music?
 
#55
I've seen many docs on the blues and this is the first one to connect blues and Islam. At this point it seems more like a coincidence in music styles than a direct influence. But, now that I think about it kunta Kinte wouldn't eat pork! Hmmmmmmm :hmm:
 
#56
McHaven,
you have to admit the sudden revelation of the influence of Islam on blues, elluding generations of musicologists, academic music history researchers and blues musicians themselves is quite puzzling.
the background of the article's author and the weak foundations of their ideas really make me wonder if this is an academic article because it doesn't stand in any academic standard or answers any rule of conducting a factual research and besides, if Islamic culture is derived by Arabic culture (and it is as explained in this very thread) why has the author chose to showcase it as an Islamic influence which is a religion versus Arabic influence which bears a much more accurate description of the historical artistic nature of Islam and no political relevance as opposed to portraying it as an achivement of the Islamic religion?
 
#57
air_leech said:
McHaven,
you have to admit the sudden revelation of the influence of Islam on blues, elluding generations of musicologists, academic music history researchers and blues musicians themselves is quite puzzling.
the background of the article's author and the weak foundations of their ideas really make me wonder if this is an academic article because it doesn't stand in any academic standard or answers any rule of conducting a factual research and besides, if Islamic culture is derived by Arabic culture (and it is as explained in this very thread) why has the author chose to showcase it as an Islamic influence which is a religion versus Arabic influence which bears a much more accurate description of the historical artistic nature of Islam and no political relevance as opposed to portraying it as an achivement of the Islamic religion?
Click to expand...

I agree that the article is not the most scholarly or academic thing I've read. However, I don't think this article is trying to say "blues=Islamic". I do, however, think it is an interesting similarity that they have brought up (even if it is just a similarity, and not an direct influence). I cannot answer why they chose to focus on Islamic religious influence and Arabic cultural influence. That is an answer for the author and research to provide. Perhaps it is because Islamic religious doctrine and Arabic culture are very closely related, but this is only my speculation.
 
#58
Discussions about religion are not permitted here- you guys should know this by now. The topic is about how a religion may be linked to a predominant musical style, not about a religion itself or any presupposed "agendas". If people continue to try to turn the topic completely towards religion, the thread will get shut down and infractions handed out.

Stay on topic.
 
#59
music is music, it comes from our primal urges as an aminal (homosapien, apes..... animals).

religion has no definate hold on its practice or methods despite certain ruling bodies trying to control music pratices in the past.

i am sure there were muslim slaves just as there will have been other religions, there are even some jewish tribes in africa that have roots to before major migrations happenned.

yes people of religious backgrounds hold on to themes from their practices, like christains will generally pick up certain melodies from their hymns which were written with a semi strict code, also traditional songs from all religions and all peoples of the world migrate with the people this is how music has evolved and become as diverse as it is today.

anyone who studies music knows that it is a universal art and generally religion of any sort is not a driving force in its creation, religion/ or its views can be expressed in song but there are no 'islamic chord structures' or 'christian harmonies' or even 'scientological major diminished 5th over a dorian minor scale' :ninja:

music is music people love it and it will love you back.
 
#60
This seems highly appropriate:
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:hiding:
 
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