The sound of salvation :: voice, gender, and the Sufi mediascape in China /

"While texts have long been considered the main conduit for disseminating religious ideas, in recent years the human sensorium in its totality has been harnessed to serve this purpose. Islam is not an exception to this epochal rule. For many Muslims of the twenty-first century, sound has surpas...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ha, Guangtian (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: New York : Columbia University Press, [2022]
Series:Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.
Subjects:
Online Access:DE-862
DE-863
Summary:"While texts have long been considered the main conduit for disseminating religious ideas, in recent years the human sensorium in its totality has been harnessed to serve this purpose. Islam is not an exception to this epochal rule. For many Muslims of the twenty-first century, sound has surpassed other senses and become of prime import for their practice of piety. From the broadcast of Qur'anic recitation and televised Sufi chanting to sermons spreading via cassette tapes and the stellar success of commercially produced albums of prophetic panegyric, sound is becoming a key site for the global debate on what Islam is and how Muslims define their identity. Sound of Salvation: Voice, Gender, and the Sufi Mediascape in China examines the impact on China of this global Muslim valorization of sound. It provides a detailed and theoretically informed ethnography of the Jahriyya Sufis living in north- and southwest China. Eastern descendants of the illustrious Naqshbandiyya Sufism that encompasses the entire continent of Eurasia, the Jahriyya in China define themselves primarily through sound. As Guangtian Ha demonstrates, this sound is constitutively gendered. A set of predominantly male recitations has been capable of sustaining communal bonds and transregional links from the mid-eighteenth century to the present, he argues, because women's voices have been structurally marginalized while at the same time women's labor has been systematically recruited. The male vocal remembrances of God stand in opposition to female silence. The Jahriyya Sufi mediascape is intrinsically a genderscape"--
Physical Description:1 online resource (unpaged) : illustrations, maps.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780231552486
0231552483

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