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The Origin and Power of Music According to the 11th-Century Islamic Philosopher Ibn Sīnā

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2019

RONI GRANOT  and
NABIL SHAIR
RONI GRANOT
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalemroni.granot@mail.huji.ac.il, nabil.shair@mail.huji.ac.il
NABIL SHAIR
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalemroni.granot@mail.huji.ac.il, nabil.shair@mail.huji.ac.il
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Abstract

The question of the origin of music and its powers has always fascinated philosophers and scientists. Here we present a close reading of the view offered by the Persian Muslim philosopher and scientist Ibn Sīnā, also known as Avicenna (980–1037). We draw a parallel between Ibn Sīnā’s account of the senses and mental capacities and his hierarchical, quasi-evolutionary view of the perception of sound in its various communicative roles. We show how Ibn Sīnā positions music at the top of the organisation of sound while drawing a connecting line between the sensory and cognitive, the natural and conventional, and the biological and aesthetic. Although mostly drawing on ideas previously expounded by Aristotle and al-Fārābī, he goes way beyond his predecessors in positioning music within the systems of communication and highlights music's special ability to create a flux of joy and sadness, tension and relaxation, based on the ephemeral character of sound that serves as a connecting thread through all levels of its communicative roles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 585 - 598
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2019

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References

1 Shiloah, A., The Epistle on Music of the Ikhwan Al-Safa (Bagdad, 10th century), (Tel Aviv, 1976), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

2 In fact, this tendency can even be seen much later, for example in the 18th century writer al Muslim al Mawsili, “Introduction”, The Pure Pearl Concerning the Art of Music, in which he suggests an etymology for the word mūsīqī. He suggests a derivation from Mūsa (Moses in Arabic) and isqī which means ‘to engulf in water’. Referring to Chapter 17 in the book of Exodus, which tells us how Moses hit a rock and it sprinkled water, al Mawsili tells us how this water created 12 springs, each of which produced a different sounding melody, which in turn became the source of the 12 musical ‘scales’ or maqamat. See Shiloah, A., Music and its Virtues in Islamic and Judaic Writings. Variorum Collected Studies (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 80–81Google Scholar.

3 Different cultures share the notion that music was given to us by a primordial, often legendary agent. The philosopher Heraclides tells us that Amphion, who received his artistry from his divine father Zeus, was the inventor of music. The Egyptians ascribed the gift to their god Thot, while for the Chinese their musical system was the gift of the magic bird Fung-Hoang. Similarly, the earliest songs of the Hindus, the sacred Ragas, were magical songs sung by the gods: see Nadel, Siegfried and Source, Theodore Baker, “The Origins of Music”, The Musical Quarterly, 16, 4 (1930), pp. 531–546CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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5 Genesis, 4:20 and 4:21.

6 Shiloah, Music and its Virtues, Part I/I, p. 5.

7 Genesis, 4:22.

8 In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan she is referred to as “the mistress of dirges [qinin pl. of qina] and songs”: see Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. (Jerusalem, 1961), p. 238. Farmer, Both Henry George, A History of Arabian Music: to the XIIIth Century (London, 1929), pp. 6–7Google Scholar, and Shiloah, Music and its Virtues, Part I/I, p. 6, mention that in the Arab version of his Compendium of the History of Dynasties, Ibn al-Ibri (known as Bar Hebraeus the Syrian, the patriarch of the Eastern Jacobite church, d. 1289) includes Cain's descendent daughters in the list of inventors of musical instruments.

9 Genesis, 4:23.

10 Shiloah, Music and its Virtues, Part I/I, pp. 8–9.

11 Farmer, A History of Arabian Music, pp. 6–7, relies on the Huth manuscript which suggests that Tubal, the son of Jubal, was the inventor of the drum (ṭabl) and the tambourine (duff), while his daughter Dilal invented the instruments with open strings such as the harp and psaltery. The invention of the pandora (tunbur) is attributed to the people of Sodom, while most of the wind instruments were attributed to the Persians.

12 Although there are many others, such as al Jāḥiḍh (d. 869), Ibn Khurradadhbih (d. 911) and Ibn Bajjah (d. 1139). Cited in Shehadi, Fadlou, Philosophies of Music in Medieval Islam (Leiden, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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15 Due to the lack of biographical data about al-Fārābī, there is disagreement over his ethnic background. Some scholars state that al-Fārābī was of Iranian origin, while others assign him a Turkic origin. Those scholars base their arguments on, inter alia, the appearance of references and glosses in Persian and Sogdian in al-Fārābī’s works, his toponymical surname and his pedigree. For a detailed discussion of this subject, see Gutas, Dimitri, ‘Fārābī’, in Encyclopædia Iranica (New York, 1996)Google Scholar.

16 Farmer, A History of Arabian Music; Shehadi, Philosophies of Music, p. 59.

17 Wright suggests al-Fārābī too offers an “evolutionary” view of music. He writes that the extensive introduction to al-Fārābi's Kitāb al-mūsīqī al-kabīr “is of particular interest for its methodology. It proposes an evolutionary view of music, developing from an initial instinctive use of the voice to express emotion towards a present state of perfection”: Owen Wright, “Arab Music”, Grove Music Online (2007), (ed.) Deane Root <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com, [accessed 30 October 2017). [4]

18 As is evident when one compares the two introductions, al-Fārābī only sketches the end points whereas Ibn Sīnā offers a much fuller account of the biological roots of vocal communication.

19 Shiloah, The Epistle, p. 5.

20 abū-’Alī Ibn Sīnā, “Jawāmi' ‘Ilm al-Mūsīqī” (A Compendium of the Science of Music), in Kitāb al-Shifā’ (Book of Healing), Vol. 3: al-Riyāḍiyyāt (Mathematics), (eds) Aḥmad Fu’ād al-’Ihwānī and Maḥmūd Aḥmad al-Ḥifnī (Cairo, 1956).

21 For details about the manuscripts and printed sources of these two works, see El-Tawil, Mahfouz, Music of Avicenna (Devon, 2015)Google Scholar.

22 Shehadi, Philosophies of Music.

23 D'Erlanger, R., ‘Avicenne: Un Traité sur la Musique’, in La Musique Arabe, Vol. 2: al-Fārābi et Avicenne (Paris, 1935) pp. 258–260Google Scholar. This translation is based on MS n 118, India Office, London.

24 Ibid.

25 Shehadi, Philosophies of Music, pp. 66–80.

26 Ibid., p. 78.

27 Ibid., p. 80.

28 Aristotle, On the Soul, (translated) J. A. Smith (Adelaide, 2006).

29 McGinnis, Jon, Avicenna (New York, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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31 Ibid., Vol. I.5, pp. 40.4–13.

32 McGinnis, Avicenna, p. 95.

33 D'Erlanger, ‘Avicenne: Un Traité sur la Musique’, pp. 258–260.

34 Shehadi, Philosophies of Music, p. 27.

35 al-Fārābī, Abū-Naṣr, al-Kitāb al-Musīqī al-Kabīr (The Great Book of Music), (ed.) Ghaṭṭas ‘abd-al-Malik Khashabah and Maḥmūd Aḥmad al-Ḥifnī (Cairo, 1967)Google Scholar.

36 Shiloah, The Epistle, p. 17; see also ibid., pp. 70–71.

37 al-Fārābī too gives the example of al ḥudā’ which is one of the enchantments believed to be the instincts and dispositions which created the melodies. See al-Fārābī, al-Kitāb al-Musīqī, pp. 70–71.

38 See footnote 23.

39 “It is time for us to conclude the mathematical branch of philosophy and set forth a compendium of the science of music, limiting ourselves to what is essential to it and part of its conception, and what follows from its principles and elements; we do not extend our discussion with numerical and arithmetical principles and corollaries, for these one may seek from the science of arithmetic, by clearly stating what is brought, or by clarifying what is within it, we also ignore the similarities between the celestial bodies and human character traits [on the one hand] and the ratios of musical intervals [on the other]. This is the way of those, for whom the sciences have not been distinguished the one from the other, and it has not become clear to them what is essential and what is accidental, and these are people, whose philosophy is ancient, which has been inherited in its unrefined form and emulated by those negligent ones who have otherwise understood the instructive philosophy and the truth-seeking analysis. This distractedness brought on by emulation, a heedlessness shielded by the high esteem for the ancients, has led to the [uncritical] acceptance. This habit deflects one from the truth; it is a pliant attitude that blocks careful thought. And indeed, we have done everything possible to discern the truth itself, and resist, as far as possible, the pull of tradition, realising, however, that care tends to protect one most of the time, but not always, and caution protects from error but not in everything. And we are in need of our partners for rectifying what we have neglected, and what we have failed to see, and Allah is the one who succeeds our path of hoping for feasible rectitude and a mistake avoided by his [Allah] mercifulness”.

40 “Indeed, before delving into the pure part of this craft (ṣinā'a) we are preceding an introduction which does not follow the principles of arithmetic, and is not very similar to our other introductions concerning the principles of sciences, but is composed of laws, which came to mind by experiences, and rules founded on right intuition (ḥadas), combined with philosophical judgments and scientific doctrine …”.

41 Intuition (ḥadas) in Ibn Sīnā is the highest possible human capacity for knowledge which is obtained when the soul conjugates with the external and eternal “active intellect/agent”. Harvey, Steven (ed.), Anthology of the Writings of Avicenna (Tel Aviv, 2009), p. 117Google Scholar; McGinnis, Avicenna, pp. 147–148.

42 This is a somewhat divergent translation of D'Erlanger: “Je dis donc que le son est une des manifestations extérieures que nos sens perçoivent (un sensible) et dont la sensation peut nous être agréable. J'entends parler ici de la qualité du son qui le rend agréable ou désagréable à l'oreille, et non du mauvais effet résultant d'un excès qui peut être anormal. Il est, en effet, du son comme de tous les autres sensibles. Ainsi, une odeur peut répugner par sa nature, comme celle de différentes choses puantes, même si elle est faible et cachée, ou par son excès seul; S'il s'agit d'une odeur agréable, comme celle du musc par exemple, et qu'elle soit trop puissante, elle nous sera désagréable, tout comme nous sera pénible la sensation des rayons solaires lorsqu'ils sont trop intenses. Toutes deux fatiguent les sens, quoiqu'elles soient en principe bienfaisanres.”

Le son en tant que sensation ne saurait donc nous être agréable ou désagréable en lui-mem; seulement notre Oreille en souffre quand il est trop violent. Un instrument de musique, pincé ou frappé trop fortement, produit un son désagréable que nous repoussons instinctivement. Mais, d'une autre manière, le son peut nous être agréable ou désagréable, non plus en tant que la sensation, mais relativement à notre faculté de d'entendement, qui juge l'idée de rappelle à qu'il joue dans une composition. Nous avons expliqué clairement par ailleurs la fonction de cette faculté de d'entendement que possédent l'homme et l'animal; aussi nous n'en dirons rien ici”: D'Erlanger, ‘Avicenne: Un Traité sur la Musique’, pp. 106–107.

43 Ibn Sīnā’s definition of ‘existents’ can be found in his book of Shifā’, in his chapter on metaphysics (Chapter V). See Harvey, Anthology, p. 179.

44 As translated in Shiloah, The Epistle, p. 22.

45 Ibn Sīnā, “Jawāmi' ‘Ilm al-Mūsīqī”, pp. 8–9.

46 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Collected Writings of Rousseau, Vol. 7: Essay on the Origin of Languages, (translated and edited by Scott, John T. (Hanover, London, 2009)Google Scholar.

47 Diderot, Denis, Collection complette des ouvres philosophiques, littéraires et dramatiques de M. Diderot, Vols 1–5 (Amsterdam, 1793)Google Scholar, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Gale. British Library.

48 Spencer, Herbert, “The Origin of Music”, Mind, 15, 60 (1890), pp. 449–468CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spencer, H., Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, Vol. 2 (London, Williams and Norgate, 1891)Google Scholar.

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50 Darwin, Charles, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (London, John Murray, 1872)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a review, see Juslin, Patrick and Petri, Laukka, “Communication of Emotions in Vocal Expression and Music Performance: Different Channels, Same Code?”, Psychological Bulletin, 129, 5 (2003), pp. 770–814CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.