"Seest thou not that it is Allah Whose praises all beings In the heavens and the earth do Celebrate, and the birds (of the air) With wings outspread? Each one knows Its own mode of prayer and praise" (Quran 24:41)
Abstract
One of the major contributions of Sufi philosophy has been its theory of music. Through the ages Sufi teachers have encouraged humanity to become acquainted with the mysteries of music as a way of apprehending the Divine order (amr). As in other areas of Sufi philosophical and mystical thought (al-ma'rifah, 'irfan), music became appropriated within an ontological model which explained the correspondence between the macrocosm and microcosm. Inayat Khan (d. 1927) an Indian Sufi teacher and musician who assisted in the transmission of Sufism to the west in the early twentieth century, elaborated on this central theme of music. In this analysis I draw attention to Inayat Khan's theory of music in relation to his notion that music conveys universal unity, symmetry and beauty. My overview of the nature of Inayat Khan's musical theory is both attentive of its cosmological underpinnings as well as highlighting its unique aesthetic and ontology.
Music: Cosmic Symphony of Symmetry and Unity
Sufis have often likened music to the aural gossamer by which God fashions the web of creation. The conception of nature as being a manifestation of Divine sound is mentioned in the Quran in relation to its creative and governing potentialities.
To him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth. When He creates a thing, He has just to say 'Be' and it evolves into 'Being' (Quran 21:30).
The notion of music as a medium for cosmic creation is also noted by the Sufi poet Hafiz when he claims that the spirit of life had entered the human body through the assistance of music. One eastern folk tale tells how God made a statue of clay and commanded the soul to enter it. However, the soul refused on the grounds that it did not want to relinquish its state of paradisiacal freedom for the encumbrance of corporeal existence. God then ordered the angels to sing. The soul became so enraptured by their singing that it unwittingly entered the statue. Two important ideas are denoted by this story; firstly, the nature of music as maintaining universal harmony; and secondly, humanity's 'state of spiritual exile.'
In relation to the first point, the Indian Sufi teacher Inayat Khan explains that various musical rhythms are fundamental in shaping all cosmic processes. The universe being an expression of Divine manifestation (sifat'ullah) is constituted by infinite multiplicity and divisibility which conveys unity, symmetry and harmony1. These tri-partite qualities which are intrinsic to all physical forms are characterised by the centrifugal and centripetal motion of the celestial spheres. The ikhwãn al-safa (brethren of purity) had initially expounded a treatise on music which demonstrated how the 'universe is composed in conformity with…geometrical and musical' correspondences which manifest harmony2. The correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm was also noted in Chinese mysticism which considered music as the vital integument of all universal forms which express 'all the frequencies of heaven and earth, as several zithers tuned to one tonic'3. Bakhtiar also claims that traditional music consists of symmetrically repetitive melodies (gushah-ha) that imitate nature's unbroken life rhythms:
Nature contains continual repetition, inspiring man to imitate her in her mode of operation through an open-minded, continuous movement system.4
Similarly, Inayat Khan deemed music to be a microcosm of the universe which found its ultimate distillation in the human form. Thus, the harmonious and disharmonious rhythms and vibrations, or the movement between change (talwin) and stability (tamkin) which keep creation intact, are also constitutive of the existential pulsations of human life.5
Corresponding with Ibn Arabi's influential concept of 'Unity of Being' (wahdat al-wujud) which declares the unity of all things within the universe of Divine manifestation, Inayat Khan considers all physical forms and their existential rhythms as expressing principles of Divine unity (tawhid) and symmetry. In this schema, all the universe is music and nothing exists beyond it.
What we call music in our everyday language is only a miniature, which our intelligence has grasped from that music or harmony of the whole universe which is working behind everything, and which is the source and the origin of nature.6
Having said this, Inayat Khan goes beyond naturalistic prescriptions of music to one that asserts music as a psychological method for understanding human nature and the various grades of human action in the world.
The more one studies the harmony of music, and then studies human nature, how people agree and how they disagree, how there is attraction and repulsion, the more one will see that it is all music.
This assertion is no less an espousal for a phenomenology of music of human action. Because Inayat Khan believed that human action could be explained within the parameters of previous Sufi ideations of music is no less contentious than Ibn Arabi's claim. Perhaps, it is plausible here to comment that Inayat Khan's theory in this area characterised his tendency to incorporate aspects of Hindu metaphysics relating to the science of sound. Judging from his systematic writings, it is not tenuous to claim that this syncresis between Sufi and Hindu theories enabled Inayat Khan to diverge from the naturalism of previous Sufi concepts of music and re-locating them within the sphere of humanism. It is likely to suppose that such a convergence between Sufi and Hindu cosmologies was a significant exercise, and continued the syncretistic tradition of various Indian Sufi and Hindu spiritual teachers who often combined the metaphysical teachings of Islam and Hinduism in expounding their metaphysics. Several commentators, including Inayat Khan, indicated that Vedantic philosophy held a parallel view of creation as having originated from the primordial vibration called nada brahman which is symbolised by the seed syllable 'Om' and is analogous to the Quranic 'Kun'. Moreover, the monistic panentheism of Ibn Arabi is cognate with the Advaita Vedanta, that most profound magnum opus of Hindu 'ontological subjectivism' whose ãtmatology identifies the ãtman (soul) and brahman as being one and the same7. In Sufism, the Godhead in its absolute essence is referred to az-zhat and is analogous with the Vedantic nirguna brahman, being totally complete in itself, self-existing and eternal (al-ha'yy, al-qayyum)8. In both metaphysical paradigms there is an identification of quiddity as being intelligibly imponderable and amenable to no kind of qualification other than to claim that it is neither this nor that. The Divine essence remains forever hidden from the realm of created forms and corresponds with the first part of famous hadith qudsi which declares, 'I was a Hidden Treasure and I desired to be known'. Hence, it is 'beyond-beyond' (wara al-wara), or equally the unqualified sunyata. While it is not my intention to pursue this discussion of correspondences any further here, I wish to outline those philosophical influences which are germane to Inayat Khan's theory of music.
Inayat Khan's writings are replete with analogies and aphorisms which seek to convey in a practical sense his notions of harmony. For Inayat Khan harmony can be defined as that which expresses those aspects of symmetry, unity and existential consonance. As is often the case, he uses musical idioms as a pedagogical tool for espousing his ideas on human behaviour. In the same vein as the Ikhwan al-safa's and Jalaluddin Rumi's neo-platonic ideations view an evolutionary ascendancy of life forms as they progress through the mineral, vegetable and animal realms of existence, Inayat Khan uses this neo-classical ideal of chain of being into his phenomenology9. Inayat Khan writes:
The gradual progress of all creation from a lower to a higher evolution, its change from one aspect to another, is shown as in music where a melody is transposed from one key into another. The friendship and enmity among men, and their likes and dislikes, are as chords and discords. The harmony of human nature, and the human tendency to attraction and repulsion, are like the effect of the consonance and the dissonance intervals in music.10
This picture of human action as being predicated on the harmonic rhythms of attraction and repulsion underscore Inayat Khan's mysticism of sound and music. At its core it represents an aesthetics of rhythm and tone that continues on from the Ikhwan's theory of correspondences which demonstrate the 'cosmic qualities' contained in human beings.11
Concomitant with the idea of harmony is Inayat Khan's exegesis on vibration which is an innovative development of Hindu science of sound. The universe is grounded and maintained by vibration; each of the three terrestrial kingdoms are different modulations of vibration. The various human sensory perceptions are also posited on varying degrees of vibratory activity which have a marked effect on human cognitive and affective states12. Each universal genre of vibration has been determined with specific lifespan and is endowed with autogenetic activity, able to produce myriads of vibrations. Similar to the Vedic story of the cosmic net of Indra in which all things are interconnected by an endless matrix of jewels ¾ an allusion of the 'totality of existing things'13, the universe in Inayat Khan's thought is constituted by a network of many myriad multitudinous vibrations which having manifested become merged in their original source, or what could be called as the play of cosmic activity (fa'iliyya)14. One is reminded here of the discoveries in Quantum theory that contends that all matter consists of oscillating atoms. For example, on a sub-atomic level the various bands of light and electro-magnetic waves differ only in the 'frequency of their oscillation'15. Like the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, Capra avers that universal matter is in a perpetual state of flux. Capra declares: 'Quantum theory has demolished the classical concepts of solid objects and of strictly deterministic laws of nature'16. Unsurprisingly, this notion of an oscillating universe is recorded in Hindu sacred scripture where 'each element in creation embodies the divine vibration of Shiva'.17
Inayat Khan instructs that the archetypal movement of all vibration, and hence, music, is circular. As he states; 'there are circles beneath and circles above circles, all of which form the universe'18. In accordance with Aristotelian theory which asserts nature's abhorrence of vacuum, Inayat Khan considers the universe as not being void but replete with the Divine resonance of the music of the celestial spheres — saut-e-sarmad19. Certainly, his prescriptions relating to the circular and repetitive patterns of cosmic vibration are evident in the ritual organisation of core Sufi practices such as dhikr. On this note, dhikr's emphasis on the gnostic (ãrif) reciting repetitive cycles of Divine Attributes may be likened to an aural mandala which symbolises infinity and unity; its visual correspondence being the circle where the vertical and horizontal lines converge at its centre to express the quadrature — the point of intersection of the four cardinal points where space and time are unified20. Ardalan and Bakhtiar also envisage movement as coalescing 'space and time into a unity' that is embodied by space yet integral at any particular point in time.21
Even here, Inayat Khan's concept of vibration is transposed to a human milieu. That which is communicated by the one is reproduced by the many. As he tells us, one person coughing in an audience is likely to trigger a similar response by others around him/her. This also applies to other emotions, i.e. sadness, anger, excitements and happiness22. In this way, consciousness is carried through space by what Inayat Khan calls a 'chord of sympathy' which activates the area surrounding it with a particular vibration, where it becomes a unifying principle, or a barzakh, coining Ibn Arabi ¾ a threshold where the essences of oppositional qualities or agents are unified. Ibn Arabi's conception of barzakh is elucidated in the following:
The true barzakh is that which meets one of the things between which it separates with the very face with which it meets the other. It is in its essence identical to everything that it meets.
Hence the separating between the things and the separating factor become manifest as one in entity.23
Music is the accretion of this unifying principle of existence, an aural barzakh, where it links the 'gulf between the form and the formless.'24
Prolegomenon of Beauty
'Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty', instructs the Prophet Muhammad in an oft-cited hadith. The Prophet's pronouncement is not without implication, for it is the human soul that reflects Allah's beauty. Inayat Khan suggests that the human soul is essentially beautiful and 'naturally' inclined to beauty25. For this reason, he claims, human beings are unconsciously drawn to the beauty of nature which is harmony. Hence, beauty is harmony; each finds its origin and effect in the other. Indeed, it is the soul's predilection towards beauty which traces its ascent to the Divine, and it is music that delineates the soul's path.
According to this conception, music is invested with the power of ontological transformation. Reminiscent of Ibn Sina's doctrine of the universe as a 'vast cosmos of symbols'26, which permits the gnostic to integrate the 'influx of spiritual forces'27 within his being, Inayat Khan emphasises the transformative capacities of music for promoting a spiritual catharsis of the self. The essence of music, which is beauty, facilitates in the soul's vertical movement, a movement from matter to spirit. Sharia'ti proposes that in Sufi dictum human beings are bi-dimensional, a compound of earth and spirit. One dimension of human corporeality is inclined towards matter and 'lowliness' while the other dimension 'aspires to ascend to God and the spirit of God.'28 Inayat Khan further outlines this metaphysical consideration where he states:
The nature of creation is the doubling of one. And it is this doubling aspect which is the cause of all duality in life…Therefore spirit and nature in this creation of duality stand face to face.29
The expression of this duality is sound, in its first aspect, and light in its second aspect. Of these it is sound which has pre-eminence to light by its ability to penetrate the realm of the soul. It is for this reason, Inayat Khan tells us, that the doyens recognised the science of sound to be the most significant science in every sphere of life30. Sound, as denoted here, is linked with the supra-sensorial domain (ma'nawi), and light with the sensorial domain (hissi). In this schema, sound finds its correspondence with the hidden (bãtin) and light with the visible (zãhir). Whereas light makes things appear in relation to the body's state of sensate corporeality, it is sound that engages the self in disclosure of itself (tajalli). Ibn Arabi defines self-disclosure as being connected with 'receptivity (qubul) and preparedness (isti' dãd)31. Related to this idea of disclosure is music's ability in encouraging the soul's journey of ascent, by virtue of making the soul become lighter from the heaviness of its corporeal embodiment. Inayat Khan claims that all beautiful qualities such as love, compassion, forgiveness and balance are an outcome of the soul being light32. Here, lightness is analogous to the state of realisation of the heart as an 'instrument of gnosis' (ma'rifa)33, and the actualisation of the Divine in human action.
This brings to mind Ibn Arabi's belief that the qualities of beauty are crucial for the soul's spiritual development34. So saying, for both Inayat Khan and Ibn Arabi the qualities of beauty are the integument and the effusion of the cosmic process of Divine compassion (rahma). As Inayat Khan says, 'The nature of creation is that it is progressing always towards beauty'35. If the universe could be defined as having a specific moral trait, this trait would be compassion assuaged in beauty.
The conception of nature as a reflection of Divine manifestation — a theophany which reconciles all living creatures with their Creator is conveyed in the symbolic and performative aspects of Sufi collective ritual practices such as sama and dhikr. The ritual organisation of these practices provides the gnostic a conceptual and symbolic framework for enacting the allegorical journey of the soul from the periphery of existence to the centre; from separation to union with the Divine. As Lawrence poignantly notes:
Music was said to help the lover in attaining the ecstasy derived from the imminent union with the beloved…for the genuine seeker, music was intended optimise the dyadic relationship between a human lover and a divine Beloved.36
Among the qualities of beauty which is central to music is contemplation (shuhud). Bakhtiar describes contemplation as the ability to concentrate on any one of the cosmic virtues37. These virtues are internalised where they aspire the gnostic towards spiritual union with the Divine source38, where the soul is restored to its 'primordial state' (fitrat) of illud tempus. In Sufism, the act of listening to religious scripture and music is a spiritual exercise and requires a contemplative attitude as a way of becoming disclosed to their hidden meanings39. In this sense, contemplation may be referred to as the wine bearer (saki) of beauty and music is the wine. Through contemplation the gnostic is led to pure knowledge or knowledge of the self, the apogee of the mystical quest. Music is the cosmic language of beauty ¾ the aural syncresis of Divine immanence, and encompasses the triune creative principles of the Divine; Al-Khãliq (The Creator), Al-Bari' (The Evolver) and Al-Musawwir (The Fashioner).
Conclusion
As I discussed earlier, Inayat Khan's theory of music proposes that existence originates from the primordial command 'Be' (kun) whereby physical forms evolve and are shaped according to their vibratory activity. All existence is poised in unity, symmetry and harmony, where its rhythmical resonances constitute the music of the celestial spheres ¾ saut-e-sarmad. My exploration has given attention to the cosmological and aesthetic implications of Inayat Khan's theory of music. By all accounts his musical theory uncovers an aesthetics of sound which is consistent with Heidegger's vision of reality or aletheia in which existence is essentially the 'unconcealing' of Being (dasein). This 'uncovering' function of music follows on from both Sufi and Hindu philosophical schools and their concern with recovering an 'Adamic language', a concern that had also led Inayat Khan to construct the cosmic universe as a concatenation of vibrations and their consequential effect on human existence.
Bibliography
Akkach, S. 1995. "In the Image of the Cosmos Order and Symbolism in Traditional Islamic Architecture Part (1)," The Islamic Quarterly, 39 (1): 5-17.
Ardalan, N. & Laleh Bakhtiar. 1971. The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture. Chicago. Publisher's name not available.
Bakhtiar, L. 1991 Sufi: Expressions of the Mystic Quest, London: Thames and Hudson.
Capra, F. 1975. The Tao of Physics. Berkeley, California: Shambala.
Chittick, W. C. 1989. Ibn al-Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination: The Sufi Path of Knowledge, Albany: State University of New York Press.
Chittick, W. C. 1998. The Self Disclosures of God, Albany: State University of New York Press.
Khan, I. 1990. Philosophy, Psychology, Mysticism: The Sufi Message. vol. 11. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
Khan, I. 1994. The Mysticism of Music, Sound and Music: The Sufi Message. vol. 2. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
Lawrence, B. B. 1983, 'The Early Chisti Approach to Sama', in Islamic Society and Cultures: Essays in Honour of Professor Aziz Ahmad, Israel Wagle (ed.) New Delhi: Manohar. pp. 68-91.
Nasr, S. H. 1978. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Great Britain: Thames & Hudson.
Popper, K. R. The Open Society and its Enemies: The Spell of Plato, vol. 1. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Sakata, H. L. 1994. "The Sacred and the Profane: Qawwãli Represented in the Performances of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan", in The World of Music, 36 (3) 86-97.
Shaira'ti, A. 1976. On the Sociology of Islam: Lectures by Ali Sharia'ti, H. Alyer. (trans.) Berkeley, California: Mizan Press.
Sinari, R. A. 1990. The Structure of Indian Thought. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
The Arts of Islam. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Faculty of Art Gallery.
Tomkins, P. & Christopher Bird. 1972. The Secret Life of Plants, Harmondsworth, U.K. Penguin Books.
Trimingham, J. S. 1971. The Sufi Orders in Islam, Oxford: Overdon Press.
Vail, L. 1993. 'He Exists in the Form of the World: Kashmir Shaivism and the Poetry of Lalleshwari', in Darshan: In the Company of Saints. U.S.A.
Weidenbaum, J. 2001. " Eckhart, Luther, and the Buddha in the Marketplace: Heidegger's Great Synthesis of the Mystical and the Existential," in Transcendental Philosophy, 2 (3) September: 1-17.
Notes:
1-Bakhtiar (!991:59).
2-Nasr ( 1978:261). Ikhwãn al-Safã (brethern of purity), a group of early Muslim ascetics which gave rise to Sufism.
3-Tomkins & Bird (1972:143).
4-Bakhtiar (1991:110).
5-Khan ( 1994:85).
6-Khan (1994:78).
7-Sinari (1990).
8-The significant Quranic 'Verse of the Throne' (ayat ul-kursi) points to God's ipseity: 'Allah! There is no god but He, the Ever Living, Self-subsisting, Eternal' (Quran 2:255).
9-According to the Ikhwan al-safa, human beings exist at the point of intersection between the three terrestrial kingdoms and the three heavenly kingdoms. In this way, humankind acts as a channel of heavenly grace 'for the 'terrestrial world' (Nasr 1978:73).
10-Khan (1994: 58).
11-Nasr (1978:68).
12-Khan (1994: 13-14).
13-Weidenbaum (2001:2).
14-Khan (1994:18). Thus, the archetypal patterns found in nature constitute an imago mundi, a system of inter-connecting centres which contain the cosmic whole.
15-(Capra 1975:61).
16-(Capra 1975:68).
17-Vail (1992:33).
18-Khan (1994:18).
19-The Arts of Islam, (p. 56).
20-Akkach (1995).
21-Ardalalan & Bakhtiar (1979:119).
22-Khan (1994:19,22).
23-(Ibn Arabi, cited in Chittick 1998:518).
24-Khan (1994:151).
25-Khan (1994:148).
26-Nasr (1978:263).
27-Nasr (1978:263).
28-Sharia'ti (1976:74). Human beings are in a state of polemos (conflict, tension) as is all existence, avers Heraclitus. Polemos is the quintessential determinant of physical forms in their actualisation. Heraclitus, as did Islamic theorists, conceived this state of polemos according to cyclic laws of growth, degeneration and decay. According to Heraclitus' saying 'all change is corruption or decay or degeneration' (Popper 1966:19).
29-Khan (1994:85).
30-Khan (1994:108).
31-Chittick (1989:91).
32-Khan (1994:144).
33-Clarke (2001:31).
34-Chittick (1989:24).
35-Khan (1994:42).
36-Lawrence (1983:71).
37-Bakhtiar (1991:24).
38-Bakhtiar (1991:25).
39-This ontological element of music is cognate with Muslim expositions of art in general, which require a contemplative attitude in disclosing their hidden meanings (The Arts of Islam:55). The pre-eminence of reciting sacred scripture in Islam informed this contemplative faculty and reaffirmed the superiority of listening to sight in Muslim religious life (Trimingham 1971:195). The centrality of sound in invoking the Divine presence resulted in the emergence of several ritual genres, i.e. praises to God (hamd), praises to the Prophet Muhammad (na't), praises to the saints (munqabat), and Indo-Pakistani Sufi music (qawwalli). Consequently, the art of listening to religiously based music and poetry became an important mystical practice among various Sufi orders. The Chistiyyah of India was renowned for its spiritual musical assemblies (sama) which influenced Indian sacred music and poetic styles. Moreover, the famous Mehlevi Sufi order of Konya incorporated music within the context of its whirling ritual as a means of inducing a transcendental state of awareness. (See also Sakata 1994)
Abstract
One of the major contributions of Sufi philosophy has been its theory of music. Through the ages Sufi teachers have encouraged humanity to become acquainted with the mysteries of music as a way of apprehending the Divine order (amr). As in other areas of Sufi philosophical and mystical thought (al-ma'rifah, 'irfan), music became appropriated within an ontological model which explained the correspondence between the macrocosm and microcosm. Inayat Khan (d. 1927) an Indian Sufi teacher and musician who assisted in the transmission of Sufism to the west in the early twentieth century, elaborated on this central theme of music. In this analysis I draw attention to Inayat Khan's theory of music in relation to his notion that music conveys universal unity, symmetry and beauty. My overview of the nature of Inayat Khan's musical theory is both attentive of its cosmological underpinnings as well as highlighting its unique aesthetic and ontology.
Music: Cosmic Symphony of Symmetry and Unity
Sufis have often likened music to the aural gossamer by which God fashions the web of creation. The conception of nature as being a manifestation of Divine sound is mentioned in the Quran in relation to its creative and governing potentialities.
To him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth. When He creates a thing, He has just to say 'Be' and it evolves into 'Being' (Quran 21:30).
The notion of music as a medium for cosmic creation is also noted by the Sufi poet Hafiz when he claims that the spirit of life had entered the human body through the assistance of music. One eastern folk tale tells how God made a statue of clay and commanded the soul to enter it. However, the soul refused on the grounds that it did not want to relinquish its state of paradisiacal freedom for the encumbrance of corporeal existence. God then ordered the angels to sing. The soul became so enraptured by their singing that it unwittingly entered the statue. Two important ideas are denoted by this story; firstly, the nature of music as maintaining universal harmony; and secondly, humanity's 'state of spiritual exile.'
In relation to the first point, the Indian Sufi teacher Inayat Khan explains that various musical rhythms are fundamental in shaping all cosmic processes. The universe being an expression of Divine manifestation (sifat'ullah) is constituted by infinite multiplicity and divisibility which conveys unity, symmetry and harmony1. These tri-partite qualities which are intrinsic to all physical forms are characterised by the centrifugal and centripetal motion of the celestial spheres. The ikhwãn al-safa (brethren of purity) had initially expounded a treatise on music which demonstrated how the 'universe is composed in conformity with…geometrical and musical' correspondences which manifest harmony2. The correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm was also noted in Chinese mysticism which considered music as the vital integument of all universal forms which express 'all the frequencies of heaven and earth, as several zithers tuned to one tonic'3. Bakhtiar also claims that traditional music consists of symmetrically repetitive melodies (gushah-ha) that imitate nature's unbroken life rhythms:
Nature contains continual repetition, inspiring man to imitate her in her mode of operation through an open-minded, continuous movement system.4
Similarly, Inayat Khan deemed music to be a microcosm of the universe which found its ultimate distillation in the human form. Thus, the harmonious and disharmonious rhythms and vibrations, or the movement between change (talwin) and stability (tamkin) which keep creation intact, are also constitutive of the existential pulsations of human life.5
Corresponding with Ibn Arabi's influential concept of 'Unity of Being' (wahdat al-wujud) which declares the unity of all things within the universe of Divine manifestation, Inayat Khan considers all physical forms and their existential rhythms as expressing principles of Divine unity (tawhid) and symmetry. In this schema, all the universe is music and nothing exists beyond it.
What we call music in our everyday language is only a miniature, which our intelligence has grasped from that music or harmony of the whole universe which is working behind everything, and which is the source and the origin of nature.6
Having said this, Inayat Khan goes beyond naturalistic prescriptions of music to one that asserts music as a psychological method for understanding human nature and the various grades of human action in the world.
The more one studies the harmony of music, and then studies human nature, how people agree and how they disagree, how there is attraction and repulsion, the more one will see that it is all music.
This assertion is no less an espousal for a phenomenology of music of human action. Because Inayat Khan believed that human action could be explained within the parameters of previous Sufi ideations of music is no less contentious than Ibn Arabi's claim. Perhaps, it is plausible here to comment that Inayat Khan's theory in this area characterised his tendency to incorporate aspects of Hindu metaphysics relating to the science of sound. Judging from his systematic writings, it is not tenuous to claim that this syncresis between Sufi and Hindu theories enabled Inayat Khan to diverge from the naturalism of previous Sufi concepts of music and re-locating them within the sphere of humanism. It is likely to suppose that such a convergence between Sufi and Hindu cosmologies was a significant exercise, and continued the syncretistic tradition of various Indian Sufi and Hindu spiritual teachers who often combined the metaphysical teachings of Islam and Hinduism in expounding their metaphysics. Several commentators, including Inayat Khan, indicated that Vedantic philosophy held a parallel view of creation as having originated from the primordial vibration called nada brahman which is symbolised by the seed syllable 'Om' and is analogous to the Quranic 'Kun'. Moreover, the monistic panentheism of Ibn Arabi is cognate with the Advaita Vedanta, that most profound magnum opus of Hindu 'ontological subjectivism' whose ãtmatology identifies the ãtman (soul) and brahman as being one and the same7. In Sufism, the Godhead in its absolute essence is referred to az-zhat and is analogous with the Vedantic nirguna brahman, being totally complete in itself, self-existing and eternal (al-ha'yy, al-qayyum)8. In both metaphysical paradigms there is an identification of quiddity as being intelligibly imponderable and amenable to no kind of qualification other than to claim that it is neither this nor that. The Divine essence remains forever hidden from the realm of created forms and corresponds with the first part of famous hadith qudsi which declares, 'I was a Hidden Treasure and I desired to be known'. Hence, it is 'beyond-beyond' (wara al-wara), or equally the unqualified sunyata. While it is not my intention to pursue this discussion of correspondences any further here, I wish to outline those philosophical influences which are germane to Inayat Khan's theory of music.
Inayat Khan's writings are replete with analogies and aphorisms which seek to convey in a practical sense his notions of harmony. For Inayat Khan harmony can be defined as that which expresses those aspects of symmetry, unity and existential consonance. As is often the case, he uses musical idioms as a pedagogical tool for espousing his ideas on human behaviour. In the same vein as the Ikhwan al-safa's and Jalaluddin Rumi's neo-platonic ideations view an evolutionary ascendancy of life forms as they progress through the mineral, vegetable and animal realms of existence, Inayat Khan uses this neo-classical ideal of chain of being into his phenomenology9. Inayat Khan writes:
The gradual progress of all creation from a lower to a higher evolution, its change from one aspect to another, is shown as in music where a melody is transposed from one key into another. The friendship and enmity among men, and their likes and dislikes, are as chords and discords. The harmony of human nature, and the human tendency to attraction and repulsion, are like the effect of the consonance and the dissonance intervals in music.10
This picture of human action as being predicated on the harmonic rhythms of attraction and repulsion underscore Inayat Khan's mysticism of sound and music. At its core it represents an aesthetics of rhythm and tone that continues on from the Ikhwan's theory of correspondences which demonstrate the 'cosmic qualities' contained in human beings.11
Concomitant with the idea of harmony is Inayat Khan's exegesis on vibration which is an innovative development of Hindu science of sound. The universe is grounded and maintained by vibration; each of the three terrestrial kingdoms are different modulations of vibration. The various human sensory perceptions are also posited on varying degrees of vibratory activity which have a marked effect on human cognitive and affective states12. Each universal genre of vibration has been determined with specific lifespan and is endowed with autogenetic activity, able to produce myriads of vibrations. Similar to the Vedic story of the cosmic net of Indra in which all things are interconnected by an endless matrix of jewels ¾ an allusion of the 'totality of existing things'13, the universe in Inayat Khan's thought is constituted by a network of many myriad multitudinous vibrations which having manifested become merged in their original source, or what could be called as the play of cosmic activity (fa'iliyya)14. One is reminded here of the discoveries in Quantum theory that contends that all matter consists of oscillating atoms. For example, on a sub-atomic level the various bands of light and electro-magnetic waves differ only in the 'frequency of their oscillation'15. Like the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, Capra avers that universal matter is in a perpetual state of flux. Capra declares: 'Quantum theory has demolished the classical concepts of solid objects and of strictly deterministic laws of nature'16. Unsurprisingly, this notion of an oscillating universe is recorded in Hindu sacred scripture where 'each element in creation embodies the divine vibration of Shiva'.17
Inayat Khan instructs that the archetypal movement of all vibration, and hence, music, is circular. As he states; 'there are circles beneath and circles above circles, all of which form the universe'18. In accordance with Aristotelian theory which asserts nature's abhorrence of vacuum, Inayat Khan considers the universe as not being void but replete with the Divine resonance of the music of the celestial spheres — saut-e-sarmad19. Certainly, his prescriptions relating to the circular and repetitive patterns of cosmic vibration are evident in the ritual organisation of core Sufi practices such as dhikr. On this note, dhikr's emphasis on the gnostic (ãrif) reciting repetitive cycles of Divine Attributes may be likened to an aural mandala which symbolises infinity and unity; its visual correspondence being the circle where the vertical and horizontal lines converge at its centre to express the quadrature — the point of intersection of the four cardinal points where space and time are unified20. Ardalan and Bakhtiar also envisage movement as coalescing 'space and time into a unity' that is embodied by space yet integral at any particular point in time.21
Even here, Inayat Khan's concept of vibration is transposed to a human milieu. That which is communicated by the one is reproduced by the many. As he tells us, one person coughing in an audience is likely to trigger a similar response by others around him/her. This also applies to other emotions, i.e. sadness, anger, excitements and happiness22. In this way, consciousness is carried through space by what Inayat Khan calls a 'chord of sympathy' which activates the area surrounding it with a particular vibration, where it becomes a unifying principle, or a barzakh, coining Ibn Arabi ¾ a threshold where the essences of oppositional qualities or agents are unified. Ibn Arabi's conception of barzakh is elucidated in the following:
The true barzakh is that which meets one of the things between which it separates with the very face with which it meets the other. It is in its essence identical to everything that it meets.
Hence the separating between the things and the separating factor become manifest as one in entity.23
Music is the accretion of this unifying principle of existence, an aural barzakh, where it links the 'gulf between the form and the formless.'24
Prolegomenon of Beauty
'Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty', instructs the Prophet Muhammad in an oft-cited hadith. The Prophet's pronouncement is not without implication, for it is the human soul that reflects Allah's beauty. Inayat Khan suggests that the human soul is essentially beautiful and 'naturally' inclined to beauty25. For this reason, he claims, human beings are unconsciously drawn to the beauty of nature which is harmony. Hence, beauty is harmony; each finds its origin and effect in the other. Indeed, it is the soul's predilection towards beauty which traces its ascent to the Divine, and it is music that delineates the soul's path.
According to this conception, music is invested with the power of ontological transformation. Reminiscent of Ibn Sina's doctrine of the universe as a 'vast cosmos of symbols'26, which permits the gnostic to integrate the 'influx of spiritual forces'27 within his being, Inayat Khan emphasises the transformative capacities of music for promoting a spiritual catharsis of the self. The essence of music, which is beauty, facilitates in the soul's vertical movement, a movement from matter to spirit. Sharia'ti proposes that in Sufi dictum human beings are bi-dimensional, a compound of earth and spirit. One dimension of human corporeality is inclined towards matter and 'lowliness' while the other dimension 'aspires to ascend to God and the spirit of God.'28 Inayat Khan further outlines this metaphysical consideration where he states:
The nature of creation is the doubling of one. And it is this doubling aspect which is the cause of all duality in life…Therefore spirit and nature in this creation of duality stand face to face.29
The expression of this duality is sound, in its first aspect, and light in its second aspect. Of these it is sound which has pre-eminence to light by its ability to penetrate the realm of the soul. It is for this reason, Inayat Khan tells us, that the doyens recognised the science of sound to be the most significant science in every sphere of life30. Sound, as denoted here, is linked with the supra-sensorial domain (ma'nawi), and light with the sensorial domain (hissi). In this schema, sound finds its correspondence with the hidden (bãtin) and light with the visible (zãhir). Whereas light makes things appear in relation to the body's state of sensate corporeality, it is sound that engages the self in disclosure of itself (tajalli). Ibn Arabi defines self-disclosure as being connected with 'receptivity (qubul) and preparedness (isti' dãd)31. Related to this idea of disclosure is music's ability in encouraging the soul's journey of ascent, by virtue of making the soul become lighter from the heaviness of its corporeal embodiment. Inayat Khan claims that all beautiful qualities such as love, compassion, forgiveness and balance are an outcome of the soul being light32. Here, lightness is analogous to the state of realisation of the heart as an 'instrument of gnosis' (ma'rifa)33, and the actualisation of the Divine in human action.
This brings to mind Ibn Arabi's belief that the qualities of beauty are crucial for the soul's spiritual development34. So saying, for both Inayat Khan and Ibn Arabi the qualities of beauty are the integument and the effusion of the cosmic process of Divine compassion (rahma). As Inayat Khan says, 'The nature of creation is that it is progressing always towards beauty'35. If the universe could be defined as having a specific moral trait, this trait would be compassion assuaged in beauty.
The conception of nature as a reflection of Divine manifestation — a theophany which reconciles all living creatures with their Creator is conveyed in the symbolic and performative aspects of Sufi collective ritual practices such as sama and dhikr. The ritual organisation of these practices provides the gnostic a conceptual and symbolic framework for enacting the allegorical journey of the soul from the periphery of existence to the centre; from separation to union with the Divine. As Lawrence poignantly notes:
Music was said to help the lover in attaining the ecstasy derived from the imminent union with the beloved…for the genuine seeker, music was intended optimise the dyadic relationship between a human lover and a divine Beloved.36
Among the qualities of beauty which is central to music is contemplation (shuhud). Bakhtiar describes contemplation as the ability to concentrate on any one of the cosmic virtues37. These virtues are internalised where they aspire the gnostic towards spiritual union with the Divine source38, where the soul is restored to its 'primordial state' (fitrat) of illud tempus. In Sufism, the act of listening to religious scripture and music is a spiritual exercise and requires a contemplative attitude as a way of becoming disclosed to their hidden meanings39. In this sense, contemplation may be referred to as the wine bearer (saki) of beauty and music is the wine. Through contemplation the gnostic is led to pure knowledge or knowledge of the self, the apogee of the mystical quest. Music is the cosmic language of beauty ¾ the aural syncresis of Divine immanence, and encompasses the triune creative principles of the Divine; Al-Khãliq (The Creator), Al-Bari' (The Evolver) and Al-Musawwir (The Fashioner).
Conclusion
As I discussed earlier, Inayat Khan's theory of music proposes that existence originates from the primordial command 'Be' (kun) whereby physical forms evolve and are shaped according to their vibratory activity. All existence is poised in unity, symmetry and harmony, where its rhythmical resonances constitute the music of the celestial spheres ¾ saut-e-sarmad. My exploration has given attention to the cosmological and aesthetic implications of Inayat Khan's theory of music. By all accounts his musical theory uncovers an aesthetics of sound which is consistent with Heidegger's vision of reality or aletheia in which existence is essentially the 'unconcealing' of Being (dasein). This 'uncovering' function of music follows on from both Sufi and Hindu philosophical schools and their concern with recovering an 'Adamic language', a concern that had also led Inayat Khan to construct the cosmic universe as a concatenation of vibrations and their consequential effect on human existence.
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Notes:
1-Bakhtiar (!991:59).
2-Nasr ( 1978:261). Ikhwãn al-Safã (brethern of purity), a group of early Muslim ascetics which gave rise to Sufism.
3-Tomkins & Bird (1972:143).
4-Bakhtiar (1991:110).
5-Khan ( 1994:85).
6-Khan (1994:78).
7-Sinari (1990).
8-The significant Quranic 'Verse of the Throne' (ayat ul-kursi) points to God's ipseity: 'Allah! There is no god but He, the Ever Living, Self-subsisting, Eternal' (Quran 2:255).
9-According to the Ikhwan al-safa, human beings exist at the point of intersection between the three terrestrial kingdoms and the three heavenly kingdoms. In this way, humankind acts as a channel of heavenly grace 'for the 'terrestrial world' (Nasr 1978:73).
10-Khan (1994: 58).
11-Nasr (1978:68).
12-Khan (1994: 13-14).
13-Weidenbaum (2001:2).
14-Khan (1994:18). Thus, the archetypal patterns found in nature constitute an imago mundi, a system of inter-connecting centres which contain the cosmic whole.
15-(Capra 1975:61).
16-(Capra 1975:68).
17-Vail (1992:33).
18-Khan (1994:18).
19-The Arts of Islam, (p. 56).
20-Akkach (1995).
21-Ardalalan & Bakhtiar (1979:119).
22-Khan (1994:19,22).
23-(Ibn Arabi, cited in Chittick 1998:518).
24-Khan (1994:151).
25-Khan (1994:148).
26-Nasr (1978:263).
27-Nasr (1978:263).
28-Sharia'ti (1976:74). Human beings are in a state of polemos (conflict, tension) as is all existence, avers Heraclitus. Polemos is the quintessential determinant of physical forms in their actualisation. Heraclitus, as did Islamic theorists, conceived this state of polemos according to cyclic laws of growth, degeneration and decay. According to Heraclitus' saying 'all change is corruption or decay or degeneration' (Popper 1966:19).
29-Khan (1994:85).
30-Khan (1994:108).
31-Chittick (1989:91).
32-Khan (1994:144).
33-Clarke (2001:31).
34-Chittick (1989:24).
35-Khan (1994:42).
36-Lawrence (1983:71).
37-Bakhtiar (1991:24).
38-Bakhtiar (1991:25).
39-This ontological element of music is cognate with Muslim expositions of art in general, which require a contemplative attitude in disclosing their hidden meanings (The Arts of Islam:55). The pre-eminence of reciting sacred scripture in Islam informed this contemplative faculty and reaffirmed the superiority of listening to sight in Muslim religious life (Trimingham 1971:195). The centrality of sound in invoking the Divine presence resulted in the emergence of several ritual genres, i.e. praises to God (hamd), praises to the Prophet Muhammad (na't), praises to the saints (munqabat), and Indo-Pakistani Sufi music (qawwalli). Consequently, the art of listening to religiously based music and poetry became an important mystical practice among various Sufi orders. The Chistiyyah of India was renowned for its spiritual musical assemblies (sama) which influenced Indian sacred music and poetic styles. Moreover, the famous Mehlevi Sufi order of Konya incorporated music within the context of its whirling ritual as a means of inducing a transcendental state of awareness. (See also Sakata 1994)
