Sultans of Spin

Syrian Sacred Music on the World Stage

Bibliographic Data

ID2463281
AuthorsJonathan H Shannon (0000-0001-8163-0263, City University of New York, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume105
Issue2
Pages266-277
Publication date2003-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Anthropologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7294 • E-ISSN: 1548-1433
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/aa.2003.105.2.266
OpenAlexW1985331405
LanguageEN
Citations received27
References cited29

This article examines how the performance of a variety of Islamic music in transnational cultural circuits helps to promote the idea of a style of sacred music within the category of world music. Taking as an example the performance of the mawlawiyya, or "Whirling Dervish," music and dance by a Syrian-based ensemble, I show how the idea of an authentic local Syrian sacred music tradition requires its performance globally. I use the concept of the "world stage" to examine how musical performance practices that are represented as authentic local traditions obtain both their authenticity and their local specificity through their staging in global contexts. I further explore how such musical styles as sacred and Sufi emerge as naturalized categories in world music discourse, and how processes of differentiation and commodification reconfigure both the "local" and "global." [Keywords: world music, globalization, style, Syria, Islam

Aesthetics · Art · Dance · Globalization · Islam · Literature · Musical · Political science · Sacred music · Sociology · Style (visual arts · Variety (cybernetics · Violin musical styles · Visual arts · Computer Science · Hispanic-African Historical Relations · History · Islamic Studies and History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law