The IMS Study Group “Music in the Muslim Worlds” investigates the interrelations between music and Islam as they are experienced, practiced, and conceptualized across a diversity of Muslim societies. At the heart of this inquiry lies a recognition of the centrality of sound and musical production in Muslim cultural and religious life, as exemplified by the intimate relationship between Islamic spirituality and prominent Muslim sonic practices. The study group welcomes a range of disciplinary perspectives such as: studies in modal music theory (maqām, dastgāh, rāga), history of musical instruments, archival and ethnographic research on religious rituals, musicological analyses, as well as historical, literary, and philosophical approaches.

The study group’s research spans two broad macro-areas that together form what we might call the Indo-Mediterranean continuum: The Middle East and North Africa, encompassing also Eastern Africa, Ethiopia, and other regions of the African continent where Islamic cultural and musical interactions have long flourished; Central, South, and Southeast Asia, including Turkish-speaking countries, Persianate regions, and Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia.

The study group informally gathered for the first time in 2022 during the symposium entitled “Journey into Islamic Musical Culture,” held in Palermo, Italy. The symposium was co-organized by the University of Palermo (Department of Cultures and Society) and the University of Naples “L’Orientale” (Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies—DAAM) with the collaboration of the Embassy of Pakistan in Rome, the Foundation for Religious Sciences (FSciRe) in Bologna, and the International Association of Mediterranean and Oriental Studies (ISMEO) in Rome.

Salvatore Morra (UK), Kawkab Tawfik (EG)