Listening, pt. 2

Continuing the series that I started with part one on listening, I'd like to continue the discussion. Today I'd like to discuss Samā, which is the Sufi practice of reverent listening to music and poetry. While the focus is on a practice that is undeniably religious, for the purposes of this discussion it will be stripped of any dogmatic imperatives and framework to better understand the ways in which Sufis believe Samā brings them closer to the divine. Feel free to replace divine with whatever word you describe for the state of ecstatic, emotional, or meditative listening that you  may have experienced in the past. I note with interest that the Pulse composers have chosen to call their recent project Sihr Halal, a concept that interfaces with Samā.

Samā is the Sufi practice of listening or auditioning music, and offers a paradigmatic example of a spiritual practice that engages music.  While there exists a great diversity of religious practices amongst people who define themselves as Sufi, reverence for music as a religious means is a consistent defining feature. 

Among Sufis, music is considered a “…spiritual staple, not merely a permissible (halal) but a required religious practice (wajib)” (Lewisohn, 2).  Samā literally translates as “…audition, [and] connotes in the Sufi tradition of hearing with the “ear of the heart,” an attitude of reverently listening to music and/or the singing of mystical poetry with the intent of increasing awareness and understanding of the divine object described; it is a type of meditation focusing on musical melody, by use of instruments, mystical songs, or combining both” (Lewisohn, 4). 

By the “ear of the heart,” it is meant that the Sufi practitioner of Samā believes they access a state of musical awareness that they believe utilizes God as a proxy, so that they do not hear with their own ears but the ears of God.  Samā is “…a musical experience whose aesthetic depth leads to metaphysical penetration; the notes reflect, indeed, become, the divine harmony” (Ibid, 15).  Samā may also be used to refer to the dance that sometimes accompanies the music (Shiloah, 143), which parallels the South Asian, Indian understanding that dance is part and parcel of music, the physical expression of sound.

For Sufis, gnosis, or religious knowledge and wisdom gained through direct experience of the divine, is the defining characteristic of their religious life and understanding.  As a result, no wholesale injunctions against musical practice will be found in their religious framework because music is seen as a key path to the direct experience of God.  For the Sufis, “...what is most essential…cannot be learned, but can only be reached by immediate experience and ecstasy and inward transformation” (quoted in Qureshi, 223).  This is not a faith based initiative, so to speak: you are invited to experience it first hand.

One important aspect is the primacy the practice of Samā places upon the experience and spiritual state of the listener.  In fact, the extent of the listeners’ Samā is based upon their own spiritual depth and ability to be receptive to the music being played and poetry being recited.  “The Samā concept is focused on the listener – in accord with its literal meaning (‘listening’ or ‘auditioning’) – and on his spiritual capacity for receiving what he hears, including all the implications of an ecstatic response” (Qureshi, 223-24).  It is dependent upon what Suhrawardi terms the “spiritual attunedness of the soul” (quoted in Lewisohn, 8).

In the practice of Samā, music is used primarily in conjunction with poetry, and the element of the mystical poetry is a key to understanding Samā.  “It is the music that turns Sufi poetry into Samā, and therefore the relationship between music and poetry constitutes a crucial element in defining what Samā is” (Qureshi, 221).  In many ways, the use of music is viewed as permissible only because it is used as a means to transmit the message of mystical poetry to the listener, as “…music is explicitly credited with spiritual power solely as an adjunct to poetry” (Ibid, 224).  This also attests to the power of the music, since, as Leonard Lewisohn poetically explains:

“…music alone is capable of bridging the gap between the literal and anagogic levels of meaning…Music constitutes the poem’s emotional body of water: the poem-fish is born and swims in the ocean of Samā – for without music, the vertical dimension of Samā, the poem expires on the dry land of literal and horizontal meanings” (Lewishon, 15).

The listener is supposed to focus on the spirit of the poetry being recited, and not on the strictly denotative meaning of the words.  This is because the truth lies not in the words but behind the words, “…in mystical deliberation over the hidden mysteries [concealed] within the highly refined poetry which are sung by the cantor” (quoted in Lewisohn, 15).  Mahmud Shabistari expounds upon the mystery of Samā in his book Garden of Mystery (Gulshan-i rāz) (quoted in Lewisohn, 16):

For all those familiar with mystical states of consciousness and adept in spiritual perfections, the Samā of the soul and spirit does not consist merely of the sounds and words heard from a musician. No, behind every strain and melody, adepts apprehend a fresh mystery and mystical state. But such mysterious virgins do not expose themselves to every stranger; they never unveil their faces except to the most elect of confidants. No, not everyone who busies himself in Samā, claps his hands in passion or whirls in dance is necessarily an initiate in tune with its mysteries.

As the above passage indicates, Sufis believe the experience of ecstasy and the depths of Samā are not open to everyone, and certain conditions must be observed in order for it to be sanctioned by the Sufis as a legitimate practice of Samā.  For example, Sufis believe it is impossible to gain the benefits of Samā “…without also observing its proper spiritual conditions incumbent upon both performer and listener” (Lewisohn, 7). 

One of the most widely agreed upon and serious of the rules of conduct for the ceremony of Samā is that “…silence and stillness must reign throughout Samā notwithstanding the participant becoming affected by ecstasy and rapture” (Ibid., 8).  It is necessary to practice Samā “…without shattering the inward silence, self-control and contemplative sobriety of the Sufi” (Ibid).  The Muslim scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, who did some of the most extensive writing on Samā, wrote: “In this fashion, the flames of divine yearning within him will be rekindled every moment and freshly renewed so that God’s grace – the bounty of this world, will bless all of his days, such that in Samā he will be able to control his movements, except when he is unable to keep his peace – like a person who must sneeze, not matter how much he wishes not to” (quoted in Lewisohn, 8).

There are three defining elements of conducting proper Samā that have been identified by Sufis. The first is that it must occur at the right time, which is not time in the temporal sense but rather the time of the heart, the preparedness of the spirit to be receptive to the benefits of Samā. “The proper time [for Samā] is when their [the Sufis] hearts enjoy purity so that they desire to concentrate on their aspiration in seeking their Beloved’s goodwill” (quoted in Lewisohn, 8). In other words, “…time’s metaphysical arrow, one could say, must strike the Sufi’s heart before it hits the body” (Ibid). This is how preparedness for Samā is explained in the positive sense, and in the negative sense, there is an injunction against participating in Samā “…during any times when one’s heart is engaged [with worldly concerns], nor when it is time for ritual prayer (namāz) nor when eating or when one is distracted” (Ibid). 

The second parameter for practicing correct Samā is to practice in the right place.  Right place is defined as: “zawiyās, khānaqāhs, and mosques, which are preferred over other spots, since the mosque was founded for sake of the bodily devotion and the heart created for the sake of divine gnosis and the theophany therein” (quoted in Lewison, 9).  Reading this reminded me of quotes by musicians such as Sonny Rollins who find themselves “…not wanting to play your horn in a night club where they are souping and drinking” (Medioni).  Although there are the ideal physical spaces for conducting Samā, once again there is a metaphysical element to this parameter, as “…the “place” of the concert is also paradoxically a “no-place”, a u-topos, a “heart-land”, rather than any specific bodily locus.  A “place” is sacred by virtue of the heart’s presence there rather than the heart’s presence physically contingent upon the geographical locus of the body” (Ibid).

The third parameter for practicing Samā is right company, which can be seen as a parallel to the Buddhist concept of the Sangha, the idea of a spiritual community as essential to the furthering of the individual. In the case of the Sufis, Right company also connotes a sense of worthiness, and since Samā “…is an esoteric activity demanding a refined degree of understanding on the listener’s part, it is usually considered a ceremony proper “for members only”, and from which the uninitiated are to be excluded” (Ibid, 10). 

First and foremost, we must understand that Samā is an art of awakening, just as meditation on the koan mu is a practice of awakening for Zen Buddhists.  The difference is the means, since for the Sufi the experience of Samadhi comes in the midst of musical meditation rather than sitting meditation.  Samā is used to provoke “…various types of ineffable visionary experiences, which ‘are the summation of what is sought by the lovers of God Almighty and the ultimate fruit of all pious works’” (Ibid, 17).  It is meant to induce a hal, or a “…sudden mind bending glimpse of hidden things” (Khan, P., 55). Samā is an art of self-realization, since when proper Samā is practiced, the mystic “encounters in himself states which he had not encountered before he listened to the music” (Ibid).

 “The cause of those states appearing in the heart through the Samā is a divine mystery (sirr Allah) found within the harmonious relationship of measured tones [of music] to the [human] spirits and in the spirits becoming overcome by these melodies and stirred by them…But the knowledge of the cause as to why spirits are affected through sounds is one of the mystical subtleties of the sciences of visionary experience” (quoted in Lewisohn, 17).

The discussion of Samā is useful in understanding an existing framework for the act of listening deeply. I hope any of the religious imagery and language didn't scare anyone away, as I am aware that many people tend to have allergic reactions to dogma.  

In the next installment of the series on listening, I am going to explore one way we can examine the act of improvisation, a view in which the listening and creation of music are not two separate entities but parts of a whole that is co-creative.

Avery, Kenneth S. A Psychology of Early Sufi sama’: Listening and Altered States. New York, NY : RoutledgeCurzon. 2004.

Khan, Hazrat Inayat. The Mysticism of Sound and Music. Boston : Shambhala, 1996.

Khan, Pir Zia Inayat. Parabola: The Search For Meaning. Spring 2005.

Lewisohn, Leonard. “The Sacred Music of Islam: Sama’ in the Persian Sufi Tradition". British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 6 (1997), 1-33.

Medioni, Franck. Sonny Rollins and David S. Ware: Sonny Meets David. All About Jazz, online magazine. Available at http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article_print.php?id=19423

Sarasvati, Swami Pratyagatmananda. Japasutram: The Science of Creative Sound. Madras: Ganesh & Co, 1971.

Shiloah, Amnon. “Music and Religion in Islam”. Acta Musicologica, Vol. 69, Fasc. 2 (Jul.-Dec., 1997), 143-155.