| Abstract: | Suitably interpreted, “Islamic music in Africa” provides African Studies with a useful analytical tool for probing the relation between affective individual experience and the social structures, values, and cultural concepts which music both reflects and supports in Muslim areas. Nondiscursive Islamic musical diversity has facilitated Islamic expansion by enabling affectively powerful adaptations to local socio-cultural conditions. The sonic practices of Islam constitute central sites for the affectively charged social production of Islam, as locally inflected, and for the contestation of Muslim identity and norms. The diversity of Islamic music also reflects a rich history of cultural interactions, as music is a sensitive barometer of social and historical conditions. Yet diffusions have bestowed a certain musical consistency as well, linking sound practices over vast distances, and underpinning common feelings of Muslim cultural identity in Africa. |
