The Music of Islām: Volume Five - ʾAīssāoua Ṣūfī Ceremony; Marrakesh, Morocco

Sufi is a devotional musical tradition rooted in Islamic mysticism that seeks to induce remembrance of the Divine (dhikr) and transport performers and listeners toward spiritual ecstasy (wajd). It is not a single uniform style, but a family of practices that vary across regions—most notably Persian/Iranian, Anatolian/Turkish (Mevlevi), Arab, and South Asian (qawwali, kafi). Musically, Sufi repertoire tends to revolve around repetitive, mantra-like refrains, call-and-response between lead and chorus, and gradual intensification over cyclical rhythms. Melodic language draws from regional modal systems such as the Persian dastgāh, Ottoman/Turkish makam, and South Asian raga, and is often supported by drones. Texts are central: poetry by mystic masters like Rumi, Hafez, Bullhe Shah, and Amir Khusrau is sung in Persian, Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic, Turkish, and other languages. Instrumentation varies by locale—harmonium, tabla/dholak, tanpura, and clapping in South Asia; ney, kudüm, bendir, and tanbur in Turkey; oud and frame drums across the Arab world—yet the unifying aim is spiritual uplift and inner transformation.

Islamic religious music and recitation encompasses the sacred vocal arts of Islam, centered on Qur'an recitation (tilāwah/tajwīd), the call to prayer (adhān), devotional chant (dhikr), praise poetry (madīh, na‘t), and paraliturgical song traditions such as nasheed, qasidah, and Sufi samā‘. While many Muslims distinguish Qur'anic recitation from "music" and regard it as a unique sacred art bound by rules of tajwīd and pious intent, its sound-world overlaps with regional musical systems (especially the Arabic maqām tradition) through modal nuance, melisma, and ornamentation. Across regions, the genre ranges from unaccompanied, metrically free recitation and adhān, to percussion-accompanied nasheed, and to more elaborate Sufi traditions (e.g., qawwali) with call-and-response, rhythmic cycles, and ecstatic crescendos—all unified by devotional texts, ethical themes, and reverence for the divine.