MUSIK ISLAM AND MUSIK ISLAMI

Islamic music for many Indonesian Muslims is identical with Arabic. Despite understanding of Islam undergoing changes in contemporary Indonesia, the concept of Islamic music is still idealised in its Arabic lyrics.

From its origin in the Middle East, Islamic music is now defined in specific ways among Indonesian Muslims. In this section, I particularly draw attention to discuss Islamic music discourse and how the concept is defined in Indonesian contemporary context. There are two main terms used in the vocabulary of Indonesian music to name Islamic music: musik Islam (Islamic music) and musik Islami. The latter term needs explan­ation. Islami is an Arabic adjectival construction; hence musik Islami literally means Islamic music, the same as musik Islam. However, drawing on the context of usage, which I describe below, it is more accurate to translate musik Islami as ‘music inspired by Islam’ or ‘music with Islamic characteristics’. My explanation of these different terms in referring to distinct musical genres of Islamic music shows the riches of musical vocabularies as well as the complexity that arises in under­standing Islam in relation to music in Indonesia.^[1279]

Limitations and boundaries of what we call musik Islam and musik Islami are not merely identified from musical elements. Socio-cultural meanings are also a crucial aspect of interpretation. In the discussion below, I address some key arguments and theories that have emerged in defining musik Islam and musik Islami.

Rasmussen points out that the main characteristic of musik Islam in Indonesia is the Arabic elements that are strongly embedded in the music.^[1280] She begins her discussion with the primary source of the Arabic musical aesthetic that Indonesian Muslims know, namely the Qur’anic styles.

The mixed understanding between musik Islam and musik Islami is shown in Berg’s study of the Arabic music called gambus.^[1284] Gambus is one example of music with strong Arabic idioms that signify as musik Islam in Indonesia. In general, there are two groups of people in Indonesia with different perspectives on whether gambus is Islamic or not. First, members of the public generally look at gambus as musik Islam because of how the performance is displayed, and for its claims to being as halal or permitted under Islamic law.

However, in Indonesia the number of people who understand the meaning of Arabic lyrics in the music is much smaller than those who do not. Thus, people’s perception on the concept of musik Islam in the case of gambus is similar to people’s understandings of other Arabic musical expressions I observe from the daily life of Muslims in general. There­fore, although not all Arabic songs are Islami, many people still conceive of them as such. This is because of the similarity of musical elements they usually hear in Arabic music, added to which there is a perspective that ‘Arabic’ means ‘Islamic’.

This parallels the explanation offered by Sundanese ethnomusicologist, Deni Hermawan. He distinguishes the concept of musik Islam and musik Islami based on their musical elements including lyrics, vocals, instru­ments, music scales and tonal systems. He defines musik Islam as ‘music developing in countries with Islamic traditions’, and refers to music in the Middle East, especially Egypt and its surrounds.^[1286] In this respect, he differentiates the concept of musik Islam as applied in the Middle East and in Indonesia. According to Hermawan, musik Islam in the Middle East is the music which uses Middle Eastern music scales with various themes and not only religious ones.

Hermawan’s differentiating of musik Islam in the Middle East from that of Indonesia is problematic, especially in arguing that themes of musik Islam in the Middle East are varied, including love songs.^[1288] Do Middle Eastern people call love songs musik Islam? Or is Hermawan’s understanding of this categorisation based on his observation of what Indonesian people perceive as musik Islam?

Musik Islam in the Middle East was originally used as religious songs to glorify God, to praise the Prophet and his family, or to evoke Islamic spirit among Muslims. All those themes were imported and sung in Indonesian Islamic communities. However, communities in the Arab and Middle Eastern areas developed genres of music that are broader than religious songs. Thus, love songs and other secular songs thrive in Indonesia and are called musik Islam merely because they use Arabic language.

The Central Java-based Islamic cleric Kyai Adib Masruhan, a supporter of Islamic musical genres, gives an interesting example about his favourite Arabic love song entitled Magadir, a very popular song in many Islamic schools (pesantren) in Indonesia, and one which he heard when he was in Saudi Arabia. He says that:

it is a love song. Thala’al Maddah [the singer] is a male singer, while Magadir, the title of the song, is a female’s name. But, when the song entered Indonesia, many people misunderstood. Maybe because of its Arabic lan­guage, some people thought that listening to it is sunah, just like listening to solawat.^[1289]

This statement reflects another facet of Indonesian Muslims conception of ‘Arabic sound’ as ‘Islamic sound’, including in pesantren both for Islamic students and their teachers who understand Arabic language very well.

This complexity also occurs in rateb meuseukat performance of Aceh. Although texts of meuseukat portray love, politics and other secular themes, it is categorised as ‘art (that breathes) with an Islamic flavour (kesenian yang bernafaskan Islam)’.^[1290] According to Harnish and Ras­mussen, these categorizations reveal the ways that various cultural and political discourses define and identify the music as Islami, ultimately giving it ‘an acknowledged place in Indonesian Islam’.^[1291] These categor­izations have brought up another debate in which musik Islam (Islamic music) or songs in Arabic language are always regarded as halal (permitted) because of the Arabic symbols embedded within them. Meanwhile musik Islami is more contentious. In the Indonesian context, musik Islami tends to cover wider audiences and genres than those under musik Islam. It creates musik Islami as a diverse body of genres all of which are more or less acceptable and which enable blending of various genres as found in contemporary music forms in Indonesia. Musik Islami refers to any kind of music, both traditional and modern, with a single theme, which is about Islam, while for musik Islam, people commonly refer to Arabic music regardless of its content. This definition and understanding of musik Islami show the uniqueness of interactions between Islam and local culture in Indonesia.

This distinction is important, for it opens the space for Islamic musical expression that draws deeply on other indigenous and non-Islamic genres. It also signals the field as a polemical one. No better example exists than that of dangdut, which in some cases is also considered as musik Islami, while at the same time other dangdut songs are categorised as incompatible with Islam norms.^[1292]

Not only has musik Islam in Indonesia been widely accepted, it has also flourished in various forms, especially in the genre of musik Islami including in West Java. Following the above discussion on how musik Islam is defined in the Indonesian context, in the next section I shall particularly pay attention to how musik Islami is situated in West Java.

V.