In this thought piece, I use the recited Qurʾan as a case study for asking what it may mean to feel sound—and more specifically, “religious sound,” or sound in a religious context. A range of scholars, including myself, have asked related questions about what the recited Qurʾan sounds like, and why it may sound the way(s) it does.Footnote ¹ Here I consider the sound of the Qurʾan on the level of experience or nondiscursive meaning, asking what the recited Qurʾan feels like.

As I sketch the beginnings of an answer, I bring Qurʾan recitation into conversation with performance theory and theories of emotion and affect, thereby complicating the often assumed dichotomy between interior and exterior on the level of emotional experience and the self. My sources include historical/aesthetic studies of the Qurʾan and my interviews with reciters, which I consider in light of the theoretical background described above, recent works on the role of emotion in ritual in Islam, and recent works on listening cultures and similar studies making up the interdisciplinary field of sensory studies. In doing so, I argue that theories of performance that emphasize process are helpful not only in considering the wide range of possibilities for how Qurʾanic recitation may occur, but also in their broad conceptualizations of multiple layers of context and, most importantly, their incorporation of the role of the listener and listening cultures. I consider recitation an “emergent phenomenon” involving collaboration between performer and audience. Thinking about the recited Qurʾan in this way, I examine the “how” of Qurʾan recitation in order to draw out a sense of process and the multiplicity of determining factors.Footnote ²

With this framing of the subject, a number of questions arise. What constitutes the context of recitation? What is the occasion? Are we concerned, for example, with a single individual reciting in salat (prayer), a group of students attending recitation classes at their community mosque, or a reciter performing a passage before a varied audience at an interfaith event or conference? Who is the listener (if there is one)? What are the contextual factors that may contribute to the actual act or moment of reciting (or listening)? What are the current attitudes and discourses surrounding the topic of the recited Qurʾan? Footnote ³ And what is the role of recordings? What about the shopkeeper who plays a CD of a recitation in his or her shop, or the individual who finds recordings online?

One way I have tried to situate the recited Qurʾan through interviews is by asking reciters and listeners whether they have a preferred sura or passage for reciting or listening. The nature of the responses varies widely. In my interview with one North America based reciter named Fatima, she pointed out that she recites for a variety of different occasions. In identifying her preferred sura for recitation, she cites the various factors that drive her reasoning. One of these is content: the message of mercy in sūrat al-raḥmān, for example. Another is style: Fatima says she prefers shorter verses. She cites sūrat al-muʾminūn as one sura with short verses that she enjoys to recite, explaining:

In addition to preferences related to content, Fatima cites considerations of the body (breath control) and techniques of reciting (decisions about pauses).

ʿAbd Allah, another reciter in North America, describes a number of factors that may impact choice of passage or sura for performance. These factors often depend on relations between the text's discursive content and occasion or context, particularly the audience likely to be in attendance.

Later in the interview, he states this point somewhat differently, suggesting more clearly that it is the subject matter of sūrat al-raḥmān that makes it a likely choice for recitation:

ʿAbd Allah frames the reciter's choice of subject matter in relation to an audience's preference for a certain theme or topic in the text; he also points to the opposite—material from which a reciter might shy away because of the nature of the occasion or expected audience. He describes a type of event typical of the North American context, where a reciter may be asked to perform before a primarily non-Muslim audience—an interfaith event, or one driven by a mosque's or Muslim community's public outreach to non-Muslims: “there are sections in the Qurʾan that a lay person might find problematic without additional context, information, or so on, and especially in reciting to a non-Muslim audience you're a little more aware of that.” Essentially, a reciter is unlikely to choose a passage that may offend a non-Muslim audience, or that such an audience would find problematic. And by contrast, a passage on God's punishment of unbelievers, for example, would not be appropriate for a Muslim audience: “[take, for example,] a whole chapter dealing with punishment for unbelievers. It is unlikely that in a Qurʾan recitation gathering that's going to be recited . . . It's not of utmost relevance to that context.” As ʿAbd Allah and Fatima clearly highlight in these examples, a reciter's choice of passage is heavily influenced by his understanding of the context and occasion as well as the likely audience.

In addition, ʿAbd Allah points to larger social conventions and the role of listening cultures in impacting an individual's choices for both reciting and listening. These factors work alongside expectations and preferences regarding subject matter, but are not always directly in conversation with the words of the text. For example, he mentions that there are verses from sūrat al-rūm that are often recited at weddings; these verses are a common choice because they mention that God created spouses (azwāj) from among humanity as a sign (min āyātihi).Footnote ⁴

But as ʿAbd Allah indicates, although this verse, when taken by itself or within the context of surrounding verses, is appropriate material for a wedding, when read within the context of sūrat al-rūm it may seem less so. The sura as a whole is understood as addressing the rise and fall of empires in human history, such as the rise of the Persians at the expense of the Byzantines,Footnote ⁵ in relation to God's ordering of time and the universeFootnote ⁶ —hardly inspirational material for a wedding. Nevertheless, verse 30:21—referencing God's creation of spouses (azwāj) —is commonly read on the occasion of marriage. The verse on its own is understood to be about an appropriate subject matter; and when it is recited at weddings time and again, it comes to be recited at more and more weddings.

The issue of preferences in recitation and listening is complex, and the way in which the preferences of listeners come up in interviews bears consideration in light of the conceptions of performance discussed earlier and more recent research on listening cultures. For example, when asked about her favorite reciters, Fatima expresses a preference for older generations of Egyptian reciters:

Here Fatima cites a number of factors that drive her preferences as a listener. She puts strong emphasis on clarity, particularly through repetition.Footnote ⁷ She also expresses the view that the high degree of commercialization typical of al-ʿAfasy and other more modern reciters is at odds with what she views as the authenticity (“the real roots,” as she puts it) of the recited Qurʾan. Moreover, Fatima mentions the beauty of the voice, but adds that preferences regarding beauty are personal. While it may be true that perceptions of beauty and vocal quality are in part personal, it is worth noting that the reciters she prefers—Husary and Minshawi—are not exactly uncommon choices. Their popularity attests to the quality of their recitations, though other social and historical factors are at play as well, and they are worth addressing. In considering Qurʾan recitation, a conceptualization of performance that includes the listener is useful. It signals the very important point that there is not a straightforward dichotomy between performer and audience/listener, or sender and recipient. Performance, when understood broadly and in the way that anthropologist and folklorist Richard Bauman proposes, does not always consist of actions performed before passive spectators or listeners. Footnote ⁸ Indeed, the ways in which people listen to and understand material are historically and culturally contingent. As noted earlier, while Fatima does cite personal preferences regarding vocal quality as a driving factor in her own listening choices, the reciters and suras she mentions are common choices at the present moment.

An individual's listening preferences may also be shaped by their own personal history in terms of their exposure to reciters, as Abd ʿAllah states in response to a question about favorite passages or reciters for listening:

One point that emerges from these examples is that there is not one way in which people, whether reciters or listeners, engage. The quotations from my interviews have highlighted a number of possibilities—a small Qurʾan recitation group, a mosque in prayer, a community event such as a wedding, a public event that may involve individuals from a variety of religious backgrounds (e.g., an interfaith or community-outreach event meant to present the Islamic tradition and community to those outside of it), or recordings on a variety of media (cassettes, CDs, or online). Within this range of possible encounters with the recited Qurʾan, there is a complex network of interrelated factors at work in determining what the performance may sound and look like. Ultimately, an understanding of this network of factors, and how each may determine the shape of recitation, provides a fuller picture of the possibilities for contextual impact on the moment of recitation.

So while recitation itself is in some ways a highly structured religious ritual, with precise rules dictating how the text must be pronounced and expectations for purity and etiquette on the part of both reciters and listeners, many of the contextual factors (including some considered in this essay) are more historically and socially contingent than is often recognized. A detailed consideration of listeners and listening cultures of the recited Qurʾan reveals that there is not a single archetype of the listener of the Qurʾan; nor is there a single archetype of listening practice and listener-reciter dynamics or of recitation style. Rather, individuals listen from and with reference to their particular circumstances—personal, cultural, historical, and contextual (in terms of the occasion of listening or reciting). By understanding the recited Qurʾan as a performance contextually situated on a variety of levels, we may include the listener and listening cultures, rather than focusing solely on the reciter and the moment of the recitation (be it live or recorded).

Prior to concluding, it is worth considering the absence from this discussion of emotion as traditionally understood on an “interior” or “personal” level. Traditional theories of emotion in religious ritual have seen ritual as a space for “conventional” rather than “genuine” emotion, wherein emotion is channeled through and/or confined strictly to the ritual context, defined quite narrowly.Footnote ⁹ In her article, “Rehearsed Spontaneity and the Conventionality of Ritual: Disciplines of ‘ṣalāt,’” Saba Mahmood, speaking specifically about Cairene women's participation in salat (prayer) and their understanding of the practice as inseparable from daily life, argues that:

Similarly, my discussion of Qurʾan recitation may serve to counter the misconception that, in ritual, emotion is confined to the ritual space and time. This is borne out not only by the diversity of listening cultures and contexts associated with the recited Qurʾan, but also by the range of broader influences shaping recitation for both reciters and listeners. So while Fatima, for example, framed some of her preferences as personal, they are also best understood within the broader context of culture and history.