when the saints don't go marching on...

Prompted by something Bob said about music being banned in Islam and by today's article in the Guardian on the decline of the shrine culture in Pakistan...

First of all: cards on the table (cards are also unIslamic, by the way): you're from a wahabi-type background.

Secondly, you've never really had much interest in Sufism or "spirituality" and only a passing interest in religion, if truth be told. I see myself or I'd like to see myself as probably very much like my grandfather, the old jew, muttering away to himself in the shade, alone, or like the dougal, who despite all her Catholic friends is really more like an Anglican or a Quaker, or the swami who strikes me really as an old Hindu, with Sanskrit in her heart, or Ubo who always prizes being funny, conversational, practical and sensible over religious (boy, do I come from a confused family!).

Ubo, Aba, Abbot...from the Syrian.

But there was something to be said about the old, eclectic ways and it was this: they were messy, confused, full of remnants of backward customs, agricultural practices for sure, but they allowed for all sorts of accommodations, a space for music, dance, gatherings, devotion and encouraged a sense continuity and community.

The wahabis, on the other hand, with their austere, sober and harsh interpretation encourage only a petty individualism and suffering. Culture is reduced to "innovation", a deviation from the pure ways. Sit at home, pray, procreate, stuff your belly. This, in a nutshell, is the message of the mullah.

Of course, that's never been accepted. People like to eat with other people, look and talk with other beautiful women, listen to music, watch films, joke around. More to the point: the religion-or the approach you're attracted to-has always been more 'worldly' than either some strains of sufisim or the wahabis allow for. Great schools of learning, the creation of architectural spaces that emphasize balance, repose, harmony; art and beauty as an expression of one's faith (jamal and jalal, together), radical social justice..all of these things suggest something quite different.

In the final analysis could one say that a human society without music isn't really a human society? Of course, that is what the Taleban and other nihilists aim at. But it won't happen. Because even if the saints don't go marching on there will always be love and friendship, compassion and beauty.

(p.s. If anyone wants a copy of Hans Jonas's brilliant essay on Gnosticism and Nihilism just give me a whistle...you know how to whistle, don't you?)