The different views of the intimacy music creates in the book reflects the debate of the acceptance of music in Islam. Some Muslim scholars believe music should be banned because of its association with sensuality, dancing and drinking (Kutty). Music overall is a very controversial and heavily debated topic by Muslim scholars for many years. In general Islam does not either absolutely accepts music or remains indifferent (Sabir). Here’s an example of an argument against Music in Islam: “In modern schools and universities, we observe independence, free expression and secular thinking being encouraged. This idea of freedom…is a predominant, underlying theme of today`s music. It is being used as a means for drilling those modern ideologies that are totally contrary to Islamic Shariah and values, into the minds of Muslims” (Music and Islam). This opinion is interesting in the way it connects music with freedom. It suggests that freedom especially in relation to secularism and modernism is something bad. Musicians have a lot more freedom and play than any other character in the book. Musicians like Jalila take social and sexual freedoms which cost her the traditional life of a husband securing her. Jalila, for example, as a musician has sexual and social freedom but at what cost? She avoids her arranged marriage and lives a risky life; however, she has the freedom to chose her lover and she is free to walk over to the men’s side in the wedding. Music has modern and traditional views because of the kind of intimacy it creates. Traditionalist wants to protect Islamic people from its association with sin like fornication and adultery. Modernist wants the freedom to indulge in not only the sinful intimacy but the intimacy of communication and connection when it's intangible. An example of this kind of intimacy is when “Jalila united the two of them [Fahmy and Maryam] in a single experience of listening and possibly feeling. She had created an occasion for their spirits to meet” (261). This intimacy is a spiritual intangible connection. Then there’s the intimacy between family members shown through how Yasin feels music connects the family. He thinks to himself, “Everyone sings. It’s a family with deep roots in music” (251). Since music knows know limits and touches the core of people’s emotions, there’s no consequences or prices to pay to feel the connections it creates. Since people do not have to give up anything to feel, they are free to experience music with no cost.
The struggle for traditionalism and modernism also appears in marriages. Married women gives up the most freedom for the security of a husband.. As a woman Amina is forced to adapt to husband wills and submit to his rule. In Havi’s blog Women’s Role he compares the treatment of woman to the treatment of animals when he examines how Amina is not even allowed to sit next to her husband but on the floor because she feels she is not worthy. She has the least freedom of anyone in the novel however it is impossible to believe that she would never exercise her free will. An online article from Time magazine states
Among the gravest oppressors of Muslim women today are Family Laws, the legal frameworks governing marriage and divorce, inheritance, and custody. The laws are the front-line in the war between traditionalists and modernizers. Laws about women remain in the grip of medieval legal reasoning about the family. They vary by nation, but their message is consistent: the husband is the provider, and the wife submissive (Power, Lumpar)
Traditionalist need these rules and regulations to keep away and control modernism. Modernism allows more freedom but not without a price. The movement toward modernism is a movement toward freedom from the traditional limitations. Ahmad, who sets the most traditional rules for his family tries to control this freedom movement but he cannot control the movement of modernism from entering his house. Amina exercised her free will regardless of the rules he sets. She pays the price when she gets hit by the car because she gave up the security of her home and husband offers however she gains an experience of her lifetime. Mahfouz describes, “There was no way to quench her thirst. Visiting the shrine had so stirred up her yearnings that they gushed forth from their springs, flowed out, and her yearning that they gushed forth from their springs, flowed out, and burst over their banks. She would never stop wanting more of this intimacy and delight” (170). Usually Amina is able suppress her wants and desires and adapt but she finally owns a desire she could never rid of. Is it worth it? She’ll most likely never see the place again. She’s also separated from her family for going against Ahmad’s strict rules. She risk never seeing her family again for that small bit of freedom to visit her beloved al-Husayn. Was never experiencing better than only being able to experience it just once? She considers this for herself when she is invited back to her home. Amina “…stood for a little while in a strange confusion. Before she realized what she was doing she turned and asked, ‘Should I go’” (232). She wonders for a second if she should return home to her husband. It’s like she’s asking herself is her submissive life worth all the sacrifices. It’s amazing that she even wonders this because she never before thought she had the choice. When she exercised her free will she realizes giving up her freedom is a choice not a obligation. However she decides her family is worth more than her selfish desire for freedom.
In the Islamic culture, education is a freedom because and one gains the power of knowledge and must give up ignorance. The power of knowledge makes people less likely to submit which is why many woman are forbidden from education. Ignorance of the world keeps them at home. Fahmy takes the most of this freedom and his education about what is going on within his country gets him deeply involved in it. With the power of knowing he clearly sees his enemy and his reason for fighting. He fights for freedom of his country which to him is worth his life. Fahmy tells his mother “A people ruled by foreigners has no life” (347). Fahmy feels like the fight for freedom is worth his life because he feels like the foreigners that rule his country already has his life. He is fighting to win it back. He literally lives the contradiction in political views before and after the movement for independence when he goes home and then goes to school. At home he feels The moment his mind had returned to this stifling atmosphere of lassitude, ignorance, and indifference, he felt a blazing fire of distress and pain that desired release from confinement…. At that moment he wished…he could be surrounded once more by a group of his fellow students. Then he would be able to quench his thirst for enthusiasm and freedom…” (326).
The home represents traditional values in the way the home limits and suffocates him. “ Life strengthen this hope with exertion, and death strengthened it with sacrifice” (357). His life is lost and his country is still not free. Ahmad tells his friend, “Fahmy learned how the boy had been lost and might just have never existed…the poor lad perished, but Sa’d didn’t return and the English didn’t leave” (466). Is all this death necessary for freedom? Is Fahmy’s death for his country really pointless? In the long run the demonstrations and rebellion are necessary. If the country continues to be submissive and servile to the English then nothing will ever change.
Yasin and Ahmad takes sexual freedoms going against their religion. Islam does not allow fornication or adultery and yet this does not stop them. As Lauren writes in her blog “They consider themselves to be devout, faithful muslims, yet from most of the men in the book, we see them living lives that are contrary to what they should be doing as well-practicing muslims.” Only when Ahmad’s life is threatened does he think about quitting his night life. They give up the chance to fall in love and truly love a woman for these sexual freedoms. Yasin looses his family because he can not control his lust and takes too much sexual freedom. “…Love for him was nothing but blind desire. It was the most elevated form of love he knew” (72) pg 81 Yasin’s view of woman “ It was for the sake of this lust alone that he had married the first time and then the second. Over the course of time, his conjugal love was affected by calm new elements of familiarity, but in essence it continues to be based on bodily desire” (99). Fahmy who does not take these sexual freedoms is able to fall in love even though he’s not allowed to marry his love because he took the freedom to look at her and she took the freedom to show herself when it was forbidden.
With such huge prices to pay for freedom, the reader must conclude that freedom is not really free. There is such a huge struggle between modernism and traditionalism but both come with a cost. It is up to the individual to chose and measure the consequences and no one no matter how hard they try can take that from a person.
Work Cited
Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor books, 1990.
Power, Carla, and Kuala Lumpar. "Muslim Women Demand an End to Oppressive Family Laws - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. Time, 17 Feb. 2009. Web. 05 Apr. 2010.
[Weblog] Clemons, Lauren, “Leading a Double Life.” Digging Even Deeper . 3/24/2010. 4/5/2010 (http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/03/leading-double-life.html).
[Weblog] Macias, Javier, “Woman‘s Role” Digging Even Deeper . 2/11/2010. 4/5/2010 (http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/02/womens-role.html).
Sabri, Mustafa. "A Topic of Dispute in Islam: Music." Wake Up! 1995. Web. 25 Feb. 2010.
"Music and Islam." Inter-Islam: Relaying the same message brought by the Prophets, Prophets Adam - Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be Upon Them All). 1998. Web. 25 Feb. 2010.
Kutty, Sheikh A. "What Does Islam Say on Music?" Islam Awareness Homepage. Aug. 2002. Web. 2010.
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