Other Naqshbandi’s ventured to defend the vocal dhikr against critics. We recall that the seventeenth-century Medinese Sheykh Ibrahim al-Kurani entered into an argument about this issue with a prominent Ottoman visitor known for his opposition to music and vocal dhikr ceremonies (probably the Kadizadeli leader Mehmed Vani Effendi). Kurani also produced two treatise in defense of the vocal method, the Nash al-zahr fi’l -dhikr bi’l-jahr and the Ithaf al-munib al-awwah bi-fadl al-jahr bi-dhikr Allah. In the Ithaf, written in response to the Transoxanian foes of vocal recollection, he marshaled numerous Quranic verses and Prophet traditions to prove that this method was licit. Moreover, Kurani made the point that Shaafis – most of his own disciples- held the vocal dhikr superior. For followers of this legal school, vocal rather than silent dhikr was the “original” method and indeed a “key to the religion” of Islam.
In Damascus the prolific scholar Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi took up the issue of music in his Idah al-dalalat fi sama al-alat – according to a recent study also in response to critics associated with the Kadizadeli movement. In the Idah, Nabulusi pointed out that all singing and musical accompaniment, whether by Sufis or other Muslims, was licit, if only by special dispensation. Music was prohibited only when it positively distracted listeners from the recollection of God or from the observance of religious duties. Finally a student of Kurani by the name of Ibn al-Mimi held that the silent method of recollection undeniably superior and the one that Naqshbandi’s specifically adopted; yet in view of the high emotions that apparently continued to surround controversies about the dhikr, and perhaps because of the insistence or audacity of the opposition, Ibn al-Mimi too found it necessary to challenge the opponents of vocal dhikr. In a treatise devoted to the Naqshbandi Way, he insisted that those who called for eliminating the vocal method were nothing but “ossified”, “ignorant”, “pigheaded”. [37]
[37] Ibn al-Mimi, Nazm al-sumut, 8b
ref: Le Gall, Dina (2005). A Culture of Sufism – Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World – 1450-1700. SUNY Press
Madonna syndrome: I should have ditched feminism for love, children and baking
A playwright who embraced the feminism espoused by her mother and flaunted by Madonna now feels betrayed
by Zoe Lewis
I never thought I would be saying this, but being a free woman isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Is that the rustle of taffeta I hear as the suffragettes turn in their graves? Possibly. My mother was a hippy who kept a pile of (dusty) books by Germaine Greer and Erica Jong by her bed (like every good feminist, she didn’t see why she should do all the cleaning). She imbued me with the great values of choice, equality and sexual liberation. I fought with my older brother and won; at university I beat the rugby lads at drinking games. I was not to be messed with.
Now, nearly 37, those same values leave me feeling cold. I want love and children but they are nowhere to be seen. I feel like a UN inspector sent in to Iraq only to find that there never were any weapons of mass destruction. I was led to believe that women could “have it all” and, more to the point, that we wanted it all. To that end I have spent 20 years ruthlessly pursuing my dreams – to be a successful playwright. I have sacrificed all my womanly duties and laid it all at the altar of a career. And was it worth it? The answer has to be a resounding no.
Ten years ago The Times ran a piece about my play Paradise Syndrome. It was based on my girlfriends in the music business. All we did was party, work and drink. The play sold out and I thought: “This is it! I’m going to have it all: success, power and men are going to adore me for it.” In reality it was the beginning of years of hard slog, rejection letters and living on the breadline. A decade on, I have written the follow-up play Touched for the Very First Time in which Lesley, played by Sadie Frost, is an ordinary 14-year-old from Manchester who falls in love with Madonna in 1984 after hearing the song Like a Virgin. She religiously follows her icon through the years, as Madonna sells her the ultimate dream: “You can do anything – be anything – go girl.” Lesley discovers, along with Madonna, that trying to “have it all” is a huge gamble. I wrote the play because so many of my girlfriends were inspired by this bullish woman who allowed us to be strong and sexy. I still love her and always will, but she has encouraged us to chase a fantasy and it’s a huge disappointment.
I may be an extreme case. My views may not represent those of other women of my generation. Perhaps I am just a spoilt middle-class girl who had a career and who has now changed her mind? I don’t think so. This month the General Household Survey found that the number of unmarried women under 50 has more than doubled over the past 30 years. And by the age of 30, one in five of these “freemales”, who have chosen independence over husband and family, has gone through a broken cohabitation.
I argue that women’s libbers of the Sixties and Seventies put careerism at the forefront, trampling the traditional role of women underneath their Doc Martens. I wish a more balanced view of womanhood had been available to me. I wish that being a housewife or a mother wasn’t such a toxic idea to middle-class liberals of yesteryear.
Increasing numbers of my feminist friends are giving up their careers for love and children and baking. I wish I’d had kids ten years ago, when time was on my side, but the problem is not so much time as mentality. I made a conscious decision not to have serious relationships because I thought I had all the time in the world. Many of my friends did the same. It’s about understanding what is important in life, and from what I see and feel, loving relationships and children bring more happiness than work ever can.
Natasha Hidvegi, 37, has left her job as a surgeon to look after her son. “I found it impossible to be a good surgeon and a good mother. Though it was a horrendous decision, I don’t regret it.”
I thought that men would love independent, strong women, but (in general) they don’t appear to. Men are programmed to like their women soft and feminine. It’s not their fault – it’s in the genes. Holly Kendrick, 34, who holds a high-status job in the theatre, agrees: “Men tend to be freaked out if you work as hard as them.” This is why many of my girlfriends are still alone. The truth, though, is not that men haven’t accepted women’s modernity – the alpha woman who never questions her entitlement to the same jobs, fun and sexual gratification as them – but that women haven’t either. I feel a great pressure from other women of my generation, who have partners and kids, to join their club. In their eyes I am not the trailblazer but the failure. My friend Rita Arnold, 36, works in marketing. “It’s not men who judge me for being a careerist. It’s other women. The claws come out.”
This leaves me sick to the stomach. We are letting each other down but there is a worse betrayal than that. I am a failure in my own eyes. Somewhere inside lurks a woman I cannot control and she is in the kitchen with a baby on her hip and dough in her hand, staring me down. She is saying: “This is happiness, this is what it’s all about.” It’s an instinct that makes me a woman, an instinct that I can’t ignore even if I wanted to.
Felicity Wren, 36, is an actress who has yet to find Mr Right. “I feel the pressure, but only from myself, about how I do not have a conventional life. Most people don’t care.”
Had I this understanding of my psyche ten years ago I would have demoted my writing (and hedonism) and pursued a relationship with vigour. There were plenty of men and even a marriage offer, but I wouldn’t give up my dreams.
I talked to the girls who were the subject of my play Paradise Syndrome in 1999. Sas Taylor, 38, single and childless, runs her own PR company: “In my twenties I felt I was invincible,” she says. “Now I wish I had done it all differently. I seem to scare men off because I am so capable. I have business success but it doesn’t make you happy.” Nicki P, 35 and single, works in the music industry and adds: “It was all a game back then. Now I am panicking. No one told me that having fun is not as fun as I thought.”
As I write this I feel sad, as if the feminist principles that my mother brought me up on are being trashed. Am I betraying womanhood? No, I am revealing a shameful truth. Women are often the worst enemies of feminism because of our genetic make-up. We have only a finite time to be mothers and when that clock starts ticking we abandon our strength and jump into bed with whoever is left, forgetting talk of deadlines and PowerPoint presentations in favour of Mamas & Papas buggies and ovulation diaries. Not all women want children but I challenge any woman to say she doesn’t want loving relationships. I wish I’d had the advice that I am giving to my 21-year-old sister: if you find a great guy, don’t be afraid to settle down and have kids because there isn’t anything to miss out on that you can’t do later (apart from having kids).
In the future I hope that there can be a better understanding of women by women. The past 25 years have been confusing and I feel that I’ve been caught in the crossfire. As women we should accept each other rather than just appreciating “success”. I have always felt a huge pressure to be successful to show men that I am their equal. What a waste of time. Wife and mother should be given parity with the careerist role in the minds of feminists.
My mother had children early and has brilliantly juggled a career as a filmmaker and parent. She was part of the generation that overlapped, that had feminist values but had children early. She hasn’t had the job opportunities of my generation, she had to make sacrifices and take lesser jobs to be at parents’ evenings. Choice and careers are vital, of course, but they shouldn’t be pursued relentlessly. I love being a writer and still have my dream but now I am facing facts. The thing that has made me feel best in life was being in love with my ex-boyfriend and the thing that makes me feel the most centred is being in the country with kids and dogs, and yes, maybe in the kitchen.
Touched for the Very First Time opened this week at Trafalgar Studios, London; www.touchedtheplay.com
Blonde ambition
1984 Madonna released a video of Like a Virgin, which inspired a generation of teenage girls.
1985 She married Hollywood actor Sean Penn. They divorced four years later.
1986 Madonna released Papa Don’t Preach, about a young, unmarried, pregnant girl choosing to keep her baby.
1989 She released Like a Prayer, which scandalised Roman Catholics when the singer challenged taboos with race issues in her video in which a black man is wrongly accused of rape.
1990 Madonna embarked on her controversial Blonde Ambition World Tour, during which, in her performance of Like a Virgin, male dancers caressed her body and she simulated masturbation.
1992 An album called Erotica was released and she published Sex, a book in which she again flaunted her sexual freedom.
1998 Madonna had a child, Lourdes Maria, after a “fling” relationship with a personal trainer. She stood up for single motherdom.
2000 She married Guy Ritchie in a “fairytale wedding” and moved to England, bought a country pile and started writing children’s books and expounding the virtues of the kabbalah.
2008 Madonna divorces Ritchie and her “perfect family life” with Lourdes Maria, son Rocco and adopted son David Banda ends.
You may have heard that the Islamic Day ends at Maghrib (sunset) time. Imagine a society which actually lived this rather than it being an interesting fact.
The Ottoman Turks commence their reckoning of time from sunset. This is with them the twelfth hour, an hour later it is one o’clock, and so on till the twelfth hour in the morning (6 a. m.), when they begin again. This is called alatourqa (Turkish), to distinguish it from European time, which is called alafranqa (French, European).
ref:
Ottoman-Turkish Conversation-grammar: A Practical Method of Learning the Ottoman-Turkish Language
By V. H. Hagopian
Published by Groos, 1907
Speaking about Ottoman Time, below is an excerpt of an interesting article about Ottoman timepieces:
One, by the Arab scientist al-Jazari, called the “Book of Knowledge of Mechanical Contrivances,” also known as the “Treatise on Automata,” furnished detailed drawings of over 50 mechanical devices, including clocks. The other, by the astronomer Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma’ruf, published in Istanbul, described the mechanics of astrolabes and observational telescopes as well as weight-driven clocks. These indicated hours and minutes and could determine the time of prayer “without having to observe the heavenly bodies,” that is, when indoors or on overcast days.
The detail provided by al-Jazari and Taqi al-Din amounted to a “how-to-do-it” manual for the Ottoman clockmakers, who seem to have been the first among Muslims to actually go ahead and construct an elaborate mechanical timepiece.
As in medieval Europe, where the first geared clocks are believed to have appeared in monasteries to help regulate the daily prayer services, so in Istanbul the first Turkish clocks were made in the tekkes, or monasteries, of the so-called “Turkish monks,” the Mevlevi Dervishes, better known to Westerners as the “Whirling Dervishes.” The Mevlevis were considered the most intellectual of the Dervish orders and were well known for their interest in music and the arts. They acquired an interest in making mechanical clocks, their elders now suggest, to help initiates of the order observe fixed prayer times during long periods of meditation. More reliable than sundials and not requiring as much attention as a waterclock, the clocks also provided a focus for the communal life of the monastery.
As artisans, the Mevlevis prided themselves on producing flutes, embossed swords and other objets d’art. Clock-making required a combination of talents. The purely mechanical aspect drew upon the genius of scholars like Taqi al-Din, who had studied Arabic and Persian scientific writings, while making the outer encasement required the coordinated skills of metalworkers, cabinet makers and jewelers. Available manuscripts say very little about the actual method of manufacture, but it is apparent that the Mevlevis spent several years on each timepiece, with only the most basic of hand tools. Occasionally, the same artist would make the entire apparatus, from the inner gearwork to the intricately embellished case.
The outer design frequently took the shape of the Mevlevi headdress. This consisted of a felt hat like a tall, overturned plant pot, encircled at the base with a turban; it served as a symbol of the order and usually appeared as a sign on top of the tekke or on the Dervishes’ gravestones.
An extraordinary example of encrusted jewel work and embellishment is the round wall clock signed by Shahiz, made about 1650. Covered with filigree work with inlaid rubies, emeralds and diamonds, the face is in the form of a wreath in blue enamel with white numbers, and the back—which, of course, was rarely seen—is also richly engraved with leaves and fleurons. A pocket watch, made by Meshur Sheyh Dede in 1702, shows, as well as hours and minutes, Gregorian and Arabic calendars and the signs of the Zodiac.
A clock made by Mehmet Sükrü in 1853, thought to be the only one of its kind, has a double escapement mechanism which permits it to operate unaffected by extremes in temperature. Another, made by Ahmed Dede about 1865, has a combination escapement and pendulum mechanism which is also insensitive to variations in temperature and is accurate to less than one second per 24 hours.
Many of these timepieces, now on display at the Topkapı Palace, were presented to the Sultan by the Mevlevis as a sign of their loyalty. A 16th-century illuminated manuscript shows a procession of different artisans before Sultan Murad III, and an account of their visit in a royal diary mentions among those who presented themselves to the Sultan the “magic” Mevlevi clockmakers. As the assembled audience watched in amazement, the diary tells us, they entered the hall with an oversize model of a clock gearwork mounted on a wagon. A hammer automatically struck the gearwheel, turning a second wheel which, the chronicler observes, “could perform the work of a dozen persons.” The Sultan and his audience burst into applause and cheered the clockmakers as they pulled their display away.
….
The small number of Turkish clocks in the Topkapı Palace collection doesn’t indicate, as might be assumed, that European competition eventually forced the Turkish clockmakers out of business. In fact the Turkish clocks were, from the beginning, a labor of love by scholar-craftsmen motivated by religion, their interest in art and devotion to the Sultan. They were never concerned with profits or large-scale production. In fact, before the Republican regime banned all Dervish orders in 1923, the Mevlevis probably actually made few more than the some 30 timepieces known to have survived in the Sultan’s palaces and in the houses of their order, a uniquely Turkish contribution to Muslim craftsmanship.
ref: “Saudi Aramco World: Topkapi’s Turkish Timepieces – James Horgen
Canes are for the old and weak
charge your new cell phone, its the new accessory.
Feminism is erecting its head
since we can’t find ‘em, we don’t need real men.
Turbans are donned only for weddings
whats the point of these again?
Business suits for walima only please.
dont be backwards, sir… you are being seen!
Lets be friends with all groups,
Too many choices, so there is no Siratul Mustaqeem.
Moonsighting occupies our time
don’t you know? your holiday is a crime.
Trim that beard and wear blue jeans
wait, wait, my daughter is wearing what?
Subtlety and metaphors are too complex for us
crassness works better. What is Allah saying?
Prayer doesn’t help until you help yourself, so
its redundant and we’ll just stop doing that now.
Our Imams need to eat,
now no money means no ‘knowledge’.
Celebrating the Prophet (S) is dubious to us,
did you register for the next convention?
There is no music in Islam,
so we need new rock stars.
Ebay that miswak, its for the children.
“No fee“, doesn’t apply to me.
Ramazan its the time to be holy
so lets keep our bellies empty. Hey, whats tarawih?
Injustice everywhere, time to protest, argue, and suggest.
lets ask for help from lucifer press.
Islam is just as we are now,
This was what was meant to be.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Mathematicians Kemal Karaosmanoğlu and Süleyman Metin Yılmaz have developed a database software program of Ottoman classical music. Called Mus2okur, the software contains musical notes of thousands of Ottoman classical works
VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU
ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News
An incredible collection of the musical notes of Ottoman classical works has been gathered together in a revolutionary new software program created by two Turkish mathematicians.
Mathematicians Kemal Karaosmanoğlu and Süleyman Metin Yılmaz spent years looking at musical manuscripts of a myriad of Ottoman classical songs and instrumental works found in the dusty archives of TRT, Turkey’s first and only state television and radio station. As a result of this meticulous study, they applied the musical notes of more than 1,500 classical works to database software they created, calling the result Mus2okur. The software program not only contains the musical notes of centuries-old Ottoman works, but also their lyrics and information about the composers. In addition, each song in Mus2okur is provided with a makam, melodic mode, and usul, underlying rhythmic cycle that complements the melodic rhythm and helps shape the overall structure of a composition in Ottoman classical music.
Mus2okur also contains an index of a total of 24,000 different Ottoman classical works with their descriptive characteristics. All the works can be applied to 128 different musical instruments on a music computer and can be played with a fretless guitar.
Mus2okur is a masterpiece, said Karl Signell, world-renowned U.S. ethnomusicologist and scholar of Turkish classical music.
Mus2okur is one of the most successful studies I have ever witnessed and is a unique source for addicts and researchers of Ottoman classical music, said Periklis Tsoukalas, a Greek musician who specializes in Eastern music.
In the early years of the Turkish Republic, Ottoman classical music was neglected to a great extent because it evoked a past tradition and way of life not in line with modernization and Westernization efforts of the young nation state. We have adopted the notation system of the West and simply ignored our own classical music, said Karaosmanoğlu. As we turned our face to the West, we neglected our own music. Karaosmanoğlu noted that in most Western music, the octave is divided into 12 semitones, while Ottoman classical music features a much more complex range of tones.
Mus2okur also contains information on a specific music notation system created by Hampartsoum Limondjian, more commonly known as Baba Hamparzsum, a prominent Ottoman Armenian composer of Turkish classical music. Called the Hampartsoum notation system, the system Limondjian developed became the main musical notation system for Turkish classical music. Limondjian served as royal musician during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Selim III, who was also a musician. Hampartsoum notation uses symbols derived from an older notation called khaz used by the Armenian Church in the eighth and the ninth centuries.
The music notation system created by Limondjian is the basic notation system in the history of Turkish classical music. Thousands of old songs are still alive today thanks to Limondjian’s notation system, said Karaosmanoğlu. This is the reason why we have also incorporated his notation system to our software program, he said.
Mus2okur’s rich database makes it a great reference on Ottoman classical music for Western musicians and scholars who are interested in the unique style of music.
[http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=107702]
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 