The Qur'an Heard : Sound Poetics in Three American Sermons

This book provides a new exploration of aural meaning and social relevance, within Islamic teaching and will be of particular interest to those studying or researching the significance of scripture, and the Qur’an in particular.

For many Muslims, there is an inseparable connection between sound and meaning, particularly when it comes to Islamic verse and scripture. This provides fertile ground for a comparative study across traditions and forms. Timur Yuskaev offers a meditation on the Qur’an and human sensibilities, heard together, in American Muslim sermons. Foregrounding sound, poetry and music, it is a cultural anthropology of the Qur’an, carried out in conversation with colleagues in multiple disciplines, including Religions in America, Qur’anic, Islamic, Memory, Communication, and Sound Studies. The author draws upon the works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Charles Long, Mary Douglas and many others to hear mysticism in a homiletic symphony by Warith Deen Mohammed, to sense the experience of the covenant in a three-minute, ribbon-cutting speech by Aras Konjhodzic, and to appreciate the Qur’anic musicality of a down-to-earth interfaith address by Sarah Sayeed. A creative guide to an organic engagement with texts, this book will be of particular interest to those studying scriptures and the Qur’an.