Caught between Heaven and Hell: The Morality of Music and Cosmologies of the Past in Persian Writings on Listening, c. 1040–c. 1800

This article examines the relationship between music and Islam in Persian texts about listening from the twelfth century to the cusp of the modern era. In refutation of modern claims that Islam has always actively rejected music and treated it as morally suspect, Persian writings about listening reflect a much more nuanced understanding of humanly organized sound that embodies the unique cosmological, political, and spiritual concerns of Muslims living in the age of empire.