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hizbullah’s spokesman sayyid ibrahim al-musawi regards art as the most sublime achievement of humanity, since it brings man closer to the creator, to God, who asks man to be in a continuous struggle to ascend toward perfection.1 Islamic art is a “cause, a passion, and a life.” When a passionate activity is not related to revolution, then it is void of any worth and beauty. Revolutionary activity is part of Islamic art because it is purposeful; its purpose is to transform society and reform it. Herein lies its aesthetic dimension . Islamic art is the art of resistance (al-fann al-muqawim); it resists tyranny, oppression, and purposeless art: “art for the sake of art.” Islamic art stresses creativity in relation to context and content, a transparent content that is the basis of influence and movement. By this it creates a realistic revolutionary art that aims at changing and reforming society. Thus, the message of the purposeful and committed Islamic art of resistance with a mission (al-fann al-muqawim al-multazim al-hadif )2 is a different message; it is the message of ideologically motivated art (Murtada 2002, 55–94). Why is art accorded such an important mobilizational role? It has already been noted in the introduction of this volume that in other contexts and countries this infitah (“opening-up”)—both generally and in art in particular— among Islamic movements is described by the concept of post-Islamism. Is a similar trend discernible in the case of the Lebanese Hizbullah? Hizbullah, better known as the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, which is infamous for its allegedly “terrorist” and militant face, is an interesting case study. In this chapter, I am going to convey another face of Hizbullah: its alsaha al-Islamiyya (Islamic cultural sphere). Available material on a Lebanese3 Shiʿite view on the performing arts has not been adequately addressed in the literature, let alone Hizbullah’s opinion on the topic, which remains sketchy and fragmented. Here I am going to shed light on Hizbullah’s notion of pious entertainment and performing art, as well as limitations on them in the Islamic cultural sphere in relation to al-fann al-muqawim, as the orgachapter 5 pious entertainment: hizbullah’s islamic cultural sphere joseph alagha 150 joseph alagha nization labels it. In addition to primary Arabic Internet sources and secondary sources in English, I conducted two fieldwork visits, in the summer of 2009, to Lebanon, where I was able to obtain a host of primary Arabic sources, and in August 2009 I conducted interviews in Hizbullah’s bastion in southern Beirut (al-Dahiya) with Shiʿite religious authorities and Hizbullah ’s rank and file on the issue of al-fann al-muqawim. Some notable figures I interviewed are the following: the late Ayatullah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, the highest-ranking Shiʿite religious authority in Lebanon; Hajj Muhammad Raʿd, the head of Hizbullah’s parliamentary bloc; Sayyid Abd Al-Halim Fadlallah, the head of the party’s think tank the Consultative Center of Studies and Documentation (CCSD); Hajj Ghalib Abu Zaynab, party officer for Muslim-Christian dialogue; Shaykh Shafiq Jaradi, the rector of Al-Maʿarif Al-Hikmiyya College; and Hizbullah’s spokesman Sayyid Ibrahim al-Musawi. What are the contours of Hizbullah’s al-saha al-Islamiyya? How is alfann al-muqawim, resistance art with a purpose/mission, which means good Islamic art, bracketed from al-fann al-habit, lowbrow art (Khaminaʾi 2009, 102)?4 I will highlight specific debates informed by scholarly tradition and will follow recent debates about the lawfulness of the performing arts— in particular singing, music, theater, and comedy—and their categorization scaling from the permitted, to the neutral, to the forbidden. What are the religious sensibilities of the Hizbullah constituency? Why does music play such a central role in this pious entertainment? What kinds of limitations are imposed on it, and which test cases stretch these limits? Through analyzing discourses and interviews, on the one hand, and activities and artistic expressions, on the other, I discuss the constituents of al-saha al-Islamiyya. In other words, the chapter is divided into three main sections. The first deals with the discourses on work and leisure, music, and theater. The second offers extended examples of al-saha al-Islamiyya’s activities and artistic expressions. The third section deals with the question of how far Hizbullah goes in defending al-fann al-muqawim. It tests the limits of...

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