The Awakening of Islamic Pop Music
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Published:31st Aug '21
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Awakening – an Islamic media company formed in London – has created the soundtrack to many Muslim lives during the last two decades. As the company celebrates their first 20 years in the industry, Jonas Otterbeck examines their remarkable rise to success and their established reputation as one of the most important global enterprises producing pop music inspired by Islam. Otterbeck thoroughly describes the history and development of new Islamic popular music genres, in particular pop-nashid and Islamic pop, for the first time. He argues that Awakening – a company with the ambition to portray itself as Islamic – is best understood in relation to the ethical turn in Islamic thinking. In this way, he explores how the Islamic pop industry is, in effect, altering the very formulations of Islamic thought.
Jonas Otterbeck’s book is an ethnographically rich study of the rapid and massive emergence of a new phenomenon: Islamic pop music. [...] Overall, I believe Otterbeck’s work should be acknowledged by a wider readership than the sole circle of Islamic Studies. -- François Gauthier, Université de Fribourg * Journal of Contemporary Religion Vol 38, Issue 2 (2023) *
Otterbeck’s book is a must read for all interested in the assured and ambiguities of Islamic discourses on the ever-changing landscape of Muslims arts. -- Mahomed Faizal * The Muslim News *
Overall, the book is an insightful and entertaining read and will be of interest to students, researchers and teaching staff in Islamic studies, cultural studies, musicology, cultural anthropology and the social sciences. [...] The vivid writing style and the use of extensive field material will also appeal to the general public interested in the everyday practices and cultural preferences of Muslims as part of a global popular culture. -- Maruta Herding, German Youth Institute * Journal of Muslims in Europe 13 (2024) *
[...] an excellent example of how popular culture can be taken seriously in the study of contemporary religion [...] opens a rich understanding of a diverse field without diminishing the actors and arguments by forcing them into neat categories easily labelled as liberal or traditional. -- Ruth Illman, Åbo Akademi & Uppsala Universit * Tidsskrift for islamforskning 15 (1) · 2022 *
Otterbeck’s book was personally a joy to read and to reflect on [...]. -- Shanon Shah * The Revealer *
Otterbeck, who toured with several Awakening artists, argues that the development of new global musical idioms and superstars reflects a turn among Muslims away from doctrine and religious law to a focus on ethics in contemporary religious practice. * Foreign Affairs *
ISBN: 9781474490429
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
224 pages