Can you remember the first time you held a melody? Maybe it was on one of those tiny baby keyboards, where you bashed out some notes that inadvertently led to a semi-familiar tune. Or maybe it was in primary school, where you were forced to play the recorder, the assertive screeching of you and your classmates enough to drive anyone in your immediate vicinity mad. For a lot of young Muslims, their first introduction to something resembling melody would have likely been the Islamic call to prayer – the melodious chant, calling Muslim worshippers to each of the five daily prayers. To call the adhan a piece of music, however, is incorrect. Some would even consider it deeply offensive. But it’s also impossible not to recognise the significance of euphonic recitation when it comes to Islam. The adhan is based on the Middle Eastern maqam melodic system and the elongation of vowels, incorporation of scales, and emphasis on tone all contribute to evoking a myriad of emotions. It’s not music, but there’s something inescapably musical about it – and as a child growing up in a Muslim household, it was something I couldn’t ignore.
I think I’ve always been pulled in by sound and melody. As melodramatic as it might be to write down or say out loud, music is that one thread that has weaved its way through every major moment, memory, and emotion in my 30 years. As a child, I immersed myself in as many music-based activities as I could get my hands on, and in my early teens, I was adamant that I was going to be a musician. This was, of course, somewhat complicated by my familial background and the fact that for many Muslims, there was a perception that music was a generally forbidden territory. The permissibility of music remains a subject of debate within the Muslim community and among many scholars, all of whom have varying views on the matter relating to how Islamic scriptures have been and continue to be interpreted. For my parents, it proved to be the cause of many internal conflicts (which I believe continue to this day) because they were blessed (or cursed, depending on how you see it) with children that seemingly possessed natural skill in music and an environment that undeniably sought to nurture this talent. It started with my older sister, who took piano lessons at school, which my parents encouraged in a bid to add colour and variety to her academic life. Then I came along and took it to a whole other level.
It started with the violin.
When I was around five years old, my family and I travelled down to London for the wedding of a distant relative. It was my first time in the city and admittedly, it was terrifying – the rush of people, the incessant noise and the general sense of overwhelm compared to my much smaller home city of Edinburgh. Though I don’t remember a great deal about the trip or the wedding itself, the distinct memory of feeling out of place always seems to linger.
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