The Ethics of Listening - Cassette-Sermon Audition in Contemporary Egypt

The Ethics of Listening: Cassette-Sermon Audition in Contemporary Egypt
Author(s): Charles Hirschkind

Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Aug., 2001), pp. 623-649
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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the ethics of listening:cassette-sermon
auditionin contemporaryEgypt
CHARLES HIRSCHKIND
University of Wisconsin, Madison
In this article, I focus on the practice of listening to tape-recorded sermons

among contemporaryMuslims in Egyptas an exercise of ethical self-discipline.
I analyze this practice in its relation to the formation of a sensorium: the vis-
ceral capacities enabling of the particular form of Muslim piety to which
those who undertake the practice aspired. In focusing on both the homiletic
techniques of preachers and the traditions of ethical audition that inform the
contemporary practice of sermon listening, I explore how sermon listeners re-
construct their own knowledge, emotions, and sensibilities in accord with
models of Islamic moral personhood. Normative models of moral person-
hood grounded in Islamic textual and practical traditions provide a point of
reference for the task of ethical self-improvement. [embodiment, senses, dis-
ciplinary practice, reception, media, sermons, Islam]
Among the many lines of inquiry given impetus by Walter Benjamin's rich oeu-
vre, one of the most fruitfulfor anthropologists has been an interrogationinto both the
history of the senses and the structuresof sensory perception that underlie particular
forms of historical experience. Benjamin's excavation of histories of sensory experi-
ence from within the outmoded objects of modernity and, in particular, his work on
the impact of modern media techniques on perception have provided scholars less a
set of theoretical formulations than a particularmethodological sensibility-a feel for
the historically discordant within the contemporary. Most influential in this regard has
been his classic essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
(1968a), in which Benjamin explores the impact of modern photographic and cine-
matic techniques on perception. Specifically, he argues that the particularexperien-
tial quality that grounds the uniqueness and authenticity (what he calls "aura")of his-
torical objects has been all but effaced under the perceptual regime of modern
technological culture. With the mechanical reproduction of works of art, the idea of
authentic originals loses all meaning; the traditions that were founded on and that up-
held the knowledge of such authentic objects can no longer maintain the practical
and perceptual conditions that sustain them. Benjamin furtherexplores this process in
"TheStoryteller"(1968b), in which he argues that the traditional modes of knowledge
and practice that grounded the art of storytelling have been rendered impracticable
with the rise of information as the dominant communicative form.
In this article, I take up Benjamin's interrogationof the relation between sensory
experience and traditional practices, but from a different standpoint than the one
privileged in Benjamin's own analyses. Specifically, I approach the question of the
sensorium not from the side of the (modern) object and its impact on the possibilities
of subjective experience, but ratherfrom the perspective of a cultural practice through
American Ethnologist28(3):623-649. Copyright? 2001, American Anthropological Association.

624 american ethnologist
which the perceptual capacities of the subject are honed and, thus, through which the
world those capacities inhabit is brought into being, rendered perceptible. In explor-
ing such a practice, I show how traditions presuppose, and provide the means to pro-
duce, the particularsensory skills on which the actions, objects, and knowledges that
constitute these traditions depend. Such tradition-cultivated modes of perception and
appraisal coexist within the space of the modern and are enabled in some ways by the
very conditions that constitute modernity. Thus, through an analysis of a particular
cultural practice geared to this task, I hope to contribute to the importantand ongoing
task of rethinkingthe decidedly stubbornopposition between traditionand modernity.
My specific focus here is on the practice of listening to tape-recorded sermons
among contemporary Muslims in Egyptas an exercise of ethical self-discipline. Dur-
ing a period of a year and a half, I worked with a group of young men in Cairo for
whom sermon audition was a regularactivity. I also took lessons on the art of preach-
ing from an experienced preacher throughout my stay in Cairo. For all of these men,
the cassette sermon was a technology of self-improvement, one among a number of
such technologies that have been popularized in recent decades with the gradual
emergence of what is commonly referred to as the Islamic Revival (al-Sahwa al-
Islamiyya). In what follows, I explore the fashion of cassette-sermon audition as a dis-
ciplinary practice through which contemporary Egyptian Muslims hone an ethically
responsive sensorium: the requisite sensibilities that they see as enabling them to live
as devout Muslims in a world increasingly ordered by secular rationalities. Notably, I
use the terms senses and sensibilities in a way that suggests their fundamental interde-
pendency. Part of my argument is precisely to describe how emotions, capacities of
aesthetic appreciation, and states of moral attunement or being (i.e., sensibilities)
come to structurefundamental sensory experiences. Itshould be clear, therefore, that
in referringto senses, I am not indicating the object studied within the discipline of
human biology.'
As I describe, proper sermon audition demands a particular affective-volitional
responsiveness from the listener-what I will call an ethical performance-as a con-
dition for "understanding"sermonic speech, while simultaneously deepening an indi-
vidual's capacity to hear in this manner. To "hear with the heart," as those I worked
with described this activity, is not strictly something cognitive but involves the body
in its entirety, as a complex synthesis of disciplined moral reflexes. Indeed, the men
with whom I worked understood the degree of benefit achieved through sermon audi-
tion to be proportionateto the depth of moralsensibilitythey were able to bringto the act.
Insofaras my exploration of the disciplinary shaping of sensory experience over-
laps at a number of points with Bourdieu's (1990) elaboration of the notion of habitus,
it is best to clarify at the outset how my work departs from Bourdieu's approach.
Bourdieu draws on the classical notion of habitus in order to describe how cultural
practice is accommodated to the objective conditions that form the basis of social
class. As a "system of durable, transposable dispositions" operating beneath the level
of consciousness, habitus disposes individuals and collectives toward historically and
culturally specific patternsof behavior consonant with, and sustaining of, the existing
distributions of political and economic power in society-what Bourdieu generally
refers to as "Capital"(1990:53). In delimiting the field of possibility for social action,
such structures of power engender in social actors embodied dispositions compatible
with these structures. Habitus, in other words, mediates between objective structures
and subjective experience.
In exploring the formation of habitus solely in relation to histories of socioeco-
nomic power, however, Bourdieu leaves unaddressed the extent to which habitus is
the ethics of listening 625
also generatedand molded by otherhistories,those embodiedin a community'sex-

isting modes of practiceand association.A habitusmay outlive the materialcondi-
tions thatgave riseto it by renewing,reinforcing,and adaptingthe practicesof social
and individualdisciplinethatsustainand anchorit. Such continuitydoes not reflect
the durabilityof embodieddispositions,as Bourdieusuggests(1990:62),but the vari-
ety of community-grounded resourcesthata groupis able to bringto the taskof main-
tainingsocially valued traditions.
Thesetraditionsarecontinuallyrevisedas they ad-
to
just changing sets of material butthe directionof the adjustmentsis also
conditions,
determinedfromwithinthe traditionsby, amongotherthings,the disciplinaryprac-
tices throughwhich culturallyvalued modes of perception,appraisal,and action are
inculcatedand self-reflexivelyrenewed.As RobertCantwellnotes in his essay on eth-
nomimesis:"No humancommunitycan wholly controlthe circumstancesin which it
has its existence, howevervigorouslyit may resistchange;but it can sustainits own
sociality,deliberatelyandoftenrevivalistically,undernew, perhapsalien conditions"
(1999:226).
Practicessuch as the sermonauditionI describehere inculcatedispositionsand
modes of sensoryexperiencethat, ratherthan being determinedby the "objective
conditions"that Bourdieuprivilegesas the site of historicalagency, impactand alter
those conditions.To explorehistoricalprocessesof this kind,it is necessaryto avoid
the residualeconomismthat,as in Bourdieu'swork,restrictsthe conditionsrelevant
to the formationof habitusto those ultimatelyreducibleto distributionsof economic
and politicalpower.Inshort,the objectivistthrustof Bourdieu'sargumentneeds to be
counteredby Benjamin'sreminderthatthe objectsthatconstitutemodernityalso em-
bed differentsensoryhistories-historiesthe objectiveforce of which will always be
mediatedby traditionsof social practice(Benjamin1968a).
cassette discipline
Since the 1970s, cassette-recordedsermonsof popularIslamicpreachers(khu-
taba', sing. khatrb)have become one of the most widely consumed media forms
among lower-middleand middle-classEgyptians(Hirschkind2001; Starrett1995).
Tapesare sold outsideof mosques,on the sidewalksin frontof trainand bus stations,
or in bookstoresthroughoutthe city. They may be listenedto practicallyanywhere:
while operatinga cafe or barbershop,while drivinga bus or taxi, or at home with
one's familyafterreturningfromwork.
At the time of my fieldwork,Cairowas home to six licensedcompaniesthatpro-
duced and distributedtaped sermons,the largestthreehavingadditionaldistribution
centersoutsideCairo,primarilyin the cities of Alexandria,Mansura,and Suez. Inad-
dition to sermontapes, manyof these companiessell otheritemsassociatedwith Is-
lamistsocial trends,such as headscarvesand modestdressstylesforwomen, the long
white shirts(jalabiyya)commonlyworn by Egyptianmen, perfumesand scentedoils,
incense, in additionto booksand pamphletsfromIslamistpublishers.Eachtape sold
commerciallyin this mannerhas been approvedby the Councilon IslamicResearch
(Majma'al-Buhuthal-lslamiyya),the branchof the government-run al-Azharmosque
chargedwith ensuringthe conformityof all commerciallysold Islamictexts and re-
cordings with a set of orthodoxand state-censorshipstandards.The Council fre-
quently requiresthat certain sections of a sermon or mosque lesson be removed,
eitheron the groundsthattheydeviatefromacceptedstandardsof Islamicargumenta-
tion or thatthey addresspoliticalissuesdeemed too sensitiveby the currentgovern-
ment. In additionto the commerciallyproducedand marketedtapes, there are an
equalor greaternumberthatarerecorded,copied,andsoldby small-scaleentrepreneurs
without commercial licenses, contracts with khutaba', or the required permits from
al-Azhar.2 Although the Egyptian police occasionally confiscate the merchandise of
these vendors, they are most often left alone to sell their wares on the streets outside of
mosques or bus stations.
Although the young men I worked with used cassette sermons as a disciplinary
technique to enhance their knowledge and ethical capacities, they seldom employed
them in an exact or rigorous manner.3 Rarely, for example, would they listen at pre-
cise times of the day according to a fixed schedule. The one exception to this was in
the case of mosque study groups, which would sometimes assign members a certain
number of tapes each week. Usually, however, cassette-sermon audition was a self-
regulated activity, undertaken as a solitary exercise or in the company of a friend or
family member. Among the sermon listeners I came to know, it was most often prac-
ticed in the evenings, after they had returnedfrom work or school. As opposed to the
communal sermon on Fridayat the mosque, cassette audition takes place without ab-
lutions (wudc'), the act of cleansing the body that worshippers undertake before
prayer at the mosque. Importantly, most tape users attend the Friday mosque cere-
mony and consider the tapes to be an extension of it, not an alternative.4
Sermon tapes affordthe listener a type of relaxation that also enriches knowledge
and purifies the soul. As Ahmed, a recent university graduate now working in an alu-
minum plant, commented to me:
Rememberwhen we were sittingat Muhammed'sonce and we playeda tape of [the
khatTb] MuhammedHassan,you felt relaxed[istirkhs']? Thisis whatcan happen,this
is the opening of the heart [sadr,literally,"chest"],the tranquility[itmi'nan],that
makesyou wantto pray,readthe Quran,makesyou wantto get closerto God,to think
moreaboutreligion[din].When you listento a sermon,it helps you put aside all of
yourworriesaboutworkand moneyby remindingyou of God.Yourememberthatyou
will be judgedandthatfillsyou withfearandmakesyou feel humilityand repentance.
Theshaykhteachesyou aboutIslam,whatit requiresof you, so you won'tmakeerrors.
Husam, who worked in a small store that sold sermon tapes and religious literature,
explained the utility of tape audition this way:
Tapes are alwaysof benefit,whetheron the tormentsof the grave,JudgmentDay,
death, on the most dangerousof sins, or the headscarf.You learnthingsyou didn't
know,andthisis useful.Andthey restoreyou to [moral]health[biyashfona].Listening
to a tape of a sermon you've already heard is a way of reinforcingwhat you've
learned,strengthening the fearof God's punishments,so you won't commita moral
error[ma'asf].Thisleaves your heartcalm [mutma'in].Thereare some people who
just do what they should.Manyothers,however,they realizethatthe devil has got
intotheirheads [yuwaswasu,literally,"whispersto them"],and is makingthemthink
thatwhat is evil [haram]is actuallygood [halal].By listening,they strengthenthem-
selves againstthis, as it getsthemto prayand readthe Quran.Thenthey beginto re-
gretwhatthey havedone andask God forforgiveness.Thetape, in otherwords,helps
themto fightagainstthe devil.
Tapes thus enable a strengthening of the will and an ability to resist the devil's
whispers (waswas). With repeated and attentive listening, they can also lead listeners
to change their ways. Ahmed, describing the experience of his brother, put it this way:
My brother,who is religiousbut [does not belongto the] Jama'a,heardthis tape by
[thepopularpreacher]FawziSa'idand it reallystruckhim.He immediatelymademe
a copy. He decided he had to change his life, so he stoppedsmokingand usingfoul
language and startedto go to the mosque and pray. Now he is always talking
about religion,alwaystryingto get his friendsto comportthemselvesmore piously.
Manyof his old friendsdon'twantto be aroundhimany morebecausethey get tired

of his talk. Everytime I go to his house now, we listento a tape. I'mnot as into it as
muchas he is, butIdo feel it makesme thinkaboutimportantthingsIwould forget.5
Forsermon listeners, the regular practice of sermon audition serves as a constant
reminder to monitor their behavior for vices and virtues. Even in the absence of a
complete transformationof the kind Ahmed's brother went through, young men like
Ahmed rely on the tapes to maintain a level of self-scrutiny (muraqaba)in regard to
their daily activities and, when possible, to change or modify their behavior. Many of
the young men I worked with in Egyptrelated their decision to become diligent in the
performance of their Islamic duties to having been moved by a particularly powerful
sermon, heard either on tape or live at the mosque. In all cases, the men understood
listening to sermon tapes as a means by which a range of Islamic virtues could be
sedimented in their characters, enabling them to live more piously and avoid moral
transgressions.
What renders tape audition a technique suitable for practices of ethical self-im-
provement lies in the capacity of speech to act on the heart and reform it.6 For those
with whom I worked, this was not a mechanical process. Simply putting on a sermon
tape or listening to verses of the Quran does not cleanse a heart that has been cor-
roded by sin. A person with a "rustedheart,"as one man put it, is precisely one whose
ability to hear has been impaired. An author, writing in al-Tauhrd7a popular religious
digest often read and cited by the sermon listeners of my study, likens this to a short-
circuit in the wiring that prevents an electrical current from reaching the lamp it is
supposed to illuminate. Drawing out the metaphor, he suggests:
TheQuranis effectivein itself,justas the electricalcurrent.Ifthe Quranis present[to
your ears],and you have lost its effect,then it is you yourselfthat you mustblame.
Maybethe conductiveelementis defective:yourheartis damagedor flawed.Maybea
mistcoversyourheart,preventingit frombenefiting[intif'] fromthe Quranand being
affectedby it.Ormaybeyou arenotlisteningwell, oryourheartis occupiedwithprob-
lemsof money,andthinkingabouthowto acquireand increaseit. [Badawi1996a:13]
Forthe possessor of such a defective heart, the only solution, according to the author,
lies in cleansing (tahara)the heart, both by giving up the sinful acts that led to such a
state and by repeatedly listening, with intention and concentration, to sermons, exhor-
tations, and Quranic verses. Such is the task that cassette sermons are put to.
The effect of sermon speech on the heart, however, is not just one of cleansing.
As the above comments make evident, sermons evoke in the sensitive listener a par-
ticular set of ethical responses, foremost among them fear (khauf),humility (khusho'),
regret (nadm), repentance (tauba),and tranquility (itmi' nan or sakfna). As elaborated
within classical Islamic moral doctrine, these are the affective dispositions that endow
a believer's heart with the capacities of moral discrimination necessary for proper
conduct.8 In order to understand their usage by the men with whom I worked, how-
ever, it will be useful to draw on some of the contemporary writings that they them-
selves use and frequently mention. The following discussion comes from an article
published in al-Tauhrd.This article focuses on the effect of particularQuranic verses,
when used by a khatTb,on the moral condition of a faithful Muslim listener. Drawing
from the exegetical works of classical scholars in regardto the interpretationof a verse
from the Quranic chapter entitled al-Zumar(The Throngs),the author notes:
Whatis meanthere is thatwhen the truepeople of faith,the people of the eternaland
deeply rooteddoctrinehearthe versesof warning[al-wacrd]theirflesh tremblesin
fear,theirheartsarefilledwithdespair[inqabadatqulabuhum],a violentangstshakes
theirbacks [irta'adatfara'isuhuml,
andtheirheartsbecome intoxicatedwithfearand
dread.Butif they then hearthe versesof mercyand forgiveness,theirflesh becomes
filledwith delight[inbasatatjulduhum], theirchests are opened and relaxed[insha-
rahatsucbruhum],and their heartsare left tranquil[itma'natqulobuhum].[Badawi
1996b:11-12]
What is described here is a kind of moral physiology, the emotional-kinesthetic
experience of a body permeated by Islamic faith (iman) when listening to a khatTb's
discourse. The description is derived directly from numerous verses of the Quran de-
picting the impact of Godly speech on a rightly disposed listener, as in the following
verse from the chapter entitled al-Anfal (Spoils of War): "Believers are only they
whose hearts tremble whenever God is mentioned, and whose faith is strengthened
whenever his messages are conveyed unto them" (al-Anfal:2).9This particularrespon-
siveness constitutes what might be termed a Quranically tuned body and soul. This at-
tunement, according to the author, precisely defines the characteristic of a person
who is close to God (Badawi 1996b:11). For such a person, auditory reception in-
volves the flesh, back, chest, and heart; in short, the entire moral person as a unity of
body and soul. To listen properly, in other words, is to engage in a performance, the
articulated gestures of a dance.
The moral physiology acquired through the listening exercises I describe below
is grounded in Islamic textual traditions. Note, for example, the author's description
above of how one relaxes in the process of hearing the verses of mercy and thus
moves closer to God. The term used both here and by those I worked with in Cairo to
denote this state of calm and relaxation is inshirahal-sadr (literally, "opening of the
chest"). The experience of inshirahhas its origins in an event mentioned both in the
Quran (the chapter entitled al-Sharh),'0as well as in many ahadfth (authoritativeac-
counts of the Prophet's words and acts; sing. hadrth). It is recounted that on the night
of Muhammed's ascension to heaven (al-lsra'),God opened his chest and took from
his heart all the resentment, rancor, and lust, and replaced them with virtues of faith
and knowledge. The account, in other words, connects the purity of the soul with the
visually striking image of God opening up the chest-what the khatTbI studied with,
Muhammed Subhi, described to me as a "surgicaloperation." In so doing, it provides
the authoritative textual basis through which a particularbodily experience (inshirah)
is conceptually linked to a moral state.1 As the analysis I present here seeks to dem-
onstrate, this linkage is not simply established metaphorically, but also through disci-
pline, the training and inculcation of sensory habits.
synasthetic performance
The British philosopher R. G. Collingwood's description of the experience en-
tailed in the reception of works of art is instructive here.'2 It has always been ob-
served, Collingwood notes, that in listening to music or poetry people enjoy imagi-
nary experiences completely outside the realm of sound, such as visual, tactile,
kinesthetic, and olfactory experiences (1966:146-151). Thus, skilled music critics
will frequently include in their descriptions of symphonic performances the colors,
motions, images, and tactile impressions evoked by the work. Similarly,
the artof paintingis intimatelyboundup withthe expressivenessof the gesturesmade
by the hand in drawing,and of the imaginarygesturethroughwhich a spectatorof a
paintingappreciatesits "tactilevalues."Instrumentalmusic has a similarrelation
to silentmovementsof the larynx,gesturesof the player'shand,and realor imaginary
movements,as of dancing,in the audience.[Collingwood1966:243]
The common understanding of the kinds of synaesthetic experience Collingwood is

describing here is that they are composed of two parts, an objective part, represented
by the sensuous, audible element, and a subjective part, belonging not to the actual
sounds but to something listeners create in their minds independent of what they
hear.'3 Collingwood argues that this distinction between a sensuous and an imaginary
part is misleading. To become an object that can be retained and referredto, he ar-
gues, a sensation must be attended to by consciousness, an act that transforms that
sensation into an idea, an object of the imagination. People come to attend con-
sciously to particular stimuli in the course of becoming experienced or trained, and
their reactions to those stimuli become patterned in accord with the particularform of
life that training upholds and subordinated to the practices and goals that define it. As
Collingwood says, sensations become "fitted into the fabric of our life instead of pro-
ceeding on their own way regardless of its structure"(1966:209). Thus, the synaes-
thetic experiences of movement, color, touch, and emotion that occur when a person
listens to music are not produced through the free creative activity of the mind but,
rather,are grounded in the actual sensual experience of the body as a complex of cul-
turally honed perceptual capacities.14 People's sensory responses are similar and in
keeping with those that the author of the work intended to produce, to the extent that
their capacities of hearing or vision have been shaped within a shared disciplinary
context.15They possess a specific affective-volitional structureas a result of the prac-
tices by which one has been formed as a member of a specific community.16More-
over, while particular performances might recruit some parts of the sensorium more
than other parts-as when one has been trained to attend to a very limited range of
sensory experience, such as in modern academic reading-to some extent, the organ
of reception remains the body in its entirety.'7
Collingwood's discussion of perception in terms of the integrated totality of the
trained body has, despite obvious differences, certain parallels with recent anthropo-
logical work inspired by the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty (1962). Forthinkers in
this tradition (Csordas 1990, 1994, 1999; Jackson 1983a, 1983b, 1989), reasoning
has less to do with the activity of the ratiocinative mind, and more with the way peo-
ple's practical engagements embody a (primarily habitual and unconscious) under-
standing of the world with which they are a constitutive part. Thomas Csordas, in par-
ticular, provides a rich body of ethnographic work that explores how the socially
informed body, by placing people in a determinant and preobjective relation to the
world, structures the culturally specific objectifications produced through reflective
practice. Yet, despite this shared concern for the embodied character of action and
perception, the analysis I have presented here also departs sharply from the sort of
phenomenological approach Csordas elaborates. Specifically, while Csordas focuses
on identifying the preobjective foundations, or habitus, on which a religious dis-
course erects its particulardiscursive architecture, my own work has been concerned
with the practical techniques (such as sermon audition) by which the bodily disposi-
tions that underlie virtuous conduct are inculcated. That is, I give less attention to how
those dispositions have been objectified within the discourses of contemporary Islam
and more to the techniques though which they are inculcated both as sensory skills
and moral habits.18
the task of the khatib

In discussing the Islamic sermon and its role in the shaping of ethical disposi-
tions, it is importantto distinguish between a rhetorical practice of evoking or modu-
lating the passions as a means to sway an audience toward a point of view and one
aimed at constructing the passions in accord with a certain model. In regardto the for-
mer, Aristotle (trans., 1991) dedicated considerable attention to the possibilities of
rhetorically manipulating the passions, examining the means by which anger, fear, or
pity might be intensified or attenuated by orators to their advantage. Similarly,
Augustine (O'Meara 1973) emphasizes the utility of arousing the emotions as a means
to move people to do what they know they should do but fail to do.19 Such a tech-
nique is predicated on the instrumental use of emotions for purposes to which those
emotions have no necessary relation. By contrast, in the practice of Islamic sermons,
as I have noted, the objects of discourse and the emotions that are elicited in the con-
text of their discussion are interdependent such that emotions only achieve their
proper formation through that relationship.20The khatTb'stask, in other words, in-
cludes not just the modulation of emotional intensities but also the orienting of those
emotions to their proper objects.
There is considerable debate among contemporary Egyptiankhutaba' as well as
their listeners on this issue. One of the signs that many people take as evidence of a
khatTb'svirtuosity is an ability to move an audience to tears. Weeping has an impor-
tant place within Islamic devotional practices, as a kind of emotional response appro-
priate for both men and women when, with humility, fear, and love, they turn to
God.21 Many are concerned today, however, that people are crying during sermons
for the wrong reasons. Note, for example, the following remark by the khatTbFawzi
Sa'id, in response to a question about why he did not do more to evoke the passions
of his listeners in his sermons:
Lotsof people todayjustlookforwardto cryingduringsermons;they feel they are be-
ing cleansed, like Christiansat baptism.Butthe sermonthat just leads you to cry
doesn'timprintuponthe heart.Itdoesn'tget people to changetheiractions.Itis only
througha carefulengagementwiththe texts, readingthe Quranand hadTth literature,
thatknowledgegets rootedin the heart.Notthatthe sentimentsare unimportant; but
manypeople no longerknowwhy they arecrying.
One of the major concerns of the khutaba' I spoke with was that many cassette-
sermon listeners today were engaging in the practice as a form of entertainment, for
the pleasure of the emotional experience produced through audition. My preaching
instructor,Muhammed Subhi, voiced this worry in a conversation about the problems
with contemporary preaching:
When people todaylisten,they hearaboutJudgmentDay andthe tormentof hell and
they feel relievedand exalted [intisha'].Intisha'is what you experiencewhen you
drinkalcohol and feel thatall of the pressuresand difficultiesof your life have been
lifted.Or when you heara reallybeautifulsongthattouchesall of youremotionsand
sensibilities.Youfeel a kindof comfortand relief[tanffs],a calm [rsha],a kindof ca-
this is intisha'.IfIam a Muslim,when I listento the QuranIfeel this
tharsis[kathrasrs]:
relief.Butthingsmust not stop at this feeling,as so often happens.It mustbe trans-
formedintopartof one's practicalreality.
Subhi is concerned that sermons are being listened to for a momentary experience of
catharsis, enthusiasm, and excitement that leaves no traces in the listener's behavior
once the experience is over. As with Fawzi Sa'id above, Subhi is not advocating a
rationalist, academic approach to preaching. In fact, he was quite critical of other
khutaba' whose intellectualist approaches succeeded in neither grabbing the atten-
tion of an audience nor stirringtheir pious passions. Rather,he, as well as most other
khutaba', saw the problem as that of rooting knowledge in the hearts of the listeners,
binding their emotions to the appropriate objects, so as to move them toward pious
comportment. Likemany people I met, he worried that some contemporary preachers

were playing on the emotions of their audiences so as to bolster their own popularity
ratherthan sedimenting those emotions in their listeners in such a way as would in-
cline them toward moral action.
Muhammed Hassan, at the beginning of a mosque lesson on Judgment Day, one
that is widely circulated on tape, poses the problem this way:
Maybeyou will go home today and tell your wife, husband,or childrenabout the
good storiesyou heard.Itwill just become, "Once upon a time, when the Prophet
lived ... ,"as if itwere no longeran issueof today.Butthisis notsome escape fromre-
ality,notentertainment, or cold culturewhich only addressesthe intellectand the ra-
tionalmind [al-'aql].Beliefin JudgmentDay is one of the foundationsof Islam,along
with belief in God, His prophets,His books,and His angels. Unless you understand
JudgmentDay and know of its circumstances,how can you believe in it?Thus,we
needto graspthisknowledge,and live by it.
Knowledge of the events of Judgment Day, in other words, must not be assimilated to
the categories of entertainment or information, the former linked to the wrong pas-
sions, the latterdevoid of passions entirely. Belief in Judgment Day, a requirement of
Islam, must be passionately lived in one's daily actions.
As a well-trained khatTb,Subhi had memorized a veritable encyclopedia of sto-
ries, poetry, ahadTth,and phrases of the tarhfbor wal'z genre,22geared to the task of
eliciting emotions of fear, sadness, or terror. He demonstrated this to me on a couple
of occasions when, in order to provide me an example of classical tarhTbtechniques,
he would improvise a sermon, stringing one piece from this memorized stock of texts
after another with extreme rapidity and precise cadence. His point in making such a
display of virtuosity, however, was to highlight what he saw to be an improper prac-
tice on the part of many khutaba', those who, in his view, "mechanically produce
emotional responses by such means without grounding those emotions in a useful
and lasting knowledge rooted in the lived reality of the audience." The reality he was
referringto here is first and foremost the reality of death as elaborated within Islamic
eschatological thought and its implications for the conduct of Muslims in their daily
lives. His overall argument,however, reflectsthe notion that the passions are internalto
the processes of practicalreasoningby which people make correctchoices in their lives.
Forthe khatTb,the challenge of enabling the listener to attain the proper affective
dispositions must be addressed in terms of rhetoricaltechnique. Subhi outlined for me
what he thought were the three elements of a sermon capable of overcoming this
problem. First,the khatTbmust shake listeners from their state of lassitude (futor),still-
ness (sukln), and fatigue (humnid).23 Death is the subject most capable of achieving
this. What is needed, according to Subhi, are images of death that are "fullof fear and
terror,that startle and frighten people out of their slackness and immobility." Forthis
task, there is a rich eschatological phantasmagoriafrom which to draw.
Second, the sermon must edify the listeners in their knowledge of Islamic doc-
trine, teachings, and beliefs. This involves more than instructing an audience in the
doctrinal and devotional requirements of Islam. A knowledge of such things as the
plight of the soul at the moment of death, the succession of disasters at the end of the
world, or the trials to be faced when crossing the pathway over hell are equally
important. Each moral decision encountered in the course of daily life can only be
correctly assessed in light of this ultimate reality, as the khatTbMuhammed Hassan
suggested in the quote above.
Third, the khatib must weave the Quranic narrativesinto the lived experience of
his listeners, highlighting the problems that they face and pointing them toward useful
solutions. There are two rhetorical methods that Subhi emphasized in this regard.
One involves depicting each type of corruption found in society today in terms of its
consequences at the moment of death, in the grave, and throughout the eschatologi-
cal drama. The other requires drawing analogies between the Quranic events and the
lives of contemporary Muslims in Cairo. The popular khatTbOmar Abd al-Kafi,for ex-
ample, likens the pathway one crosses in order to arrive at heaven (al-sirat)to the cen-
tral street in Cairo, Tahrir Street, drawing an analogy between each disaster that
awaits the sinner along al-sirat and the various exits off of Tahrir. In this way, the
khatTbweaves the Quranic narrativesinto the fabric of contemporary experience.
musical emotions
The problem of attaining a correct affective attunement was further elucidated
for me through discussions I had about the difference between listening to cassette
sermons and listening to music. Many of the people with whom I spoke invoked the
example of music in order to explain to me the relaxation they felt when listening to a
sermon. One young man, Beha, described for me the workings of tarhTbin a good ser-
mon and then compared it to the experience of music:
Whenyou hearaboutthe torturesinthe grave,you get scared.YoufearGod,thenyou
startto feel regret,betweenyou and yourself,forwhatyou'vedone wrong,so you ask
God forforgiveness.Yourepent,andthenyou rememberhis mercyand you feel calm
[raha].Yourchest opened [munsharihal-sadr],open to Islam,the Quran,God, and
knowingthatyou will get close to him.Whenyou listento music,you also feel calm
and relaxed,but that doesn't mean you're reallyclose to God. With a sermonor
Qurantapeyou can attainthatcloseness,so the feelingis betterand moreintensethan
when you arejustrelaxed.
As noted above, many of the sermon listeners I spoke with in Egyptsuggested that, al-
though they listened to taped sermons as a means to ethical improvement, there were
also times when, feeling tired or tense, they might choose a music tape over a sermon
or Quran recording. All three were understood to bring one to a state of relaxation.
Yet, as Beha's comment begins to suggest, there is a key distinction to be drawn be-
tween the three experiences. As opposed to music, the sermon or Quran sets in motion
a moral (and, as I have suggested above, a bodily) progression from fear, to regret, to
asking for forgiveness, to repentance. It leads eventually to a sense of closeness with
God, an experience that was described to me as inshirahal-sadr (opening of the heart
or chest), itmi'nan(tranquility),and sakina (stillness). This progression was mentioned
frequently by the people I worked with in Cairo. Ahmed, for example, told me: "Ifa
Muslim sees hell close to him [through a good khatTb],he won't find peace until he
asks forgiveness for his errors, repents, and returns humbly and tearfully to God."
Learned in the physiological dispositions I discuss above, this is the movement made
by a listener's body and soul under the guidance of a skillful khatTb.Importantly,this is
not the raha (calm) produced by soft music but, rather,a moral state conceptually ar-
ticulated within the traditions of Islamic self-discipline. One of my central arguments
in this paper is that anthropologists need to think of religious traditions as founded
upon such embodied capacities of gesture, feeling, and speech, ratherthan in terms of
an obedience to rules or belief in doctrine.24
the dance of words

The kind of attentionand general attitudewith which people listento taped sermons
is a frequent point of debate among many of those who listen to cassette sermons. Many
people in Egypt listen to sermon tapes while engaged in some other routine activity,
such as driving a taxi, working as a waiter at a neighborhood caf6, or cooking a meal
(as was common among the mothers and sisters of the men I knew). Such styles of us-
age have caused some people to argue that the degree of ethical benefit listeners
achieve through sermon audition depends on the level of concentration they apply to
the act.25As Ahmed told me: "When you listen with humility, correctly and truly, and
when you understand each word, then you truly benefit. You feel relieved, that your
sins will be forgiven. But if you listen as one would read a newspaper, distractedly or
indifferently,which many do, then the benefit is much less."
The fact that people listen with greateror lesser degrees of attentiveness, while an
important point empirically, tells little in itself about the kind of activity someone is
engaged in when listening to a sermon. Forexample, people who attend the mosque
on Fridayalso listen to sermons with differing degrees and modes of attention, some
daydreaming, some held by the murmuringsound of a khatTb'svoice, some following
with critical scrutiny the arguments being made. The fact that some of these ways of
attending to a sermon would be recognized as wrong by many contemporary Mus-
lims points to the existence of a set of normative standards that define what a correct
performance by a listener entails and against which incorrect performances may be
identified and measured-what J. L. Austin, referringto speech acts, describes as the
act's "felicity conditions": the variable circumstances that secure the success of an ut-
terance (1975:12-24). An act, in other words, is not determined by what happens to
be in someone's consciousness at the moment of its execution, though this may bear
on the degree to which the act is successful. Rather,an act (such as listening to a ser-
mon) must be described in terms of the conventions that make it meaningful as a par-
ticular kind of activity, one enacted for certain reasons and in accord with certain
standardsof excellence and understood as such by those who perform and respond to
it. This point was repeatedly stressed by the people I worked with: one may listen to a
taped sermon as one would read a newspaper, watch television, or hear popular mu-
sic, but the ethical benefit of such listening will be correspondingly lower.
The men I worked with often made a distinction between the verb commonly
used for "hearing,"sam', and two other terms that suggest a more deliberate act: an-
sat, meaning to incline one's ear toward or pay close attention, and asghs, to be silent
in order to listen. As was often the case, Quranic recitation provided the point of refer-
ence for explaining the meaning of these terms. This is not surprisinggiven both the
pervasive use of Quranic verses in sermons, and the sermons' emphasis on acts of re-
membrance (dhikr),supplication (dua'), giving thanks (shukr),and expressing fearful
and loving respect for God (al-taqwa).
Contemporary religious scholars are frequently called on to give fatawa (non-
binding legal opinions, sing. fatwa)stipulatingthe proper attitude and state of mind to
be assumed when listening to recitations of the Quran. The following, taken from an
official publication of al-Azhar fatawa, is characteristic:
One need listenintently[yunsit]ratherthanjusthear[yasmai],so it is done with inten-
tion [qasdwa niyya]anddirectingthe senses [hiss]to the wordsin orderto understand
them,to comprehendtheirintentionsandtheirmeanings.As faras hearing[al-sama'],
it is whatoccurswithoutintention.Closeattention[al-insSt]entailsa stillness[sukon]
in orderto listen so as not to be distractedby surroundingwords.... God ordered
manto listento the Quranwith attention... [and]listeningintentlyis the meansto
ponderover [tadabbur]the meaningsof the Quran.... Itis the dutyof all Muslimsto
educatethemselvesandbe guidedbytheetiquette[adab]of al-Quran.[Makhluf 1950]
"Listeningwith attention," al-insat, is figured here as a complex sensory skill, one

opposed to mere hearing (sama'), understood as a passive and spontaneous receptiv-
ity. Al-insat is the kind of attentiveness appropriate to those moments when one's
heart is inclined toward God. Muhammed Subhi echoed this view from his perspec-
tive as a khatTbconcerned about the attention of his audience: "Imay get you to focus
on what I'm saying and comprehend it, but without getting you to feel emotionally
disposed toward it. A khutba [sermon] must lead an audience beyond mere hearing to
where they pay close attention, such that the words actually turn over [tanqalab]their
behavior."
This skill of careful listening has been most fully elaborated in works on the art of
Quranic recitation. All of the young men I worked with had memorized portions of
the Quran and learned at least the rudimentaryskills of recitation by the time of ado-
lescence, either through lessons at Quran schools for children (katatib,sing. kuttab),26
in classes within the secular public schools system, or under direct tutelage from fa-
thers and mothers. A few had only begun to learn it as young adults when, as with
many Egyptiansof their generation, they had come to see Islamic practices as increas-
ingly importantto their lives. The recitational techniques taught today are founded on
long-standing Islamic traditions, and even the most popularized literatureon the prac-
tice relies heavily on classical models found in medieval sources.27 Although such
works provide instruction in a particulartradition of vocal performance, the perform-
ance itself is understood to involve a kind of audition, insomuch as a skilled reciter
should attempt to "hearthe speech of God from God and not from [the voice of the re-
citer] himself" (al-Ghazali 1984:80).
Among the demands of this audition cited by the 11th-century theologian A. H.
al-Ghazali are both practices of mental concentration and a variety of affective, gestu-
ral, and verbal responses whereby the reader or listener assumes the ethical disposi-
tions corresponding to the recited or audited verses: humility, awe, regret,fear, and so
on. In his manual on recitational technique, al-Ghazali writes:
Duringthe Quranreading,when the Quranreaderreadsa verse on glorificationof

God, he will glorifyHimand magnifyHim.When he readsa verseon supplication[to
God] and forgiveness[of Him],he will supplicateand seek forgiveness.Ifhe readsa
versetellingof any hopefulmatterhe will prayto God [forit]. Butif he readsa verseon
a frighteningmatter,he will seekthe protection[ofGod]. [1984:48]
In another section, al-Ghazali furtherelaborates this in terms of "fulfillingthe right"

(al-haqq)of the verses:
Thuswhen the Quranreaderreadsa verse necessitatingprostrationbeforeGod, he
will prostratehimself.Likewise,if he hears[therecitationof] a verseof prostration
by
anotherpersonhe will prostratehimselfwhen the reciterprostrates.He will prostrate
only when he is physicallyand rituallyclean.... Itsperfectformis forhimto utterAl-
lahuakbar[God is Great!]and then prostratehimselfand, while prostrate,supplicate
with thatsupplicationwhich is appropriate to the verseof prostrationrecited.... On
reading the words of God, "Theyweep while they prostratethemselves, andthisadds
to theirhumility,"the Quranreaderwill supplicate:"Godmademe one of those who
weep forfearof You,andwho are humbletowardYou."Inthisway the Quran-reader
will supplicatewhile makingeveryprostration [dueto his readingor hearinga verseof
supplication]. [1984:44-45]28
As is clear from the instructionsal-Ghazali provides, the word of God demands a

kind of dialogue from the receiver. The receiver must seek to understand God's mes-
sage, in the cognitive sense, and must assume the attitudes and performthe acts that
correspond to that understanding. As scholars of the contemporary practice of Qura-

nic recitation have described, these principles still provide the basis for training in the
art as it is taught today (Denny 1980; Nelson 1985). A recent rector of al-Azhar Uni-
versity, Abd al-Halim Mahmud, echoes this principle in a fatwa advising people that
while reading the Quran, "they pause and respond to words by enacting what is
called for, asking forgiveness, regretting their misdeeds, imploring salvation when
reading verses of warning or retribution,and so on" (al-Azhar1988). It is this quite com-
plex form of sensory engagement that also informsthe practice of listening to sermons.
Importantly,the forms of comportment and concentration associated with Qura-
nic audition and recitation are not simply transferredto the sermon context as a set of
guidelines or rules. More fundamentally, the cultivation of these skills stands as a nec-
essary prerequisite for the sermon listener to be able to follow, be moved by, and de-
rive benefit from the sermon. Training in such skills begins in earliest infancy, inso-
much as the interwoven practices of audition, memorization, and recitation are
central to the ethical upbringing of many children in Egypt. As Eickelman has suc-
cinctly put it: "Thediscipline of Quranic memorization is an integral part of learning
to be human and Muslim" (1978:63). It was common that parents, upon introducing
me to their children, would proudly ask them to recite part of a -sra (a chapter of the
Quran) they had mastered. Beyond such instruction, however, the Quran-as well as
other traditional Islamic genres, such as ahadTth,qasas (Islamic stories), and sTyar(bi-
ographies of Muhammed and other early Muslim figures)-are woven into much of
daily life, with verses often punctuating the succession of devotional, ritual, public,
and family activities occurring in the course of a day (Graham 1987; Schimmel 1994).
Moreover, just as individual Quranic verses invoke ethical responses, so also do ethi-
cal situations often give rise to the citation of verses, whether in acts of giving advice,
instructing children, making decisions, or arguing a point, particularlyamong those
Muslims more observant of the demands of piety.
listening as performance
The proper audition of a sermon on tape entails a complex variety of activities.
First,the sermon necessitates a voiced or subvocal accompaniment, as listeners are
repeatedly required to enact a range of illocutionary acts. The preamble is a collective
utterance composed of acts of remembrance (dhikr),praise (thana')and supplication
(du'a').29Although it is the khatTbwho provides the guiding vocalization for these
acts, it is incumbent on the audience to accompany him with their hearts, an act that
often involves the mumbled or whispered utterance of the appropriatedevotional for-
mulas. Shaykh Kishk(d. 1996)-a widely popular Egyptianpreacher during the 1970s
and 1980s-on occasions called on his audience to repeat word for word the invoca-
tions he recited or, more frequently, had them repeat one phrase over and over (such
as "I seek forgiveness from God"), exploiting the pathetic momentum such rhythmic
repetitions evoke in an audience.
Listeners also must be ready to pronounce the basmala-"ln the name of God,
the compassionate, the merciful"-each time the khatTbbegins to recite a verse from
the Quran. Similarly, they must call for prayers upon the Prophet-"God bless him
and grant him salvation"-each time his name is mentioned. Throughout a sermon,
listeners are frequently enjoined to vocalize a wide variety of supplicatory locutions
(du'a') that relate to the argument the khatTbis making or the situation he is describ-
ing. For example, in warning his audience about the dangers of gossip (ghtba) or
backbiting (namfma), a khatTbwill call on them to implore God for forgiveness from
moral error. When lecturing them on a topic such as proper burial technique, he will
have them ask God to increase their knowledge, to lessen the agonies of dying, or to
illuminate the darkness of their graves. While discussing the plight of Muslims in Bos-
nia, he will pause to have the audience ask protection for Muslims who face affliction
elsewhere in the world, for the defeat of their enemies, or for the strength to persevere
the hardships they suffer. The popular khatTbOmar Abd al-Kafi punctuates his ser-
mons at rapid-fireintervals with such enjoinders, continuously recruiting his listeners
to participate vocally and morally in the oratory he performs. Inthe context of cassette
audition, listeners may respond with clearly audible utterances, with whispers, or
simply with a silent movement of the lips.
The final section of a sermon is composed solely of such acts of supplication,
strung one after another by the khatTbin a rhythmic crescendo that gathers emotional
momentum as it proceeds. During the live performance at the mosque, this is when
the pathos of the audience reaches its peak, and it is not uncommon at this point for
the entire assembly to weep without restraint.Although a particularly moving du'a'
(supplicatory prayer)will also lead to tears among cassette listeners, without the emo-
tional dynamics put in play by a large crowd the intensity of the experience is rela-
tively less. Nonetheless, many of the men I worked with appreciated this section of
the sermon for the ethical-emotional progression it could initiate, leaving them with a
sense of closeness to God and the accompanying experience of relief and tranquility
(itmi'nan and sakTna).
As I have argued, these affects and sensations should not be thought of through a
generic, psychophysiological model of catharsis, but as an experience of moral relief
the specific contours of which have been honed through practices of ethical disci-
pline, such as sermon audition. The listener, for example, must have cultivated the ca-
pacity for humility and regret:these are both felicity conditions (in Austin's sense) for
the act of supplication as well as conditions for the body's experience of itmi'nan,30
the relief and kinesthetic relaxation that follows-via repentance-from such an act.
Ifthese conditions are not met, then the listener will not be able to adopt the attitudes
and modes of concentration on which successful and beneficial acts of audition re-
volve. Listening, in short, will be impaired.
Much of the substance of sermons is drawn from those pieces of text that form the
common stock of cultural wisdom: Quranic verses, ahadTth,biographies of the
Prophet, accounts of the lives of early Muslims, and various traditional story genres
that elaborate on these primarysources. Sermon listeners come to the sermon already
familiar with many of these narratives, though sermons are also one of the contexts
where new ones are learned. As with storytelling in other cultural contexts, the listen-
ing-pleasure of such narratives does not reside in the presentation of something en-
tirely new, but in the effective and stirringperformance of a known account, one rein-
terpreted and revised through its retelling in a new narrativecontext.31Often while we
were listening to a tape, say on the signs that precede and indicate the arrival of the
Day of Judgment, one of the young men would note with interest and satisfaction that
he had never before heard a particular detail mentioned by the khatTb,such as the
blue eye of the Antichristor the sun turning red. One man I worked with, Sayf, would
on occasion tell me with surprise and skepticism about a particular rendition of the
eschaton recounted by the khatTbat his mosque during the Friday sermon. A few
times, when the issue had really piqued his curiosity, he checked a book on the sub-
ject or asked the shaykh in his mosque if what he heard were true.
As the sermon listeners of my study visibly demonstrated in explaining the ser-
mons to me, knowledge of these Islamic narrative forms consists not simply in the
abilityto recite a given text, but also in performingits emotional, gestural,and kinesthetic
contours, the bodily conditions of the text as memory. While listening to taped ser-
mons with me, they would often interruptwith comments and gestures intended to
help me understand the particular hadTthor story being recounted by the khatTb,
sometimes stopping the tape to elaborate in more detail or introduce relevant pas-
sages from the Quran or other traditional textual sources. They all brought a common
expressive-gestural repertoireto their explanations. Thus, in the context of recounting
a hadTth,the narrowness of the grave (a common sermon topic) was expressed by a
drawing up of the shoulders; the exit of the soul from the neck of a good man was dis-
tinguished from that of an infidel by the smoothness of the hand movement tracing the
passage and the relaxed muscles of the face and hand, tightened and contorted in the
case of the infidel; encounters with respected Muslim figures in heaven were accom-
panied by the joyful relaxation of the chest and the upward glance of delight. The
events surroundingJudgment Day, a very common sermon topic for which many khu-
taba' have produced extensive cassette series (drawn either from sermons or mosque
lessons),32 have a strong gestural component: grasping of the book of one's deeds
from above the right or left shoulder, the testifying of the individual parts of one's
body as to the deeds they have committed, the binding of the hands by the guards of
hell. Although these stories have a striking visual intensity, insomuch as they are
rarely given representation within visual media (e.g., painting, sculpture, television),
their most visible aspect lies in the gestures and emotional expressions that accom-
pany their verbal performance.
The stock of Islamic narrativeforms that provide the raw material for many ser-
mons also has a strong bilateralism, each gestural text having its right and left side
variants, the former always associated with moral probity in accord with classical Is-
lamic traditions. Thus, the angel that counts one's good deeds sits on the right shoul-
der, the one counting evil deeds on the left; virtuous people will take the book of
deeds from their right on Judgment Day as they stand before God, sinners from the
left. The positive valence given to the right side within Islamic societies extends to a
vast range of activities, a pattern scholars have frequently noted of other societies as
well (see Hertz 1909; Needham 1973). This includes devotional acts such as ablu-
tions and prayer, where each movement is specified in terms of the bilateral axis: the
Quran is held only with the right hand; one looks first to the right after completing
prayer; each body part is washed first with the right hand then with the left for ablu-
tions. All sorts of mundane daily actions also show right and left organization: enter-
ing the house with the rightfoot but the bathroom with the left, washing the teeth of a
corpse only with your right hand, and so forth. This bilateral training of the body and
the repertoires of gesture, movement, and speech learned in accord with such a cod-
ing are furtherconditions shaping the sensibilities required for ethical sermon listen-
ing inasmuch as the oral texts presuppose such knowledge.
sermon reception and ethical sedimentation

As should now be clear, sermon oratory recruitsthe body of the listener in multi-
ple ways. Beyond its referentialcontent, the sermon can be seen as a technique for the
trainingof the body's gestures and affects, its physiological textures and colorations, its
rhythms and styles of expression. In addition to moral lessons, the stories impartethi-
cal habits and the organization of sensory and motor skills necessary for inhabiting
the world in a manner considered to be appropriatefor Muslims by those with whom I
worked. In learning the many performances involved in a sermon, such as extracting
the soul of a sinner with a labored and trembling gesture of the hand rising above the
neck, one acquires the affective-gestural experiences that make possible-in the view
of the sermon listeners I knew-the practices, modes of sociability, and attitudinal

repertoires underlying a devout Islamic community. The task may be compared to
that of an actor who, when playing the part of King Lear, must hone the strained gait,
the movement of the hands, the manner of labored breathing, and the contortions of
the face that express the tortured soul of one so betrayed. Note that I am not referring
to the symbolic coding of the body, the attributionof meaning to its surfaces, move-
ments, and speech. Rather, it is more like what rhetoricians call "attitude,"a kind of
"nonself-referential mode of awareness" not reducible to mental states or symbolic
processes.33
Notably, the young men I knew in Cairo did not always agree with each other in
regardto the truth status of some of the accounts commonly found in sermons. Itwas
common, for example, that one person would referto a narrativeelement (such as the
throne of God) as a symbol (ramzor kinaya),while another would claim it as "literally
real" (haqfqf, mish majazT)though unknowably so (bila kaif). Sayf, whom I mentioned
above, would often describe those parts of a sermon he understood to be somewhat
far-fetched as "metaphors":for example, the writing of the word infidel on the fore-
head of the Antichrist, or the blackening of the heart that follows from sin. Other men,
on the other hand, as well as most of the khutaba'themselves, insisted that these were
statements of literal truth. In some instances, a person would not know the meaning of
some of the key terms used by the khatTb.Yet, despite these differences of opinion and
comprehension, all of the young men I worked with would mimetically represent the
narrativesfrom which these elements were drawn in more or less the same way, in-
cluding the corresponding facial and postural expressions of fear, delight, or tranquil-
ity. Not to say that these differences of interpretationare insignificant. Indeed, argu-
ments about the ontological status of Quranic references have been extremely
consequential throughout Islamic history. What I am pointing to here is that, beneath
the level of expressed belief and opinion, those I knew who participated in the fashion
of sermon listening shared a common substrateof embodied dispositions of the sort I
have described as instrumentalto the task of sermon audition. It is these ethical dispo-
sitions, I argue, more than a commitment to a normative rationality,that constitute the
common ground on which the discourses of tradition come to be articulated, the
moral "reflexes" that make arguments about the status of Quranic references mean-
ingful and worthy of engagement.
Of course, in the moment of listening to a sermon, one does not act out all of the
gestures and movements corresponding to the particular account being narrated by
the khatTb,nor vocalize each and every response solicited. Rather,and this is an im-
portant part of my argument, an experiential knowledge of the gestural and emotive
elements of the story constitutes a condition for its ethical reception. That is to say,
one is capable of hearing the sermon in its full ethical sense only to the extent one has
cultivated the particular modes of sensory responsiveness that that discourse de-
mands. Collingwood makes this point in regardto aesthetic appreciation: people hear
the sounds, colors, movements, and emotions that composers have written into their
music only insofar as they have an ear-and a body-trained in the sensibilities the
composers bring to bear on their work (1966:146-151). One does not hear "the raw
sound" and then elaborate upon it an imaginaryexperience of motion and color. One
simply "hears"the emotion and color. The sensibilities that allow one to do so are not
something purely cognitive, but are rooted in the experience of the body in its en-
tirety, as a complex of culturally and historically honed sensory modalities.34
The cassette-sermon listeners I knew would frequently distinguish between a
kind of hearing that engages only the mind (al-'aql) and one that stems from the heart
(al-qalb). This distinction is no simple metaphorical conceit. Instead, listeners are

pointing to two contrasting modes of sensory organization, one purely intellectual,
the other ethical and grounded in Islamic disciplinary practices. Inthis sense, the ten-
dency to speak of hearing as something achieved with the ears does not simply reflect
a physiological datum, but a variety of historically grounded assumptions embedded
in a particular concept of hearing, assumptions embodied in the cultural practices
that organize and give form to a specific type of sensory experience (see Illich
1993:39). To listen to an Islamic cassette-sermon with the heart means to bring to
bear on it those sensory capacities honed within disciplinary contexts that allow one
to "hear" (soulfully, emotionally, physically) what would escape listeners who ap-
plied only their "ears"or al- 'aql (minds). At the same time, sermon audition is one of
the means by which these capacities are developed and deepened.
The kind of ethical skills learned and strengthened by the men I knew through
taped-sermon audition (among other practices) are precisely of the kind that worried
Plato in The Republic (1990, trans.).In his view, performancesthat engage an audience
in ways that bypass a reflective, philosophical understanding- such as poetry,theater,
or song (or, in this instance, sermons)-have a power to impact and mold individuals,
which renderssuch artsespeciallydangerous.As a moderninterpreterof Platonotes:
Theproblemwith uncontrolledmimesis,as Platosees it, is notjustthe characterof the
likenessesit bringsinto our presence.It is how these likenessesgraduallyinsinuate
themselvesintothe soulthroughthe eyes andears,withoutourbeingawareof it.... It
is as if eyes and earsofferpainterand poet entryto a relativelyindependentcognitive
apparatus,associatedwiththe senses,throughwhich mimeticimagescan bypassour
knowledgeand infiltratethe soul. [Burnyeat1998:8]
Recognizing the power of such arts to shape moral character, Plato advocated
the prohibition of performances that depicted human qualities not corresponding to
the Athenian virtues he saw as foundational to the ideal city. LaterChristianthinkers,
in contrast, emphasized the positive contribution of such embodied forms of knowl-
edge. Arguing along lines much closer to those suggested by the men with whom I
worked, Christian theologians from Aquinas to Lutherto John Henry Newman have
asserted that a certain disposition of the passions is necessary in order to assess the va-
lidity of claims for the truth of scripture;that virtues such as gratitude, humility, and
love of God have an epistemic value, allowing one to evaluate evidence for the
authority of the Bible in the proper light (Wainwright 1995:50-52). This point should
not be confused with a more common argument of modern Christianorigin. Christian
thinkers like Kierkegardand William James claim that reason alone is not enough to
compel someone to believe in scripture and that it thus falls to the passions to bridge
this gap (Wainwright 1995:51-52). Today, when Christians speak about religious be-
lief as a practice of the heart more than the rational mind, it is usually this modern
view they are expressing.
conclusion
The set of ethical concepts most central to contemporary sermon practice in
Egypt,such as itmi'nan (tranquillity),khauf (fear), inshirah(opening of the heart), and
khusho' (humility) convey strong physiological and kinesthetic shades of meaning.
My analysis of these terms has not emphasized their semantic dimensions but, rather,
their disciplinary conditions, the techniques of audition whereby listeners train their
bodies in the performanceof these ethical modes of being and perceiving. This process
involves more than the cultivation of sensibilities: these concepts are linked to actions
such that a condition of their full embodiment is the performance of certain pious
acts. Fear and humility do not simply incline one to pray, read the Quran, and obey
one's parents;they, in a certain sense, entail it.
This can be clarified with an example: the shahada, or testimony of faith. Accord-
ing doctrinal sources, the uttering of the shahada-"There is no God but the One
to
God, and Muhammed is His apostle"-is the minimal sufficient condition for becom-
ing a Muslim. There is considerable argument, however, over what precisely is en-
tailed in making the utterance. Ibn Taymiyya, a 14th-century theologian whose doc-
trinal writings have had considerable influence on contemporary Islamic thought
(especially among those currents represented by the khutaba' in my study), argued
that to utter the shahada without fulfilling the prescribed duties of Islam, such as
prayer, is not to have truly uttered the shahada (Ibn Taymiyya 1976). Prayer, in other
words, was understood by Ibn Taymiyya as a felicity condition for the illocutionary
act of the testimony of faith.
Compare this argument with one frequently made by the contemporary khatTb
Muhammed Hassan, an oratorwho often drawsfrom IbnTaymiyya'swork in his sermons
and writings.Inan interviewwith the newspaper al-Liwa'al-lslamT,Hassanadvises:
EveryMuslimmustenact a practicalshahada[shahada'amaliyya]on the groundof
our lived realityafterthey havepronounceda verbalshahada[shahadaqauliyya]with
theirtongues.The smallestlibrariestoday are fullof booksand [sermonand mosque
lesson]cassettes,butthistheoreticalprojectdoes notequalthe valueof the inkwhich
it was writtenwithuntilwe transformit intoa practicalrealityanda wayof life.[al-Liwa'
al-lslamT1996:3]
Hassan's use of the terms theory and practice would seem to invoke a sort of Pla-
tonic division between a world of ideas and a world of action, and thus diverge
sharply from Ibn Taymiyya's manner of joining the two. Such an interpretationof his
remarkwould be in keeping with theories of modernization that envision the privati-
zation of religion in the form of individual belief, a state of inner, personal commit-
ment without any necessary implications for the organization of social life. Although
Hassan's comments need to be understood in relation to the impact of secularism on
Islam in Egypt, this should not exhaust our framing of it. For one, the distinction be-
tween theory and practice employed here has more to do with the status accorded to
scientific language today, than with a necessary conceptual shift in sermon practice.
Both Muslim khutaba' and Christianpreachers throughout history have dressed their
sermons in the latest scientific finery in order to win recognition and assent from their
audiences. Also, note that while Hassan distinguishes between words (al-qaul) and
practices (al-'amal), he locates the shahada-fundamentally, a speech act-on both
sides of the divide, thereby complicating any notion of a clear division. That is to say,
the shahada continues to connote for Hassan, as it did for IbnTaymiyya, a total way of
being and acting. As a khatTb,his task is to forge a discourse that roots this unity of
speech, emotion, and action in the hearts of his listeners. As I have argued here, the
disciplinary exercises within which cassette sermons are employed presuppose pre-
cisely this understanding of moral action.
In undertaking the practices of cassette discipline I have described here, the ser-
mon listeners I know sought to reconstructtheir own knowledge, emotions, and sensi-
bilities in accord with their models of Islamic moral personhood. I have chosen to
analyze this practice, less in terms of its role in the dissemination of rules of conduct
or the indoctrination of politico-religious subjects than in its relation to the formation
of a sensorium: the visceral orientations enabling of the particular form of life to
which those who undertake the practice aspire. Practices of this kind do not impart
masteryof a specific culturalactivity,but perceptualhabitsthat incline one toward

certainacts, discourses,and gestures.As opposed to the sort of technical skills ac-
quiredin the course of learning,say, the game of chess-skills that inhabita highly
circumscribedarenaof practice-the ethical capacitiescultivatedby the men with
whom I worked were applicable across many contexts and social domains. They
opened up what Merleau-Pontyrefersto as the "antepredicative unity of the world
and of our life"(1962:xviii),renderingthis world as a space of moralaction and the
actoras a moralbeing.
In lightof the analysispresentedhere, I suggesta reconsiderationof traditions,
not simply in terms of doctrines or discourses, but as grounded on perceptual
skills-prediscursive modes of appraisal-shaped within practicesfor which lan-
guage and discourseare essential,but not reducibleto these. I do not referhere to a
generalmodel of enculturation-the idea thatin inhabitinga cultureor class position
one acquires(as it were, unconsciously)the sensibilitiesthatcharacterizethatculture
or socioeconomic location-but to self-reflexivepracticesspecificallygearedto the
inculcation of perceptual habits. In speaking of such embodied capacities as
groundedin and sustainingof the traditionsof Islam,however, I am not suggesting
thatthey constitutea universaland unchangingfundamentbeneaththe actualhistori-
cal and contemporaryheterogeneityof Islamicsocieties. Clearly,the styles of narra-
tion and argumentemployed by contemporarykhutaba',as well as the spaces and
times withinwhich the practiceof auditionoccurs, have been shapedby social and
political modernity-by the institutionalstructuresand practicesof nationalcitizen-
ship and global marketcapitalism.The perceptualcapacitieslistenersseek to culti-
vate aremediated,on the one hand,by functionalpossibilitiesof cassettetechnology,
such as mobility,replay,and discontinuouslistening;andon the other,by the discur-
sive conventionsof the modernprintandtelevisual-basedpublicsphere.Inthis sense,
the sensibilitieshonedthroughthis practicedo not inhabitand reproducea statichis-
toricaledifice, ever identicalwith itself.As TalalAsadhas argued,to conceive of tra-
ditionin thisway is inadequatein the case of Islam:"AnIslamicdiscursivetraditionis
simply a traditionof Muslimdiscoursethat addressesitselfto conceptionsof the Is-
lamicpastandfuture,with referenceto a particularIslamicpracticein the present....
It will be the practitioners'conceptionsof what is apt performance,and of how the
past is relatedto presentpractices,thatwill be crucialfor tradition,not the apparent
repetitionof an old form"(1986:14-15). Whatmakesthe practiceof cassette-sermon
auditionpartof an Islamictraditionis not its exact conformityto a fixed model, but
the fact that, in its contemporaryorganization,assessment,and performance,the
practicerelieson authoritativediscoursesand historicalexemplarsembeddedin that
tradition(Asad1993:210-211, 1999:189-190).
My argumenthere is that, beyondthe discursivepracticesof historicalarticula-
tion emphasized in Asad's remark,anthropologistsshould interrogatetraditionsin
termsof continuitiesof disciplinedsensibilityand the practicesby which these are
created and revised across changing historicalcontexts. My suggestion, in other
words,is thatBenjamin'sanalysisof how the perceptualregimeusheredin by moder-
nityrenderstraditionalworldssilentand invisible-in short,imperceptible(Benjamin
1968b)-and needs be complimentedby a recognitionof the way in which practi-
tionersof a tradition,throughinnovationand adaptation,attemptto cultivateand sus-
tainthe sensoryconditions(themodesof attentionand inattention)thatmakethattra-
ditionviablewithinmoderncontexts(cf. Seremetakis1994:1-22). In "TheStoryteller,"
Benjamin(1968b)arguesthatthe particularcoordinationof "thesoul, eye, and hand"
thatunderliesthe craftof storytellinghas been lostwiththe disappearanceof artisanal
modes of production and their replacement by forms of labor that do not entail or en-
gender such affective-gestural skills (1968b:108). Although Benjamin is clearly cor-
rect to point to such processes of sensory erosion, I would caution against the ten-
dency-encouraged by the concept of modernity-to interpret these as instances
within a totalizing historical process, as disparate manifestations of a singular tele-
ological development. As scholars have increasingly recognized, an account of mod-
ernity can no longer be told simply in terms of the destruction of the old and its re-
placement by the new; modern lives have been shaped by the maintenance of
continuities with past practice, as well as by revivals, reworkings, and rediscoveries,
including rediscoveries of buried sensory experiences (Asad 1993; Chakrabarty2000;
Seremetakis 1994). One might note, in this regard, the decision by an increasing
number of Catholic churches in the United States to returnto a mass in Latin,a lan-
guage that most parishioners clearly cannot "understand,"or, for that matter, the re-
embracing of the "phonics method" for teaching children to read and the negative re-
assessment of the "whole-language method," which emphasizes "the meaning of
words over their sounds" and had been heralded earlier as a more progressive re-
placement for the phonics approach (New York Times 1998:1). These resuscitated
practices shape the perceptual skills by which people live and act.
As in the practice described here, the possibilities for such revival are often
rooted in modernity itself, in the social, political, economic, and technological ele-
ments that define the modern. Thus, to cite a ratherobvious instance, cassette tech-
nology makes the acquisition of a kind of traditional knowledge possible within the
times and spaces of modern urban existence, one where the sort of long-term study,
immersion, and apprenticeship characteristic of Islamic pedagogical practices has be-
come inaccessible and impractical to most people. To speak of "the modern" as an
enabling condition for "traditional practices" may seem to rub against the grain of
(still) normative understandings of these concepts.35 The idea of a distinct temporal
structurethat binds together the constellation of modern elements gives way to a frac-
tured historical space composed of heterogeneous practices, objects, and structures
of varying temporal determinations. As the example presented here suggests, this plu-
rality can be productively explored not simply in terms of languages, discourses, or
practices but also through the disciplined sensibilities against which these become ar-
ticulable.
notes
Acknowledgments.Thisarticleis basedon fieldworkcarriedout in Egyptbetween 1994

and 1996 withthe supportof dissertationgrantsfromthe WennerGrenFoundationforAnthro-
pologicalResearchandthe SocialScience ResearchCouncil.Additionalfundingwas provided
by a CharlotteNewcombeDissertationWrite-upFellowshipanda RockefellerPostdoctoralFel-
lowshipat the Centreforthe Studyof Religion,Universityof Toronto.An earlierversionof this
articlewas presentedat the "UncommonSenses"conferencein Montreal,Canada,April2000.
I would like to thankTalalAsad,JaniceBoddy,MichaelLambek,SabaMahmood,and Anne
Meneley,as well as fouranonymousAEreviewers,fortheircommentson an earlierdraft.
1. Admittedly,biologicalstudiesof sensoryperceptionmaybe germaneto a discussionof
some of the issues I addressin this article;however,inasmuchas my concern here is with the
senses as historical(andnot biological)objects,modelsfromthatdisciplinewill be of limited
use to my analysis.
2. Statisticson the actualnumberof tapessold in Egyptaregenerallyunavailable,andthe
figuressometimessuggestedby journalistsare extremelyunreliable.My own roughestimate
based on data collected in interviewswith companyowners would be aroundone million
commercially producedtapes per year and anotherone to two million producedand sold
illegally.Thatbeingsaid,the factthatmostof the tapesin circulationarefourthgenerationcop-

ies reproducednoncommerciallymakesany realapproximationnearlyimpossible.
3. Foran interestingdiscussionof women's participationin the IslamicRevivalin Egypt,
see Mahmood2001.
4. Themostinterestingand comprehensiveanthropologicalworkson mosquesermonsin
the MiddleEastarethose of Antoun1989 and Gaffney1994.
5. Thereferencehereis to the IslamicGroup,al-Jama'aal-lslamiyya,a militantIslamistor-
ganizationin Egypt.
6. Padwick(1996) providesa usefuldiscussionof this point in relationto Muslimdevo-
tionalpractice.My analysisof the roleof disciplinarypracticein the formationof religiousvir-
tues is greatlyindebtedto Asad'streatmentof thistopic (1993:55-124).
7. Al-TauhTd is putout by Jama'aAnsaral-Sunnaal-Muhammadiyya, a nongovernmental
preachingandwelfareorganizationthatadministersa vastnetworkof mosquesin Egypt.
8. On Islamicmoralphilosophy,see Fakhry1983; Izutsu1966, 1985; Sherif1975.
9. Alltranslationsof the QuranarefromAsad1980. Numbersreferto suraverses.
10. Thus,the firstverseof the chapteral-Shar-"The Opening-Upof the Heart"-begins:
"Havewe notopened upthy heart,and liftedfromthee the burdenthathadweighedso heavily
on thy back?"
11. Myargumentherebearsa certainsimilarityto thatputforwardby a numberof cogni-
tive linguists.Lakoffand Johnson(1980) suggestthat metaphor,as a processby which people
characterizeone domainof meaningintermsof another,is fundamentalto everydaydiscourse,
and not simplya creativeliterarydevice. Inlaterwritings,these authorsarguethatsuch cross-
domain mapping involves what they referto as "image schemata,"cognitive constructs
groundedin repeatedpatternsof bodilyexperiencethatarethen appliedto otherregionsof dis-
courseand experience(Johnson1987; LakoffandTurner1989). Thesense of verticality,forex-
ample, rootedin myriadactivitiesand perceptionssuch as the feelingof standingupright,the
activityof climbingstairs,viewingtall objectssuch as trees,and so forthprovidesa conceptual
metaphorforotherdomains,such as emotions(aswhen we saywe arefeeling"up"or "down"),
or health(e.g., "topshape"),or music (e.g., a "highnote"or an "ascendingscale").A useful
summaryof this work is found in Zbikowski1998. Idepartfromthese authorsin my focus on
specificmethodsof inculcationthroughwhich such perceptualpatterningis learned.
12. Collingwood(1966)came to the questionof receptionin the courseof hisstudyon art.
Indeed,he soughtin thisworkto grounda universaldefinitionof artpreciselyon the basisof an
artwork'sability to produce what he called "an imagined experience of total activity"
(1966:151).AlthoughI have found this partof his argumentratherunconvincing,his work
nonethelessopens a set of usefulquestionsthatare rarelyraisedwithinmostdiscussionsof re-
ception.
13. The phenomenonof synaesthesiahas been addressedfroma numberof disciplinary
perspectives,includingmedical, psychological,aesthetic,and linguistic.Forintroductionsto
thisfieldthatare particularlyrelevantto anthropologicalinquiry,see Classen1993 and Marks
1978.
14. Collingwoodmakesa distinctionbetween "imaginarymotorsensations"and "actual
motorsensations,"which Ido notthinkis usefulforthe contextof sermonaudition(1966:147).
As I describebelow, the responsesof the people I workedwith to sermonspeech fell along a
continuumfromthosewithoutany perceivablecomponentto thoseeasilynotedby an observer.
Atone time, fearwould be visible in an informant'spostureand expression,and at othertimes
not,despitehis claimto be feelingfear.Thismaybe usefullyunderstood,Iwouldargue,notvia
a distinctionbetweenactualand imaginaryexperiences,butbetweendifferentkindsof intensi-
ties or degreesof experientialinvolvement.
15. See Baxandall1988 foran excellentdiscussionof thispointin regardto the reception
of worksof artduringthe Renaissance.
16. Suchintentionalcontentis not somethingmental,locatedin the consciousnessof the
actor,as Husserl(1931) erroneouslyasserted.Rather,it is internalto the habitualactivities(in-
cluding perception)that,with repeatedpractice,people come to perform"naturally" or "un-
thinkingly." As Dreyfusand Dreyfusnote, in commentingon the workof Merleau-Ponty:
Ingeneral,ifthe expertrespondsto each situationas itcomes alongin a waythathasproven

appropriatein the past,his behaviorwill achievethe pastobjectiveswithouthis havingto
havethese objectivesas goals in his consciousor unconsciousmind.Thus,althoughcom-
portmentsmusthave logicalconditionsof satisfaction,i.e., they can succeedor fail,there
need be no mentalisticintentionalcontent,i.e., no representations
of the goal. [1999:113]
17. Collingwoodmakesthispointin regardto habitsof speech:"Iftherewere peoplewho
nevertalkedunlessthey were standingstifflyat attention,it would be becausethatgesturewas
expressiveof a permanentemotionalhabitwhichthey feltobligedto expressconcurrentlywith
anyotheremotionthey mighthappento be expressing"(1966:246-247).
18. Thereis now a substantialbodyof workwithinanthropologythatexploresthe cultural
patterningof emotion.Usefulworksin this regardincludeFeld1982; Irving1990; Kleinmanet
al. 1997; LutzandAbu-Lughod1990.
19. As Augustineargues:
If,however,the hearersrequireto be rousedratherthan instructed,in orderthatthey may
be diligentto do whattheyalreadyknow,andto bringtheirfeelingsintoharmonywiththe
truthsthey admit,greatervigorof speech is needed. Hereentreatiesand reproaches,ex-
hortationsand upbraidings,and all othermeansof rousingthe emotions,are necessary.
[1973:496]
20. Thus,earlymodernChristianpreachers,informedby a moralpsychologythatsaw rea-
son alone as incapableof producingactionwithoutthe assistanceof the passions,gearedmuch
of theirpreachingto the governanceof the passions,a taskthatincludednotjustthe modulation
of emotionalintensitiesbutalso the linkingof those emotionsto theirproperobjects.See Brin-
ton 1992 fora discussionof this issuein relationto 18th-centuryBritishsermons.
21. Fordiscussionof emotion in relationto poetic practicein Arabiccontexts,see Abu-
Lughod1986 and Caton1990.
22. The rhetoricaltechniquesof tarhTb (fromthe verbrahhab,to terrify,frighten)andwacz
(fromwa'az, to warn or admonish) employedin orderto instillfearin the heartof listensso
are
as to steerthem towardcorrectpractice.Theyare the subjectof an extensiveliterature,both
classicaland contemporary,a bodyof workof key importanceto the artof preaching.
23. Thesethreeterms,futir, sukOn,and hurnmd have strongposturaland kinestheticem-
bodiments.Futorin particularexpressesthe sense of a slack, listless body. (My informants
would slouch in theirchairsto depictthis state.)Itis also a word commonlyusedto designate
whatmy informantssaw as the contemporary stateof powerlessnessamongMuslimsocieties.
24. Of course, bothan obedienceto rulesand a measureof belief in doctrinemay be in-
strumentalin the cultivationof these capacities.
25. When listeningtogetherwithothersin a group,it was not uncommonthatone person
would criticizeanotherforbeinginsufficiently attentiveto a sermon,slumpingtoo farbackin a
chair,smokingduringthe audition,or failingto respondproperlywhen the Prophet'snamewas
pronounced.This,of course,does not implythatall who participatein cassette-sermonlisten-
ing bringto itthese ethicalmotivationsor applythemselveswith seriousnessandconcentration
on everyoccasion a tape is used.
26. Althoughtheseschoolshaddeclinedin numberandattendancewiththe riseof obligatory
seculareducationforchildrenin Egypt,theyhavewitnessedsomethingof a comeback,especially
in poorerneighborhoods,in the contextof the IslamicRevivalof recentdecades. Foran excel-
lentanalysisof contemporaryeducationin Egypt,see Starrett1998.
27. The most interestingworksin Englishon thistopic are Denny 1980; Gade 1999; Gra-
ham 1985, 1987; and Nelson 1985. One of the most influentialclassicalMuslimtreatmentsof
thistopic is thatof A. H. al-Ghazali(1984).
28. The verse cited is fromthe chapteral-lsra' (TheNightJourney),pp. 109. The brack-
eted sectionsare in the originaltranslation.
29. Thisis frequentlymarkedgrammatically throughuse of the collectiveplural,as in "We
praiseHim, and we on
rely Him, we ask His forgiveness,"one of the morecommon sermon
openings.
30. Inherstudyof Islamicdevotionalpractices,Padwickdescribesitmi'nan(ortumanTna)

as the stateof physicalandspiritualstillnessthatis achievedby way of repentance.Asshe notes:
"Tumanrna, then, for all its stillness,tranquillustranquillans,is no drowsypeace, but a giftof
grace that can only come to heartsreadyto makethe responseof faithand costly discipline"
(1996:123).
31. Moderntheateraudienceswho go to Shakespeareanplays,or concertaudiencesal-
readythoroughlyfamiliarwiththe compositionstheychoose to hearperformed,participatein a
not dissimilarmanner:despite a foreknowledgeof the storyor musical score, the audience
evaluatesthe qualityof the performancein termsof its abilityto evoke in thema rangeof emo-
tional and intellectualexperiences.On the subject of storytelling,see Tedlock 1983 and
Zumthor1990.
32. One of the mostpopularis a seriesof mosquelessonsbyOmarAbdal-KafientitledDar
al-Akhira(TheHereafter), consistingof 33 tapes.
33. I borrow the expression from Dreyfus who, commentingon Heidegger, notes:
"Heideggerwantsto showthatwe arenot normallythematicallyconsciousof ourongoingeve-
rydayactivity,andthatwherethematicself-referential consciousnessdoes arise,it presupposes
a non-thematic,non-self-referential modeof awareness"(1994:58).
34. The FrenchanthropologistMarcelMauss made a rathersimilarobservationin his
workon bodytechniques:
I believe preciselythatat the bottomof all our mysticalstatesthereare body techniques
which we have not studied,butwhich were studiedfullyin Chinaand India,even in very
remoteperiods.Thissocio-psycho-biologicalstudyshouldbe made. Ithinkthatthereare
necessarybiologicalmeansforenteringinto"communionwith God."[1979:22]
Thisaspectof Mauss'sworkhas been mostusefullyelaboratedby Asad1993:75-77.
35. As shouldbe clear,Ido not referhereto the sortof historicalsleight-of-hand by which
ancient rootsare claimedfor a practicethat is actuallyof recentorigin,what Hobsbawmand
Ranger(1988) referto as an "inventedtradition."
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accepted September 13, 2000

final version submitted October 26, 2000
Charles Hirschkind
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Department of Anthropology
5240 Social Sciences Building
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1393
chirschk@hotmail.com

The Ethics of Listening - Cassette-Sermon Audition in Contemporary Egypt

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The Ethics of Listening - Cassette-Sermon Audition in Contemporary Egypt

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The Ethics of Listening: Cassette-Sermon Audition in Contemporary Egypt

Author(s): Charles Hirschkind

In this article, I focus on the practice of listening to tape-recorded sermons

American Ethnologist28(3):623-649. Copyright? 2001, American Anthropological Association.

also generatedand molded by otherhistories,those embodiedin a community'sex-

Manyof his old friendsdon'twantto be aroundhimany morebecausethey get tired

The common understanding of the kinds of synaesthetic experience Collingwood is

the task of the khatib

comportment. Likemany people I met, he worried that some contemporary preachers

the dance of words

"Listeningwith attention," al-insat, is figured here as a complex sensory skill, one

Duringthe Quranreading,when the Quranreaderreadsa verse on glorificationof

In another section, al-Ghazali furtherelaborates this in terms of "fulfillingthe right"

As is clear from the instructionsal-Ghazali provides, the word of God demands a

correspond to that understanding. As scholars of the contemporary practice of Qura-

sermon reception and ethical sedimentation

of the sermon listeners I knew-the practices, modes of sociability, and attitudinal

(al-qalb). This distinction is no simple metaphorical conceit. Instead, listeners are

masteryof a specific culturalactivity,but perceptualhabitsthat incline one toward

Acknowledgments.Thisarticleis basedon fieldworkcarriedout in Egyptbetween 1994

illegally.Thatbeingsaid,the factthatmostof the tapesin circulationarefourthgenerationcop-

Ingeneral,ifthe expertrespondsto each situationas itcomes alongin a waythathasproven

30. Inherstudyof Islamicdevotionalpractices,Padwickdescribesitmi'nan(ortumanTna)

1999 Religion, Nation-State, Secularism. In Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe

accepted September 13, 2000

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