The art of singing is among the primary things in our present civilization, as is proved by the tender emotions, the sensation, and the feeling it reveals in the depths of man, and by what it stirs in hearts of happy life and of the recovery of a selfhood lost beneath the burden of cares and calamities.
And we see that this art is not among the things to be made light of; rather we see it — if we walk along with history from the civilization of the Greeks down to our own day — as the first pillar in the building of life.
Man looked upon it with an eye of sanctity, and so brought it into his worship, made it one of the complements of worship, and gave it wide scope in his temples. The Psalms of David suffice as witness, as do the words of the verse, "And chant the Qur'an in measured chant" — and the influence of both is plain and evident to this very day.
The psychologists have investigated this subject and encompassed it from every side, and after study and scrutiny they have affirmed that the work of music upon the soul is more powerful in its effect than a thousand orators in a thousand practiced discourses.
Therefore we see that all the nations have introduced it into their armies and have given the national anthems the first place.
It is no secret that the arts point to good taste and refinement of nature, and the more deeply a man enters into the arts of beauty, the more it shows the delicacy of his taste and the fineness of his sensibility.
The Arabs — influenced as they were by the civilization of the Greeks — counted singing and music among the pleasures that cannot be dispensed with, as is the case now in Europe and America. They are among the enjoyments of nature; they do no harm to dignity, but are counted among the instruments of refinement and perfection. And no doubt this accorded with their advancement and their civilization.
Men of learning took up its study without disdain, and this craft was honored by the devotion of the great to it, so that in honor it stood not below the other sciences; for they knew that melodies gladden the spirits and awaken energy in souls. By them the coward is made bold on the fields of battle, the miser made generous, the harsh made gentle, and the weak made strong.
Among the Arabs who won fame in it were Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi,
the philosopher of the Arabs; Ahmad ibn al-Tayyib al-Sarakhsi; Thabit ibn Qurra; Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan; and Ibn Bajja, the Andalusian philosopher, for all his exalted rank; and others besides. All of them were of the highest of the people, men of glory and honor, as history has recorded in the accounts of their lives. Would that we imitated our forefathers in magnifying this art, exalting it, and devoting ourselves to it, so that we might raise up again that beautiful heritage and that lofty culture in this East, which has begun to glimpse the lost light after having forsaken it and slumbered in a dark night of ignorance.
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