Fahmy_2013_“Coming to our Senses.pdf

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its Enlightenment valences, even that notorious source of scopic dominion, seventeenth- andeighteenth-century natural philosophy. 10

Leigh Eric Schmidt, Hearing Things

Ocularcentrism, as popularized by Walter Ong and Marshall McLuhan’s ‘‘great divide’’theory, reies sight and visualism at the apex of a sensory hierarchy, explaining what is

deemed as the detached, objective ‘‘superiority’’ of Western modernity, while contrastingthis to more ‘‘primitive’’ oral and illiterate cultures. In Understanding Media, for example,McLuhan describes ‘‘the inability of oral and intuitive oriental culture to meet with therational, visual European patterns of experience.’’ In Gutengurg’s Galaxy, this line of thinking takes on an even more extreme binary: ‘‘there can be no greater contradictionor clash in human cultures than that between those representing the eye and the ear.’’ 11

This approach has prompted many scholars to characterize Muslim and Arab culture ashaving an exceptionally oral ⁄ aural nature, with an unquestioned oral lineage that is tracedback to early Islam. However, to generalize about how different cultures or civilizationsare more intuitive, or have better ears, or are more visual and objective than others ismisguided at best. It may be true that Islamic and Arab culture have important auraldimensions, but so do all other religions and cultures. 12 It is overly simplistic to declarethat some cultures are more aural or visual than others, which is not only problematic,but more often than not mistaken. Leigh Eric Schmidt’s, Hearing Things for example,expertly discusses the importance of aurality and listening in evangelical 18th and 19thcentury America, demonstrating in part the futility of ranking societies along some arbi-trary visual ⁄ auditory scale. 13 Indeed, there are no objective measures for such broad gen-eralizations, and as is often the case, arguments for cultural exceptionalism are hardly ever fruitful and usually end up essentializing and obfuscating more than explaining and reveal-ing any worthwhile ‘‘truths.’’

As more recent studies of orality ⁄ aurality in Western contexts have revealed, listeningand orality are just as important in European and American contexts, and the supposedshift to a visual centric modernity is exaggerated. In the last decade alone, several scholarsfrom various disciplines have credibly contested these dualistic ocularcentric views. 14

When scholars closely examined diverse early modern and modern societies, they discov-ered that ‘‘hearing and sound remained critical to the elaboration of modernity.’’ AsMark Smith explains in his most recent work on sensory history, ‘‘Virtually all the evi-dence produced by the historians of aurality and hearing of the modern era points to thecontinued importance of hearing and, implicitly at least, heavily discounts the effect printhad on diluting aurality in favor of sight.’’ 15 This is especially true with the advent of sound technologies, from phonographs and telephones at the turn of the 20th century, toMP3 players and iPhones at the beginning of the 21st century.

In the same way that we should avoid positioning societies along an arbitrary sensoryscale, we should refrain from ranking the senses. Indeed, the whole notion of classifyingthe senses along some objectivity continuum is an exercise in futility. There are no tools,in the tool kit of humanists and social scientists at least, that could categorize which oneof our senses is more factual or objective. Despite evidence to the contrary, it is strikinghow visuality has become so ingrained as the objective, scientic sense. The easy waythat a practiced magician can trick the eyes of most observers, or the many studies bycriminal justice scholars and legal psychologists on the unreliability of eyewitness testi-mony is reason enough for a healthy dose of skepticism with regards to the supposedobjectivity of the eye. Perhaps it is best then to leave such broad pronouncements aboutthe sensory objectivity of eyes vs. ears to neuroscientists and cognitive philosophers.

Coming to our Senses 307

ª 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd History Compass 11/4 (2013): 305–315, 10.1111/hic3.12048



Yet this does not mean that historians should avoid analyzing how peoples of the pastcategorized or ranked the senses. Some of the most fruitful work on the history of thesenses is comparativist and historicizes the changing ways that past societies perceived andclassied their own sensory universe. Elites, be they native or colonial, frequently used asensory vocabulary to categorize and marginalize the masses in an arbitrary sensory scale.Common people, for example, were often sonically marginalized by elites as noisy andvulgarly boisterous.

Perhaps, instead of horizontally comparing sensorial ‘‘civilizational’’ differences thatmay exist between different cultures, it would be more useful to vertically historicize andexplore perceived sensorial differences within societies as they become more literate. Inother words, is there a shift in the sensory balance of societies – from a more aural to amore visual hierarchy – as mass literacy is achieved?

TEXTS AND SOUNDS : AN EARWITNESS TO HISTORY ?

One problem that came up immediately when I set out to write sonic history was the belief that, unlike a document, sound is ephemeral, going out of existence even as it happens. … Thiscomparison is misleading, if not mistaken. 16

Richard Cullen Rath

For recent events, like the ongoing ‘‘Arab Spring,’’ or even historical events occurring inthe second half of the 20th century, actual sound and audiovisual recordings are availablefor examination. But what can we do for earlier historical periods? What is a historianwho is interested in the sounds and soundscapes of 17th century Ottoman Empire to do?How are we supposed to ll in this sensory gap when writing about historical periodsbefore the advent of recording technology? The obvious answer to these questions isfound in the very same texts that historians have been using throughout, or as R. MurraySchaffer has stated in several of his works on sound, historians ‘‘will have to turn to ear-witness accounts’’ from the historical record. 17 Not only have we as historians been deaf when examining sources, but we automatically assume that the primary texts we are read-ing were written by authors who were also deaf and mute. Just because we visually readthe texts (silently) in the libraries and archives, does not mean that the writers wereexclusively depicting visual ‘‘observations’’ in their writings. People absorb information,be it physical or cultural, from their immediate environment using all ve integratedsenses. Lest we forget, the physical act of writing is as much tactile as it is visual, and theinformation being conveyed will inevitably be multisensory.

Historians often have no problem accepting the visual observations made within archi-val texts and other written sources, yet written documentation of sounds and noise areeither neglected or assumed to be less accurate than visual observations. 18 Part of theproblem, as referenced above by Richard Cullen Rath, is the mistaken belief that unlikevisual observation, sound and hearing is especially ephemeral – dissipating into thin air assoon as it is sounded. But aren’t all of our sensory perceptions eeting, including thesupposedly objective and scientic sense of vision? A writer can only document thememories of what they may have heard, seen, smelled, touched, or tasted. All of thesesensory impressions, including the visual, are in this sense ephemeral and are recalled andwritten down after those events have taken place. This is true, even if historical chroni-clers have pen in hand, ready to ‘‘instantaneously’’ document an event, since all sensoryrecollections are processed cerebrally before being recalled and selectively reconstructedvia ink on the page. Also, these ‘‘visual’’ written impressions, it is oft forgotten, are phys-

308 Coming to our Senses




call to prayer? How did that change over time? Did the Mu’adhins from Morocco to Irandevelop different regional styles? How did different communities throughout the MiddleEast react to the eventual introduction of loud speakers as the preferred method for thecall to prayer? What where the acoustic implications of this? 21 How did the religiousscholarly community justify the use of loudspeakers in legal Islamic terms? How contro-versial was this transition? These are just some of the questions that need to be askedabout the acoustical and socio-cultural functions of the adhan.22

Aside from the sounds of the call to prayer emanating outwards from the minarets,what about the acoustical qualities inside of congregational mosques and churches? Beforeloudspeakers became prevalent in modern society, acoustical design was critical to anylarge congregational building. Indeed, recent acoustical studies by architectural historiansand acoustical engineers have shown the relatively great acoustical properties of severalmedieval mosques and churches. Cultural and social historians now have a growing num-ber of these technical acoustical studies, which can prove very useful in examining theacoustical space of historic mosques and churches throughout the Middle East. Some of those studies examine the acoustic strength, cognition and speech intelligibility of lec-tures, khutbas, and prayers not just in congregational mosques but in the madrassas thatare a part of some of these complexes. 23 Even the acoustical effects of carpets and thesonic ‘‘absorption characteristics of Muslim worshipers’’ as they stand, bow, prostrate andsit in rows has been measured. 24

Pious and other religious sounds, whether from minarets or mosque and church pul-pits, are just one among dozens of everyday sounds in any Middle Eastern town or city.To put this in perspective, ’Ali Pasha Mubarak’s late 19th century survey of Cairocounted over one thousand coffee shops compared to just 264 mosques. 25 Coffee shopsin the Middle East almost always extend outdoors onto the sidewalks and streets. Exceptin the coldest winter days, most of the clientele sat outside with obvious sonic implica-tions to the wider neighborhood. As newer, louder technologies like gramophones, radiosand television sets were introduced, the acoustic imprints of coffee shops must have alsodramatically increased. 26 An examination of urban and architectural acoustics can be veryvaluable to social and cultural historians in a variety of ways, as masterfully demonstratedby Emily Thompson in The Soundscape of Modernity (2002).27 How did the soundscapesof Middle Eastern cities change as their urban morphology was transformed in the lastcouple of centuries? The acoustics of wider streets and large squares are different than thesmall alleys of the older more traditional urban areas. As the streets were converted frompacked earth to paved cobble stone and asphalt, the sounds of animal and wheeled trafcalso changed. With tramways, trains and the steady increase in automobile trafc in the

20th century, the sounds and the decibel levels of the cities and towns of the Middle Eastwere also transformed. Each historic time and locale has its varied natural, animal, andhuman sounds that play an important role in dening the place to its inhabitants. Thesesounds and noises have an assortment of economic, environmental, social, and culturalimplications, which are vital for a more well-rounded historical understanding of the past.

Conclusion: Towards a Multisensory History

There are many more historical dimensions to be discovered if we are open to consider-ing sound as a serious inquiry in understanding the past. Sound historian Jonathan Sterne

accurately declared that ‘‘there is always more than one map for a territory, and soundprovides a particular path through history.’’ 28 With few recent exceptions, historians of the Middle East have yet to fully explore that path, making the past seem silent, devocal-





Notes* Correspondence: Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, 416 White Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853,USA. Email: [email protected].

1 Y. Fathi, ‘‘Egypt’s ‘Battle of the Camel’: The Day the Tide Turned’’, Ahram Online, 2 February 2012. [Online].Retrieved on 4 May 2012 from: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/33470.aspx2

Fathi, ‘‘Egypt’s ‘Battle of the Camel’’. [Online]. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/33470.aspx3 V. Walt, ‘‘The Fighting Rages On in Tahrir Square’’, Time Magazine , 3 February 2011. [Online]. Retrieved on10 May 2012 from: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2045943,00.html4 D. Howes, The Sixth Sense Reader (London: Berg Publishers, 2009), 35; M. Bull et al., ‘Introducing SensoryStudies’, Senses and Society, 1 (2006): 5–7.5 For example, see P. C. Hoffer, Sensory Worlds in Early America (Baltimore, 2003); C. A. Jones, Eyesight Alone:Clement Greenbergs Modernism and the Bureaucratization of the Senses (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); R.Horowitz, Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste, Technology, Transformation (Baltimore, 2006); M. M. Smith,How Race Is Made: Slavery Segregation, and the Senses (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); A.Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination (Harvard University Press, 1988).6 For example, see L. Schmidt, Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass.,2000); P. C. Hoffer, Sensory Worlds in Early America (Baltimore, 2003); R. C. Rath, ‘Hearing American History’,The Journal of American History, 95 ⁄ 2 (2008): 417–31. A. Corbin, Village Bells: Sound and Meaning in the 19th-CenturyFrench Countryside , Trans. Martin Thom (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); B. Smith, The Acoustic World of Early Modern England: Attending to the O-Factor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); M. M. Smith,‘Listening to the Heard Worlds of Antebellum America’, Journal of the Historical Society, 1 (2000): 65–99; M. M.Smith, Listening to Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); M. M.Smith, (ed.), Hearing History: A Reader (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004); and R. C. Rath, How Early America Sounded (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003); E. Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1930 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002).7 M. M. Smith, ‘Introduction: Onward to Audible Pasts’, in M. M. Smith (ed.), Hearing History: A Reader , (Athens:University of Georgia Press, 2004), ix.8 For a more detailed examination of some of the latest anthropological and media studies work on the modernArab World, see M. Zayani, ‘Toward a Cultural Anthropology of Arab Media: Reections on the Codication of Everyday Life’, History and Anthropology, 22 ⁄ 1 (2012): 37–56; and W. Armbrust, ‘Audiovisual Media and History of the Middle East’, in A. Singer and I. Gershoni (eds.), History and Historiographies of the Modern Middle East , (Seattle,WA: University of Washington Press, 2006), 288–312.9 C. Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2006).10 Schmidt, Hearing Things, 22.11 M. McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 5; M. McLuhan,The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 1962), 68. For anexcellent critique and analysis of Ong and McLuhan’s theories see, Schmidt, Hearing Things, 1–22.12 For examples of some important anthropological and historical studies on orality in Islamic and Arab culturessee, B. Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); K. Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Quran (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press,2001); D. F. Reynolds, Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arabic Oral Epic Tradition(Cornell University Press, 1995); J. Pedersen, The Arabic Book (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983); G.Schoeler, The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the Aural to the Read (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,2009).13 Schmidt, Hearing Things.14 For example, see Corbin, Village Bells; Corbin, Time, Desire, and Horror ; Schmidt, Hearing Things; Smith, Sensing the Past ; and Hirschkind , Ethical Soundscape ; J. Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Dur-ham: Duke University Press, 2003)15 Smith, Sensing the Past , 48.16 Rath, ‘Hearing American History’, 417.17 R. M. Schaffer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (Vermont: Destiny Books,1994 [1977]), 8.18 I would argue that it is not a conscious neglect, but we are conditioned to elevate the visual above the other senses. Perhaps because historians are by denition highly literate, we intuitively privilege a more visual and silentunderstanding of reading and knowledge acquisition.19

For one of the few articles on olfactory history by a historian of the Middle East see: K. Fahmy, ‘An OlfactoryTale of Two Cities: Cairo in the Nineteenth Century’, in J. Edwards (ed.), Historians in Cairo: Essays in Honor of George Scanlon, (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2002), 155–87.





20 Rath, ‘Hearing American History’, 417.21 A recent study by Naveeda Khan, an anthropologist of South Asia, does an excellent job of examining the cul-tural impact of the adhan’s change to loud speakers in 1950s Pakistan. More studies like this one are needed by his-torians of the Middle East. See, Naveeda Khan, ‘The Acoustics of Muslim Striving: Loudspeaker Use in RitualPractice in Pakistan,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, 53 (2011): 571–94. In another recent article, ethno-musicologist Eve McPherson in part compares the pitch, melody and vocal style of the call to prayer in Turkeywith that in Syria and Egypt. E. McPherson, ‘Political History and Embodied Identity- Discourse in the Turkish

Call to Prayer’, Music & Politics, 5 ⁄

1 (2011): 10–13.22 For an excellent examination of the mandated use of the call to prayer in Turkish instead of Arabic in 1930sTurkey, see E. McPherson, ‘‘Political History and Embodied Identity- Discourse in the Turkish Call to Prayer’’.23 For example, see A. El-khateeb and M. Ismail, ‘Sounds From the Past: The Acoustics of Sultan Hassan Mosqueand Madrassa’, Building Acoustics, 14 ⁄ 2 (2007): 109–32; Z. Su a and S. Yilmazerb, ‘The Acoustical Characteristics of the Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara, Turkey’, Architectural Science Review , 51 ⁄ 1 (2008): 21–30; N. Ergin, ‘The Sound-scape of Sixteenth-Century Istanbul Mosques: Architecture and Qur’an Recital’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 6 ⁄ 2 (2008): 204–21; R. N. Hammad, ‘RASTI Measurements of Mosques in Amman, Jordan’, Applied Acoustics, 30, (1990): 335–45; A. A. Abdou, ‘Measurement of acoustical characteristics of mosques in Saudi Arabia’,The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 113 ⁄ 3 (2003): 1505–17; M. Galindo, T. Zamarren ˜ o, and S. Giro n,‘Acoustic Analysis in Mudejar-Gothic Churches: Experimental Results’, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Amer-ica, 117 ⁄ 5 (2005): 2873–88.24 D. J. Oldham and A. Elkhateeb, ‘The Absorption Characteristics of Muslim Worshippers’, Building Acoustics,

15 ⁄ 4 (2008): 335–48.25 A. Mubarak, al-Khitat al-Tawqiyya, 7 vols. (Cairo: Matba‘at Dar al-Kutub wa al-Watha’iq al-Qawmiyya, 2005),vol. 1, 218, 238.26 For an examination of the role of cafe s and aurality in early 20th century Egyptian society see Z. Fahmy, Ordin-ary Egyptians: Creating the modern Nation through Popular Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 145–47.27 E. Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900– 1930 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002).28 J. Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 3.29 See for example, Fahmy, Ordinary Egyptians; A. Stanton, ‘A Little Radio is a Dangerous Thing: State Broadcast-ing in Mandate Palestine, 1936–1949’, Ph.D. diss. (Columbia University, 2007); and G. C. Woodall, ‘Sensing theCity: Sound, Movement, and the Night in 1920s Istanbul’, Ph.D. diss. (New York University, 2008).30 For example see the works of ethnomusicologists like Virginia Danielson, Jihad Racy, Fredric Lagrange, MichaelFrishkopf, Richard Jankowsky and Martin Stokes.

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