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“Religion Never Had it so good“: Contemporary Nasyid and the Growth of Islamic Popular Music in Malaysia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Margaret Sarkissian
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Extract

The Taliban in Afghanistan and the hardline clergy in Iran might regard them as blasphemous, but in Malaysia Islamic pop groups are a hit, even with fundamentalist politicians. Nasyid groups, as they are known, are winning awards for using their talents to bring people closer to Islam. (MGW 13 June 1999)

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 37 , 2005 , pp. 124 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 By The International Council for Traditional Music

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Footnotes

1

This paper results from a Smith College Kahn Institute seminar on “Religious Tolerance and Intolerance” (2001-02). I would like to thank seminar leader Dennis Hudson and the other seminar members, especially Mary Ellen Birkett. Thanks are also owed to Shayn Smulyan, who helped analyse some of the music; Anna Sloan, who shared her knowledge of Islamic art and showed me how to look up Surahs in the Qur'an; Frank Citino and Kelly Salloum for their help with the digital photographs; the Kahn Institute and Smith College for funding research in Malaysia for this project; the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions; and finally, my husband, Jerry Dennerline, who has patiently listened to more nasyid music than he ever knew existed. “Religion never had it so good” is a comment about nasyid from an otherwise unrelated story by Errol de Cruz in the New Straits Times, 28 September 2001.

References

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