The Awakening of Islamic Pop Music

By: Jonas Otterbeck

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Hardcover | 31 August 2021

At a Glance

Hardcover
224 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.4 x 15.6 x 1.91

Hardcover

$237.25

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Awakening - an Islamic media company formed in London - has created the soundtrack to many Muslim lives during the last two decades. It has produced three superstars (Sami Yusuf, Maher Zain and Harris J.) among a host of other artists. As the company celebrates their first 20 years in the industry, Jonas Otterbeck examines their remarkable rise to success and their established reputation as one of the most important global enterprises producing pop music inspired by Islam. Otterbeck thoroughly describes the history and development of new Islamic popular music genres, in particular pop-nashid and Islamic pop, for the first time. He argues that Awakening - a company with the ambition to portray itself as Islamic - is best understood in relation to the ethical turn in Islamic thinking. In analysing the turn to ethics, he explores how the Islamic pop industry is, in effect, altering the very formulations of Islamic thought. Closely examining the ethical masculinity of the Awakening
artists, alongside their personas in songs, on stage and on social media, the book analyses how popular culture and the creative arts challenge Islamic (re)thinking.

Industry Reviews

Jonas Otterbeck's book is an ethnographically rich study of the rapid and massive emergence of a new phenomenon: Islamic pop music. [...] Overall, I believe Otterbeck's work should be acknowledged by a wider readership than the sole circle of Islamic Studies.

--Fran?ois Gauthier, Universit? de Fribourg "Journal of Contemporary Religion Vol 38, Issue 2 (2023)"

Otterbeck, who toured with several Awakening artists, argues that the development of new global musical idioms and superstars reflects a turn among Muslims away from doctrine and religious law to a focus on ethics in contemporary religious practice.

-- "Foreign Affairs"

Overall, the book is an insightful and entertaining read and will be of interest to students, researchers and teaching staff in Islamic studies, cultural studies, musicology, cultural anthropology and the social sciences. [...] The vivid writing style and the use of extensive field material will also appeal to the general public interested in the everyday practices and cultural preferences of Muslims as part of a global popular culture.

--Maruta Herding, German Youth Institute "Journal of Muslims in Europe 13 (2024)"

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