Music Education and Muslims

Abstract

Diana Harris presents her research on teaching music to Muslim students in the United Kingdom. She argues that music educators have to take into account that music is a sensitive issue formanyMuslims. The fact that music education is compulsory for British pupils until the age of fourteen presents an ethical dilemma for those who, for religious reasons, do not feel comfortable participating in music classes.With this book, the author intends to help state schoolteachers understand the history and position of music in Islamand help teachers in state and independent Islamic schools provide music classes that their students might find more acceptable. Harris has drawn upon her extensive experience as a music educator in the United Kingdom at schools where the pupils have been predominantly Muslim. Her other sources include interviews conducted between 1999- 2005; participant-observation fieldwork undertaken at schools in the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey; and scholarly sources concerning music and Islam. Harris stresses that she has tried to approach this topic as delicately as possible, and that in her capacity as a music teacher, she would never force her pupils to participate in activities that run counter to their personal beliefs. How the musical components of the national curriculum (performing, composing, listening, and appraising) are to be achieved depends upon the individual teacher, who can, therefore, tailor classes to the needs of specific pupils ...