Yuskaev (Timur R.), The Qur’an Heard. Sound Poetics in Three American Sermons, London, Routledge, ("Routledge Studies in the Qur’an"), 2024, 176 p. ISBN 9781032871684

Author

Timur Yuskaev is Associate Professor of Contemporary Islam, Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, U.S.A.

Presentation

For many Muslims, there is an inseparable connection between sound and meaning, particularly when it comes to Islamic verse and scripture. This provides fertile ground for a comparative study across traditions and forms.

Timur Yuskaev offers a meditation on the Qur’an and human sensibilities, heard together, in American Muslim sermons. Foregrounding sound, poetry and music, it is a cultural anthropology of the Qur’an, carried out in conversation with colleagues in multiple disciplines, including Religions in America, Qur’anic, Islamic, Memory, Communication, and Sound Studies. The author draws upon the works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Charles Long, Mary Douglas and many others to hear mysticism in a homiletic symphony by Warith Deen Mohammed, to sense the experience of the covenant in a three-minute, ribbon-cutting speech by Aras Konjhodzic, and to appreciate the Qur’anic musicality of a down-to-earth interfaith address by Sarah Sayeed.

Contents

1. Introduction: On Sound; 2. “pitch”; 3. “emanet”; 4. “habits of the heart”; Addendum: Sarah Sayeed, “Moving From Walls to Bridges”; References; Index