Islam, Oral Knowledge, and Thoughts in Between



UPDATE FOR OUR PROFESSORS: I would have done an interview-based post during this unit; however, the professor I was going to interview has been ill and thus unable to meet with me. I hope to hold that interview soon though and post about it ASAP. Now, unto today's post!

Carving of Arabian Musicians

As we conclude our unit on Oral Knowledge, I would like to discuss the discoveries I have made so far by examining what I have learned about Islamic Culture, particuarly with reference to the Umayyad Dynasty. By touching on the significance of music and drama in Islamic culture, I have come realize that art is essential to keeping a culture alive. If utilized, music and drama will enhance a culture's history, by providing a way to preserve it, as evidenced by the traditional performance of Ta'ziyeh. Not only that, but the language and important texts will better be remembered as shown through Cairo's use of song to teach the Qu'ran during the time of the Umayyads.

The tradition of performing arts help maintain history. Because of the story-telling and ritualistic side of drama and music, a civilization like the Islam can retain knowledge of its forefathes, who had no written form of communication, through performance. However, if a civilization that depends heavily on oral knowledge does not strive to preserve its performing arts, a very vital aspect of and potentially the entire culture could be lost, thus unveiling oral knowledge's greatest flaw.

Every form of knowledge has its weakness. Retainability is oral knowledge's. This very fact was brought up during Sister Burton's presentation of Choral Learning. In order to remember something learned orally, it must be repeated over and over again.

I recently had an experience with this. For my Acting Fundamentals class, each of us have been assigned a scene from a contemporary play to perform with a partner. About two weeks ago, my partner and I had our scene perfectly memorized and felt fairly comfortable with it. We performed it in class and it was great! On Tuesday of this coming week, we're going to perform the scene again and this time it's suppose to be even more fluid than before. Unfortunately though, we haven't practiced it for nearly two weeks and quickly discovered in our last practice that we did not know this scene at all. In just two weeks we went from having a perfect knowledge to having a very broken knowledge. Two weeks! Imagine then, what two millenia could do to an unpracticed perfect knowledge.

Written Hadith

Even if the knowledge isn't lost, it can become horribly warped over time. A prime example of this in Islamic culture is hadith, an oral means of passing on the teachings of Muhammed. Essentially, Muslims would pass on would spread by word-of-mouth, saying of Muhammed, much like a giant, ancient game of telephone. At the time, none of these sayings were recorded, hence it could be easy for the information to be warped or even lost. Fortunately for Islam though, hadith was eventually recorded. Whether it is in its pure form or not could be debatable, but the sayings as they are now known have been preserved through a written medium.

This example serves as evidence that all knowledge, whether it be folk, oral, or written is best remembered when it is preserved in more than one way. The performing arts for instance, could be considered a form of folk and oral knowledge. Because of the kinetic and teaching aspect (as with dance) of the performing arts, it is both folk and oral knowledge. In this way, it is much easier to keep alive than other aspects of a culture.

The Bible and Book of Mormon work together
to keep the Gospel alive

In a way, this reminds me of the two-nail analogy about the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Each book represents a nail. When a picture is hung on one nail, it is difficult to hang straight. Even if it does hang straight, a small nudge can throw the picture completely off balance. But if a second nail is added parallel to the first, the picture hangs much more steadily. Now if the picture is pushed, it will still stay straight. Interpretting the metaphor, the Book of Mormon adds strength to the Bible. Where the Bible falters, the Book of Mormon supports it. It keeps the Bible from being misunderstood. It keeps the picture hanging just as it should.

Similarly, written and folk knowledge fill in the holes of oral knowledge. While oral knowledge is necessary to a culture, left alone it is lost. That's why written and folk knowledge are so important. They keep the information passed down through oral means from being warped. They give it strength. They keep it alive.