The changing face of Muslim music and culture (with special mention of the Sami Yusuf concert)

Yesterday evening I was introduced to a whole new dimension of Muslim culture - the Muslim pop concert. The event - which will be memorable for all sorts of reasons - was organised by Islamic Relief in conjunction with the Awakening label, Emel magazine and several other Muslim organisations to raise awareness and funds for the crisis in Darfur.

Although billed as the Peace for Darfur concert, and referred to affectionately as the Muslim Live8 it was colloquially known as the Sami Yusuf concert and featured a number of musical acts from Europe and the USA. It was held at Wembley arena to a packed audience, who watched and participated in the proceedings avidly. Check out the video clip here - it starts with roaring from the audience for Sami Yusuf, followed by much screaming and cheering all the way through during the pop, rock, country and western and hip hop acts. Had you wandered in unaware of the evenings proceedings you would have been hard pressed to put your finger on the Islamic content of the music. I'm sure that last comment will dub me as a fuddy duddy, but there was something slightly unnerving about the screaming hijabi women waving their hands about and getting jiggy with it (i kid you not), and even proferring yelps of "I love you Sami Yusuf".

On the other hand, cultural development requires us to be challenged and search for the truth of artistry and spirituality through new creative methods. Thus I watch these new artistic and musical developments with interest and excitement. 'Music' that we currently consider to be Islamic did not develop from a vacuum but rather from the creative spark of faith and cultural expression. As Islam and Muslims interact with Western cultures we are now witnessing that creative process first hand. The artistic and spiritual challenge is to retain meaning and truth.

As British, European and Western Muslims it is important that we explore these new avenues and not reject them completely without understanding that new situations and cultures will push us to discover, create and assess new arts. Whether we agree or disagree with the specific outputs is a different discussion.

On a completely different note, I had no idea that Sami Yusuf was such a big star and celebrity. He's a good looking, modest humble chap with a beautiful voice and he elicits overwhelming adulation bordering on close to hero-worship. I felt like I'd stepped into a boy band concert with thousands of adoring groupies - and by and large the fans were indeed female. He says he doesn't like the adoration, but he didn't say or do anything to stop it. When he spoke, the audience was utterly silent. Fortunately he harnasses his adoration to draw attention to the fact of things such as that you can be both British and Muslim as he encouraged everyone to assert last night, or of the plight of those in Darfur which he visited before the concert.