Music Music in Afghanistan
by
Mark Slobin
  • LAST REVIEWED: 23 September 2019
  • LAST MODIFIED: 15 January 2020
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0261

Introduction

The literature on the musics of the peoples of Afghanistan is recent and small. Due to the cross-regional setting, Afghanistan’s music cultures and literature overlap with three neighboring zones: the Iranian, the Central Asian, and the South Asian. The citations in this article are only for modern Afghanistan proper. European travelers described Kabul’s 19th-century court music and offered stray, casual accounts of folk musics. But the kingdom was not open to Western researchers until the 1950s. Only a few scholars were able to complete fieldwork before the tragic cycle of invasions and wars began in 1979. Massive dislocation and destruction eroded social customs and networks, cultural monuments, and sources. For music, the worst period was under the rule of the Taliban (1996–2001), who actively suppressed music, which survived mainly in clandestine domestic performance and public religious/propaganda formats. The post-2001 situation saw revival of traditions, but no new literature on music, with the notable exception of the historical survey Sarmast 2009 (cited under General Overviews). As a result of this turbulent history, nearly all the writing on the topic comes from the pens of only five scholars: John Baily, Veronica Doubleday, Hiromi Lorraine Sakata, Felix Hoerburger, and Mark Slobin. Sakata, Baily, Doubleday, and Sarmast assisted with the preparation of this article.

General Overviews

Sarmast 2009 is the only extended attempt to provide a history of music in Afghanistan in English. Beliaev 1960, the only Soviet study of Afghanistan, is skimpy. Baily’s two essays (Baily 1994, Baily 2015) offer fine coverage of recent decades. Baily 2001, commissioned by the organization Freemuse, surveys earlier history in the context of the Taliban era of 1996–2001, with its extreme suppression of musical expression. Sakata 1985 investigates the category of “musician” in general. Sakata 2012 offers a general-audience account of Afghan music history. Shahrani 2010 covers a wide variety of topics, from biographies of musicians through Islam’s relationship to music and how Afghan music fits into the regional context. Qanun e tarab takes up only the period before the importation of Indian musicians in the mid-19th century. The works in Afghan languages remain untranslated and unavailable for review. Küppers and Bleier 2016 is a set of short contributions from a 2014 conference.

  • Baily, John. “The Role of Music in the Creation of an Afghan National Identity, 1923–73.” In Ethnicity, Identity and Music. Edited by Martin Stokes, 45–60. Oxford: Berg, 1994.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Covers the monarchy under the kings Amanullah and Zahir Shah.

    Find this resource:

  • Baily, John. “Can You Stop the Birds Singing?” The Censorship of Music in Afghanistan. Copenhagen: Freemuse, 2001.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An account of the suppression of music during the Taliban era (1996–2001).

    Find this resource:

  • Baily, John. War, Exile and the Music of Afghanistan: The Ethnographer’s Tale. Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Combines historical overview with a personal account of the author’s involvement in Afghan music. Includes a DVD with four of Baily’s many films: Amir: An Afghan Refugee Musician’s Life in Peshawar, Pakistan (1985); A Kabul Music Diary (2003); Tablas and Drum Machines: Afghan Music in California (2005); Across the Border: Afghan Musicians Exiled in Peshawar (2008); and Return of the Nightingales (2013). For Amir, a detailed print study guide was published by Documentary Educational Resources.

    Find this resource:

  • Beliaev, Viktor Mikhaikovich. Afganskaia narodnaia muzyka. Moscow: Sovetskii Kompositor, 1960.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The only Soviet work on Afghan music, a slim survey. [Title translation: Afghan folk/national music.]

    Find this resource:

  • Küppers, Philip, and Laurina Bleier, eds. Music in Afghanistan: Tradition and Transformation; Historical Perspectives and Current Positions on Afghan Music and Society. Proceedings of a symposium held at the University of Kabul, Afghanistan, November 2014. Weimar, Germany: Franz List University of Music, 2016.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An anthology of short contributions culled from a conference cosponsored by the Franz List University and the University of Kabul in 2014, covering many topics, including comparisons to Indian music, musical instrument makers, archiving and digitization of music, women’s status, and social media presentation.

    Find this resource:

  • Madadi, Abdul Wahab. Sar-guzasht musiqi mu’āsir Afghanistan. Tehran, Iran: Hauza Hunari, 1996.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Madadi was deputy director of the Music Department at Radio Afghanistan (1967–1974) and then director (1974–1992), playing a key role in transitional periods. A second edition was published in 2011, with added photographs. [Title translation: The story of contemporary music of Afghanistan.]

    Find this resource:

  • Qiyam, Siddiq. As sader ta awaz. n.d.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Sources are unavailable if not offered in current version. [Title translation: From the source to song.]

    Find this resource:

  • Sakata, Hiromi Lorraine. “Musicians Who Do Not Perform; Performers Who Are Not Musicians: Indigenous Conceptions of Being an Afghan Musician.” Asian Music 17.1 (1985): 132–142.

    DOI: 10.2307/833745Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A survey of the indigenous categories of “musician” in Afghanistan.

    Find this resource:

  • Sakata, Hiromi Lorraine. “Music in Afghanistan.” Education about Asia 17.2 (2012): 18–22.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The article gives the general reader an overview of music as defined in Afghan culture with a description of regional folk, urban classical, and popular music from the 1950s through the early years of the 21st century. History of music, musical forms, and genres in Afghanistan, the region, and the West.

    Find this resource:

  • Sarmast, Ahmad. A Survey of the History of Music in Afghanistan: Special Reference to Art Music from c. 1000 A. D. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag, 2009.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The only general history of music in Afghanistan, based on the author’s 2004 dissertation (Monash University, Australia). Sarmast positions Afghan music between Khorasan (Iran) and northwest India. He surveys the 19th-century court music tradition and the incursion of Western music. Includes a rare chapter on Pashtun music. Contains useful references for articles in local languages and periodicals.

    Find this resource:

  • Shahrani, Enayatullah. Qanun e tarab. n.d.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    History of music in Afghanistan before the arrival of Hindustani music influence. Reprint of a book by Ustad Sarahang, with extensive commentary and photos of Afghan singers. [Title translation: The law of music.]

    Find this resource:

  • Shahrani, Enayatullah. Saz wa awaz dar Afghanistan. 2 vols. Kabul, Afghanistan: Baihaqi Publishing House of the Ministry of Information and Culture of Afghanistan, 2010.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Contains a discussion of the place of music in Islam, the cultural relationship between Khurasan and the Indian subcontinent, opinions of religious and scholarly writers on music, and biographies of musicians/singers, organized by genre and style of music. [Title translation: Instrumental and vocal music in Afghanistan.]

    Find this resource:

Reference Works

There are very few reference works on the music of Afghanistan, and all have been organized by John Baily, with collaborators. Baily 2001 is the most extensive online survey. Baily’s coauthored encyclopedia articles of 1999 and 2000, Baily and Doubleday 1999 and Baily and Misdaq 2000, offer regional surveys.

Regional and Interregional Studies

Almost all work on Afghan music has been done by Baily, Doubleday, Sakata, and Slobin, who concentrated on the northern tier, from Herat to Badakhshan, the Hazarajat in the center, and the capital Kabul, so there is little fieldwork-based coverage of textual study of the music of the Pashtuns, the majority population, beyond what is in Hoerburger 1969 (cited under Eastern Provinces, Pashtun Music), based on a short sojourn.

Nuristan

Pagan until almost 1900 (hence its early name, Kafiristan), this northeastern mountain region carried on traditions of instrumental music and dance, including rare regional polyphony unparalleled in Afghanistan and surrounding areas. The classic description of pre-Islamic customs, including music, can be found in George Scott Robertson, Kafirs of the Hindu Kush (London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896). Alvad 1954 is a brief introduction expanded on by the extensive survey in Irgens-Møller 2009, a sumptuous reconstruction of the fieldwork of two Danish researchers, Lennart Edelberg and Klaus Ferdinand (1953–1954, 1964–1970).

Eastern Provinces, Pashtun Music

Though the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group of Afghanistan, the literature on their music is the smallest. Hoerburger 1969, though based on short fieldwork, is a benchmark, while Baily and Misdaq 2000 offers somewhat specialized surveys in condensed form. Musici folkloric de Afghanistan is a locally produced miscellany of sources of uncertain date and motivation. A main form of sung folk poetry is the two-line, pithy landai (with various spellings), for which there is a condensed account on Wikipedia. There are also long epic songs, music for the attan dance, considered the “national dance” of Afghanistan, and other genres. Performance of Pashto songs emerging from wartime conditions can be seen in John Baily’s documentary film Amir: An Afghan Refugee Musician’s Life in Peshawar Pakistan (1985).

  • Baily, John, and Nabi Misdaq. “Southeastern Afghanistan.” In South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent. Vol. 5 of The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Edited by Alison Arnold, 833–843. New York and London: Garland, 2000.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A short regional survey from the major scholars of the area.

    Find this resource:

  • Hoerburger, Felix. Volksmusik in Afghanistan nebst einem Exkurs über Qor’ân-Rezitation und Thora-Kantillation in Kabul. Regensburg, Germany: Gustav Bosse Verlag, 1969.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The first published book on Afghan music, based on a short mid-1960s visit to the eastern provinces. Of note for work on the oboe-drum (sorna-dhol) music of celebrations and the only (brief) writing on Quʾranic recitation and Afghan Jewish cantillation.

    Find this resource:

  • Jouwak, Din Mohammad-e. Musici folkloric de Afghanistan. Kabul, Afghanistan: Baihaqi Publishing House of the Ministry of Information and Culture of Afghanistan, n.d.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Pashto songs, attan dances, interview with Faroukh Afandi, who introduced Western notation to Afghan music. [Title translation: Folk music of Afghanistan.]

    Find this resource:

Northern Provinces

The Northern Provinces are perhaps the best-covered region of Afghanistan. Slobin 1969 is the first dissertation on Afghan music, focusing principally on the description, distribution, and genres of instrumental music of the North. Slobin 1970 summarizes the correlation between the types of towns in the North (local market town, crossroads town, administrative center, regional center) and their musical life. Slobin 1976 is a region-wide survey, recently made available online through Slobin 2002, a multimedia website, and the more comprehensive database of The Mark Slobin Fieldwork Archive: Music in the Afghan North, 1967–1972. Slobin 1971 analyzes text-tune relationships in one body of Badakhshani song. Slobin, et al. 1970 is the only study of Central Asian shamanism’s survival in an Afghan context. Sakata 1983a helpfully links the North to two other Persian-speaking regions, Herat and Hazarajat. Sakata 1983b and Sakata 2000 are overlapping studies, the only analyses of the epic singing traditions of northern Afghanistan, related to adjacent Central Asia and Middle Eastern practices.

Hazarajat

This region, in the center of Afghanistan, is an enclosed mountainous area with a distinctive population and local culture. Sakata 1966 is the benchmark study and stands alone except for Sakata 1987, which helpfully focuses on women’s music of the region.

Herat

The city of Herat was a major center of Khorasani court literary and musical culture in the 16th century; it is culturally linked to adjacent Iranian territory. It has been richly documented since the 1970s by the husband-and-wife team of John Baily and Veronica Doubleday. Baily 1976 and Baily 1980 offer detailed studies of instruments and their repertoires. Baily 1988b and Doubleday 1988 offer a remarkable pairing of complementary monographs on a single city from different perspectives. Baily 1988a is a profile of an eccentric musician. Doubleday 2011 and Doubleday 2013 amplify the voices of the women musicians of Herat, the most substantial gender-based literature. See also Sakata 1983b (cited under Northern Provinces) for more on Herati music.

  • Baily, John. “Recent Changes in the Dutâr of Herat.” Asian Music 8.1 (1976): 29–64.

    DOI: 10.2307/833946Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Tracks the evolution of the key local instrument of Herat.

    Find this resource:

  • Baily, John. “A Description of the Naqqarakhana of Herat.” Asian Music 11.2 (1980): 1–10.

    DOI: 10.2307/834063Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An account of the former ensemble of shawms, long trumpets, and drums based in the citadel of Herat to mark the hours of the day. Different times required different maqams, drawn from a repertory of seventy-two musical modes.

    Find this resource:

  • Baily, John. “Amin-e Diwaneh: The Musician as Madman.” Popular Music 7.2 (1988a): 131–146.

    DOI: 10.1017/S0261143000002713Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The eccentric life and tragic death of the influential Herati dutar player Amin-e Diwaneh (also recorded by Slobin), as recounted by his friend and fellow musician, Qassem Asiawan, in 1974.

    Find this resource:

  • Baily, John. Music of Afghanistan: Professional Musicians in the City of Herat. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988b.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Extensive description of history, instruments, styles, aesthetics, social lives, and careers of professionals. With two compact discs. A second edition has been published (London: Silk Road Books and Photos, 2012).

    Find this resource:

  • Doubleday, Veronica. Three Women of Herat. London: Jonathan Cape, 1988.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The only extended study of the lives and music of Afghan women musicians, from participant-observer work in female bands. A second edition has been published (London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2006).

    Find this resource:

  • Doubleday, Veronica. “Gendered Voices and Creative Expression in the Singing of Chaharbeiti Poetry in Afghanistan.” Ethnomusicology Forum 20.1 (2011): 3–31.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A detailed analysis of this important genre of sung poetry with discussion of poetic choices made by both male and female singers.

    Find this resource:

  • Doubleday, Veronica. “Zainab Herawi: Finding Acclaim in the Conservative Islamic Culture of Afghanistan.” In Women Singers in Global Contexts: Music, Biography and Identity. Edited by Ruth Hellier-Tinoco, 194–212. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2013.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This biography of a professional musician discusses the dynamics of power, agency, and risk-taking faced by Afghan women who sing in public. Through an assessment of Zainab’s limitations and achievements, the author reveals intractable customary prohibitions against female performance.

    Find this resource:

  • Sakata, Hiromi Lorraine. “Afghan Regional Melody Types and the Notion of Modes.” In Maqam, Raga, Zeilenmelodik: Konzeptionen und Prinzipen der Musikproduktion. Edited by Jurgen Elsner, 170–180. Berlin: International Council for Traditional Music, 1989.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Explores the notion of modes in Herat and Badakhshan by comparing a number of instrumental examples with the same or similar names and similar melody types.

    Find this resource:

“Classical” Urban Music and Genre Studies

Nineteenth-century Afghan rulers imported musicians from then-India, who brought the modal system and genres of that “classical” music, interpreted locally in Kabul and exported to other main urban centers, notably Herat. An ustad is a highly regarded specialist in this tradition. Sarmast 2000, Sarmast 2006, and Sarmast 2007 detail issues cited in the author’s larger history of Afghan music, Sarmast 2009 (cited under General Overviews). Baily 1981, Baily 1997, and Baily 2011 complement Sarmast’s analysis of Herati classical music style. Nashenas 2018 is an exceptional example of an ustad telling his own story. Sakata 2001 and Pir-e Kharabt also center on the legacy of a prominent musician.

Popular Music

Only with the nationwide reach of broadcast radio did a national popular music style emerge in the 1950s from Radio Afghanistan’s studios. Until the early 1970s, there was not even cassette distribution locally. Popular music changed rapidly under the Communist regime, went backward with Taliban suppression, and reemerged vigorously after 2001. Dupree 1976 and Slobin 1974 detail early moments of development. Baily 1981 is an up-to-date survey, and Mamoon 2005 takes up the sensational case of a murdered pop star. Sultanova 2020 takes up the recent situation of social change and popular music.

Children’s Music

Baily and Doubleday 1995 is the only article focused solely on children’s music, and speaks to developmental issues.

Women’s Music

Two articles cited under regional headings address the issue of women. Doubleday 1988 (under Herat) is the most extensive such study (amplified in Doubleday 2011 and Doubleday 2013 there as well). Sakata 1987 (under Hazarajat) is the only look at the issue for that region. As in other nearby societies, music is gendered in Afghanistan in terms of genres, musical instruments played, and occasions for music. A strong bias against female public performance beyond the family circle remains engrained.

  • Doubleday, Veronica. Three Women of Herat. London: Jonathan Cape, 1988.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The only extended study of the music and lives of Afghan women musicians, from participant-observer work in female bands. A second edition has been published (London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2006).

    Find this resource:

  • Doubleday, Veronica. “Gendered Voices and Creative Expression in the Singing of Chaharbeiti Poetry in Afghanistan.” Ethnomusicology Forum 20.1 (2011): 3–31.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A detailed analysis of this important genre of sung poetry with discussion of poetic choices made by male and female singers.

    Find this resource:

  • Doubleday, Veronica. “Zainab Herawi: Finding Acclaim in the Conservative Islamic Culture of Afghanistan.” In Women Singers in Global Contexts: Music, Biography and Identity. Edited by Ruth Hellier-Tinoco, 194–212. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2013.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This biography of a professional musician discusses the dynamics of power, agency, and risk-taking faced by Afghan women who sing in public. Through an assessment of Zainab’s limitations and achievements, the author reveals intractable customary prohibitions against female performance.

    Find this resource:

Musical Instruments

Slobin 1969 and Slobin 1976 (both cited under Northern Provinces) broadly survey the instruments of northern Afghanistan. Alvad 1954 (cited under Nuristan) is a pioneering article. Baily 1976 and Baily 1980 (cited under Herat) focus on instruments. Doubleday 1999 contextualizes the Afghan frame drum in the Middle Eastern regional context. Instruments are played by both amateur and professional musicians. The considerable instrumentarium includes short- and long-necked lutes; frame, vase-shaped, and barrel drums; open-ended and fipple flutes; jaw-harps in different shapes; stone castanets; and brass finger cymbals, as well as the Indian tabla and other imported instruments. The rubab is often termed the “national instrument,” as it seems to be of Afghan origin and offers a trademark sound, as well as gaining prestige through renowned masters.

Music and Religion

Sakata 1986 places the relationship of music and religion in the broader Islamic context. In general, local Islam is wary of music as a type of activity—like gambling, animal fights, etc.—that can lead to excess or breaches of morals. Outside a short notice in Hoerburger 1969 (cited under Eastern Provinces, Pashtun Music), there is no significant work on what the West would call “religious music,” which in any case does not fall under any local conceptual heading that includes music of entertainment or celebration.

Music and Politics

Doubleday 2007 surveys the most recent period of the post-Taliban era, focusing on a variety of reconfigurations induced by regime changes in the 21st century. It is complemented by Sakata 2011 under Music and Religion, which looks at the political implications of the music-religion issue. Baily 2001 (cited under General Overviews) has a strong political component. Baily 2005 takes up the musical politics of the Afghan diaspora. The tragic events that engulfed Afghanistan after 1979 pushed music into the situation of being a pawn in political games that only loosely reflect preexisting attitudes, whether under the Communists or the Taliban or even in the post-2001 society.

  • Baily, John. “So Near, So Far: Kabul’s Music in Exile.” Ethnomusicology Forum 14 (2005): 213–233.

    DOI: 10.1080/17411910500329658Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A useful survey of Afghan music in diaspora, a major topic given that a huge percentage of the population has spent at least some time out of the country’s borders since the 1970s.

    Find this resource:

  • Doubleday, Veronica. “9/11 and the Politics of Music-Making in Afghanistan.” In Music in the Post-9/11 World. Edited by Jonathan Ritter and J. Martin Daughtry, 277–314. New York and London: Routledge, 2007.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Describes the reconfiguration of traditional themes (including religious piety, patriotism, lament, satire, and ridicule), the easing of musical censorship, and the foundation of new initiatives to regenerate the country’s musical culture.

    Find this resource:

Memoirs

Sakata 2013 is the first extended memoir of a scholar of Afghan music, though Baily 2015 (cited under General Overviews) has some reflexive material, as does Doubleday 1988 (cited under Herat). Sakata’s book details the numerous journeys around the country she and her husband Tom made, including portraits of collaborators. Slobin 1997 is a short account of a single family’s musical odyssey, based on the author’s personal interactions.

back to top

Article

Up

Down