Composing Interactive Music Techniques And Ideas Using Max 1st Edition Todd Winkler

Composing Interactive Music Techniques And Ideas
Using Max 1st Edition Todd Winkler download
https://ebookbell.com/product/composing-interactive-music-
techniques-and-ideas-using-max-1st-edition-todd-winkler-47983034
Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.
Composing Interactive Music Todd Winkler
https://ebookbell.com/product/composing-interactive-music-todd-
winkler-47294216
Stem Paper Airplanes Composing Numbers 110 Readalong Ebook Logan Avery
https://ebookbell.com/product/stem-paper-airplanes-composing-
numbers-110-readalong-ebook-logan-avery-48745184
Ipython Interactive Computing And Visualization Cookbook Over 100
Handson Recipes To Sharpen Your Skills In Highperformance Numerical
Computing And Data Science 1st Edition Cyrille Rossant
https://ebookbell.com/product/ipython-interactive-computing-and-
visualization-cookbook-over-100-handson-recipes-to-sharpen-your-
skills-in-highperformance-numerical-computing-and-data-science-1st-
edition-cyrille-rossant-50195442
Ipython Interactive Computing And Visualization Cookbook 2nd Ed
Cyrille Rossant
visualization-cookbook-2nd-ed-cyrille-rossant-10469804

Ipython Interactive Computing And Visualization Cookbook Cyrille
Rossant Rossant
visualization-cookbook-cyrille-rossant-rossant-12349090
Intelligent And Interactive Computing Proceedings Of Iic 2018 1st Ed
Vincenzo Piuri
https://ebookbell.com/product/intelligent-and-interactive-computing-
proceedings-of-iic-2018-1st-ed-vincenzo-piuri-10493668
Visual Languages For Interactive Computing Definitions And
Formalizations 1st Edition Fernando Ferri
https://ebookbell.com/product/visual-languages-for-interactive-
computing-definitions-and-formalizations-1st-edition-fernando-
ferri-2104462
Visual Languages For Interactive Computing Definitions And
Formalizations Fernando Ferri
https://ebookbell.com/product/visual-languages-for-interactive-
computing-definitions-and-formalizations-fernando-ferri-4109616
Learning Ipython For Interactive Computing And Data Visualization
Cyrille Rossant
https://ebookbell.com/product/learning-ipython-for-interactive-
computing-and-data-visualization-cyrille-rossant-4340078

Composing intoreotive Music
Techniques and Ideas Using Max
Todd Winkler

Composing Interactive Music
Copyrighted Material

Composing Interactive Music
Techniques and Ideas Using Max
Todd Winkler
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
Copy, ad Material

First MIT Press paperback edition, 2001
© 1998 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic
or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and
retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Stone Serif and Stone Sans by Graphic Composition, Inc. and was
printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winkler, Todd, 1 958-
Composing interactive music : techniques and ideas using Max /
Todd Winkler.
p, cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-231 93-X (hc alk. paper), 0-262-73139-8 (pb)
1. Computer composition. 2. Max (Computer program language)
I. Title.
MT56.W5 1998
781 .3'45268dc2l 97-34535
CIP
109876 MN
Material

Contents
Preface 9
I Introduction, History, and Theory
1 Introduction and Background 3
Components of an Interactive System Enhancing the Roles of
Performer and Composer Audience Reception and Participation
A Brief History of Interactive Composition
2 Interaction: Defining Relationships Between Computers and Performers 21
Performance Models Musical Form and Structure Instrument
Design and Limitations
II Programming Foundation 39
3 Graphic Programming with Max 41
Brief Overview of Programming Languages Introduction to Max
How Max Handles MIDI Chapter Summary
4 Program Structure and Design 71
Approaches to Programming Handling Data in Max Data
Storage Objects: Storing and Recalling Information Other Max
Data Storage Objects Messages: Data Types and Display Data
Flow: Moving Information Through the System C Programming
Objects Efficiency and Memory Management Debugging
ted Materia!

vi Contents
S Interface Design 109
Basic Principles of Interface Design Building Interfaces in Max
Max's Interface Objects User Feedback Computer Input
Devices Interface and Encapsulation: A Programming Example
Ill Core Components 133
6 The Computer as Listener: Analyzing and Storing Performance Data 135
Listening to Music Analysis: What Can Be Understood? Time
Improving Listener Data Space Identifying Musical Features and
Tracking Changes Over Time Efficient Use of Listener Objects
7 Composer Objects 173
Creative Response to Listener Data Composer Object Design
Types of Composition Algorithms Transforming Musical Material
Constrained Pitch Output: Comparative Programming Examples
MelodicContour: A Progressive Study in Generative Methods
ParamColl: Parameter Analysis and Playback Sequencer Methods
Humanizing Algorithms: The Computer as Performer
IV Advanced Techniques and Concepts 219
8 Sound Design 221
MIDI Limitations for Listener Objects Participation By Musicians
Playing Nondigital Instruments Composer Objects for Timbre
Selection, Creation, and Manipulation Synthesis Design and
Control Parameters System-Exclusive Messages Automated
Mixing and Multitrack Parameter Control Interactive Signal
Processing Basic Categories of Signal Processing Compositional
Approaches Using Interactive Signal Processing Scaling Problems
and Solutions The Future of Max: Audio Input, Signal Processing,
and Sound Synthesis

vü Contents
9 Score Objects: Compositional Strategies, Structures, and Timing Mechanisms 259
Compositional Strategies Score Objects Performance
Synchronization Techniques Score Structure Examples: Models of
Score Objects Score-Following Overview
10 Interactive Multimedia and New Controllers 295
Interactive Music in Screen-Based Works Interactive Music in
Multimedia Performance Works Displaying Graphics ¡n Max New
Controllers and Multimedia Performance Systems Making Music
Through Movement 000
Appendix: Master List of Examples 324
References 335
Index 343

Preface
Composing Interactive Music: Techniques and Ideas Using Max, is a book
about the technical and aesthetic possibilities of interactive music; a
music composition or improvisation where software interprets a live
performance to affect music generated or modified by computers. It
describes musical concepts and programming techniques, and presents
some insights into the development and research efforts leading up to
this increasingly popular area of computer music.
The initial research for this book was conducted for my dissertation
at Stanford University, Three Interactive Etudes for Clarinet and Computer:
Technology and Aesthetics in Interactive Composition (1992). The disserta-
tion, supervised by John Chowning, included a description of a Max
program called FollowPlay, a large collection of software modules de-
signed as a general-purpose package for interactive composition. Much
of FollowPlay was conceived of and created while I was a visiting re-
searcher at Institute de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique
(IRCAM) during 1990-1991, with guidance from Miller Puckette, the
original author of Max, and Cort Lippe and Zack Settel, who also con-
tributed to the creation of Max.
The numerous compositions I have created with FollowPlay have
been the laboratory for ongoing research and development for this
book. Most of the programming examples presented here were taken
directly from these works. However, the FollowPlay program is not pre-
sented in its entirety since it was never meant to be a program for
public distribution. Instead, the principles and techniques I encoun-
tered while designing and redesigning the software are described here,

x Preface
with the idea that readers will create their own software to reflect their
personal approach to composition.
How to Use This Book
Max is a graphical programming language, designed by Miller Puckette,
for interactive composition. A version of Max, further developed by
David Zicarelli, is commercially available from Opcode Systems, Inc.
The techniques and ideas presented in this book are demonstrated
through programming examples using Max. The examples are de-
scribed in the text, accompanied by a picture of how they appear on
the computer screen. The same examples are included as software on
the accompanying CD-ROM, playable on a Macintosh computer,
which may be copied and edited for further study. Whenever possible,
examples and discussions will show the musical relevance of program-
ming techniques, giving the reader firsthand experience in making and
understanding interactive music. In the few software examples that are
not my own, I have given credit to the contributor, whose name ap-
pears above their work. Because of space limitations, some of the ex-
amples on CD-ROM are not printed in their entirety in the book. An
index of all examples, cross-referenced with the Opcode's Max manual,
appears in appendix A.
Although this book is targeted at composers who will be writing mu-
sic and software using Max, it has been written so that a casual reader
might learn the basic concepts of interactive composition by just read-
ing the text, without running any software at all. For readers who have
access to a MIDI setup who do not own Opcode's Max programming
environment, the accompanying software will run by itself, in a non-
editable form, on most Macintosh computers. However, the complete
Max application is highly recommended to accompany the text since
it is necessary for editing the examples and for creating new software.
Programming interactive works using Max is like learning to play an
instrument: a thorough understanding will come only with firsthand
experience. There is no substitute for practice.
The examples for this book require a basic MIDI studio, consisting of
a Macintosh computer with at least 4 MB of RAM, a MIDI keyboard,
and a MIDI interface. Keyboards should send and receive on MIDI
channel 1. Although the examples are designed for keyboards, other

xl Preface
MIDI controllers may be used in conjunction with a MIDI sound
module.
While no knowledge of Max programming is assumed, it would be
helpful for readers to familiarize themselves with the Max tutorial and
the manual before or while reading the text. (These are provided by
Opcode Systems, Inc.) The information on Max and many of the ex-
amples presented here are indebted to these excellent resources. Al-
though some overlap between the Max tutorial and the first chapters
of this book is unavoidable, presenting two views of similar informa-
tion will provide a solid foundation for more advanced work. Experi-
enced Max programmers may want to skip chapters 3 and 4, which
provide an introduction to Max programming.
The structure of the book follows a logical progression, keeping in
mind composers with few programming skills. The ten chapters were
conceived of as four large sections: Introduction, History, and Theory;
Programming Foundation; Core Components; and Advanced Tech-
niques. An overview of the chapters is as follows:
Chapter 1, Introduction to Interactive Composition, presents basic con-
cepts regarding interactive music and continues with a brief history of
interactive music compositions and systems.
Chapter 2, Interactive Music Performance and Theory, discusses models
for interactions, issues of freedom and control, and human/computer
relationships.
II Programming Foundation
Chapter 3, Graphic Programming using Max, is designed to build a founda-
tion for writing software using Max. lt contains essential information for
anyone new to Max and new to programming. It begins with an over-
view of various programming languages and programming concepts as
they relate to Max, continues with an introduction to the basic materials
and operations used in Max, and concludes with a section on MIDI.
Chapter 4, Program Structure and Design, is a continuation of chapter
3, and delves into more general programming principles. The approach
used in chapter 4 (and throughout the book in general) is designed to

xii Preface
demonstrate fundamental computer science concepts through musical
examples, so that musicians new to programming will learn directly by
creating music rather than by writing programs unrelated to their
interests.
Chapters 3 and 4 establish a baseline of understanding with which
to proceed to more advanced topics, and equips composers with the
minimal understanding of computer concepts needed to produce inter-
active work.
Chapter 5, Interface Design, covers principles of interface design and
reviews Max's interface objects.
Ill Core Components
Chapter 6, Listener Objects, shows techniques for analyzing and storing
performance information.
Chapter 7, Composer Objects, introduces methods for generating and
processing computer music.
IV Advanced Techniques and Concepts
Chapter 8, Sound Design, explores the use of sound through synthesis,
orchestration, mixing, and computer-controlled signal processing.
Chapter 9, Performance Structures, offers suggestions for composi-
tional strategies to create larger works, and contains descriptions of score
objects that can be used for coordinating events during a performance.
Chapter 10, Multimedia Extensions and New Controllers, focuses on
multimedia applications of interactive composition, Max's QuickTime
extensions, and new controllers.
Appendix A, contains an index of the examples used in the book,
cross referenced with related topics in the Max manual. This provides
a single source for all information regarding software examples. Also
useful will be Max's on-line help files, a software feature that calls up a
description and working example of an object when the option key is
held down while any object is clicked.
Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to Miller Puckette, David Zicarelli, Cort Lippe, Alan
Strange, Dale Stammen, and Jason Vantomme for their thorough feed-

xiii Preface
back at various stages of this book. I would also like to thank the
following reviewers: Michael Pelz-Sherman, John P. Lamar, Burton
Beerman, and Julian Richards. Dale Stammen and Michael Pelz-
Sherman helped to test and edit the examples for the book. Special
thanks to my student research assistants, Alex Gottschalk, Jason Duva,
Brian Lee, and Scott Pagano.
Funding for this project was provided by the Center for Computer
Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), a Stanford University Paris
Scholarship, an Oberlin College Faculty Research Grant, and Brown
University. Special thanks goes to Tim Self at Opcode for software
support.
The single source that proved the most useful to me was Robert
Rowe's liiteractive Computer Music Systems (MIT Press). It summarizes
much of the research related to the development of interactive music,
and explains Rowe's Cyplier program. In addition, Rowe lays out a con-
ceptual framework that was the starting point for this text. It would be
an ideal reference for readers seeking a more in-depth study of various
types of interactive music systems.
Finally, I must acknowledge the help of my wife, Karina Lutz, whose
unflagging support was not just moral, but tangible as the first editor
of this book.

Interaction is a two-way street. Nothing is more interactive than a good
conversation: two people sharing words and thoughts, both parties en-
gaged. Ideas seem to fly. One thought spontaneously affects the next.
Participants in conversation assume much past experience and find ex-
citement in shared experience. Conversations stay within a consistent
context that creates a feeling of mutual understanding without being
predictable. On the other hand, when only one person does the talking
it isn't interactiveit is a lecture, a soliloquy.
Computers simulate interaction. Computers continue to move into the
home and workplace, not because they are capable of millions of calcu-
lations per second but because they are clever mimics, able to represent
images, sounds, and actions from the real world and imagined worlds.
Computers simulate interaction in this constructed world by allowing
users to change aspects of their current state and behavior. This inter-
active loop is completed when the computers, in turn, affect the fur-
ther actions of the users.
Interaction means action. Computer programs are more or less inter-
active, depending on how they respond to human actions and how
they engage human response. Interactivity comes from a feeling of par-
ticipation, where the range of possible actions is known or intuited,
and the results have significant and obvious effects, yet there is enough
mystery maintained to spark curiosity and exploration. Television is
not very interactive (yet). The viewer does not have any way to change
aspects of a show, except for switching channels, changing the volume,
or altering the controls for color, tint, and horizontal hold. The medium
will become more interactive when viewer actions have a meaningful
impact on the content and structure of the work.
COd ighted Material
i Introduction and Background

4 Introduction, History, and Theory
This book describes techniques for creating interactive computer mu-
sic (hereafter referred to sirnpiy as interactive music). Interactive mu-
sic is defined here as a music composition or improvisation where
software interprets a live performance to affect music generated or
modified by computers. Usually this involves a performer playing an
instrument while a computer creates music that is in some way shaped
by the performance. This is a broad definition that encompasses a wide
range of techniques, from simple triggers of predetermined musical
material, to highly interactive improvisational systems that change
their behavior from one performance to the next. Interactive music
may also have applications in commercial multimedia software and
CD-ROM titles, such as educational or entertainment titles, where the
user (the 'performer") controls aspects of music selection and composi-
tional processes using the computer keyboard and mouse.
Performers participate in the creation of an interactive work, in part,
by the amount of freedom they have to produce significant results in
the computer's response. For example, a fully notated, predetermined
score could be made slightly interactive by allowing a performer to
control a single parameter of the computer-generated music, such as
tempo. In more sophisticated interactive pieces, performers control
many significant musical parameters and the composition can change
dramatically according to their interpretation. In the most extreme ex-
amples, a performer is free to play any kind of music, and the computer
has enough "intelligence" to respond in a way that makes sense and
naturally encourages the performer's continuation. Like good conver-
sations, interactive compositions succeed by encouraging spontaneity
while residing within the boundaries of a dynamic context that seems
whole and engaging.
Interactive music is a natural extension of a long history of collabora-
tions. Music has always been an interactive art ìn which musicians re-
spond to each other as they play, whether it is a conductor with an
orchestra, a lead singer with a rock band, or the members of a jazz
combo or a string quartet. Performers listen to each other while they
play, continuously altering and shaping their performance according
to what they hear. Many traditional musical relationships can be simu-
lated with the computer. These models can be valuable starting points
for an interactive work. More importantly, interactive techniques may
suggest a new musical genre, one where the computer's capabilities are

S Introduction and Background
used to create new musical relationships that may exist only between
humans and computers in a digital world.
The adjective "virtual" is a current buzzword that describes computer
simulations of things that behave like real-world objects, situations,
and phenomena. Describing such a simulation, Brenda Laurel writes,
"A virtual world may not look anything like the one we know, but the
persuasiveness of its representation allows us to respond to it as if it
were real." (1993) Interactive music techniques can be used to model
many of the key elements in making and listening to music: instru-
ments, performers, composers, and listeners. Virtual instruments behave
somewhat like real instruments, and can be played from the computer
keyboard, a MIDI controller, or as an extension of a traditional instru-
ment. Virtual performers may play with human performers, interacting
with musical intelligence" in a duet, combo, or accompaniment role.
Virtual composers create original music based on flexible and sometimes
unpredictable processes specified by a real composer. These processes
might represent the same musical ideas that a composer may choose
in order to create a piece for acoustic instruments. Other processes may
be specifically designed to take advantage of the capabilities of the
computer. Finally, a virtual listener or virtual critic may pass judgment
by reacting to and altering the final outcome of a performance (Rowe
1993). Such a critic might be designed to analyze the accuracy of a
performance, or steer the output of a composition away from too
much repetition.
The behavior of these virtual entities must be described by the pro-
grammer, who must answer the questions: How are virtual instruments
played? How does a virtual performer respond to musical input? How
do virtual composers generate, process, and structure musical material?
What are the criteria for a virtual critic to judge the success or failure
of a performance or or a piece of music? The opinions of the program-
mer are impossible to separate from the final outcome. There is a
compelling reason why composers and other artists need to become
involved in the creation of software, and why programs like Max are
needed to make software creation more accessible to artists. Among
other things, artists are experts at creating vivid imaginary worlds that
engage the mind and the senses. These talents are especially needed in
creating rich and engaging computer environments. Computers are
not intelligent. They derive their appearance of intelligence only from

the knowledge and experience of the person who creates the software
they run.
Components of an Interactive System
Broadly speaking, interactive music works by having a computer inter-
pret a performer's actions in order to alter musical parameters, such as
tempo, rhythm, or orchestration. These parameters are controlled by
computer music processes immediately responsive to musical data
(such as individual notes or dynamics) or gestural information (such as
key pressure, foot pedals, or computer mouse movements). Interactive
software simulates intelligent behavior by modeling human hearing,
understanding, and response (Rowe 1993). The response must be be-
lievable in the sense that it seems appropriate for the action taken, and
appropriate for the style of music. This process is somewhat analogous
to the distinct activities that take place during a jazz improvisation or
other musical dialogue: listening, interpreting, composing, and per-
forming. Figure 1.1 describes five steps to creating an interactive piece:
Human input, instrumentsHuman activity is translated into digi-
tal information and sent to the computer.
Computer listening, performance analysisThe computer receives
the human input and analyzes the performance information for tim-
ing, pitch, dynamics, or other musical characteristics.
InterpretationThe software interprets the computer listener infor-
mation, generating data that will influence the composition.
Computer compositionComputer processes, responsible for all as-
pects of the computer generated music, are based on the results of the
computer's interpretation of the performance.
Sound generation and output, performanceThe computer plays
the music, using sounds created internally, or by sending musical infor-
mation to devices that generate sound.
The first two steps are very practical, and limited, and deal mainly with
facts. The software should be accurate in its analysis and, therefore,
must understand certain things about human performance. The last
three steps are artistic decisions limited only by a composer's skill and
imagination, since there are countless ways that performance informa-
tion can be interpreted to create original music and sound.

7 Introduction and Background
Human Input
MIDI keyboard
Computer keyboard
and mouse
Interactive Software
Figure 1.1
Basic components of an interactive composition
Enhancing the Roles of Performer and Composer
Another way of viewing the processes of interactive music is to exam-
ine the traditional roles of composer and performer, roles that often
become blurred in interactive works. Performers may be asked to in-
vent musical material that will become an integral part of a computer
composition. Composers may perform their work during a concert by
manipulating musical parameters using a computer keyboard and
mouse. Even the "audience" may take on the role of composer and
performer in works designed to be viewed on screen, by changing pa-
rameters and control processes from a computer terminal.
What makes a great musical performer? The notation system used
for "Western art music" conveys specific information regarding pitch,
somewhat less specific information regarding tempo and rhythm, and
even less information regarding phrasing, vibrato, and dynamicses-
sentially a loose set of directions on how to create music. The perform-
er's artistry supplies the nuances and subtleties missing in the score,
bringing the music to life. Improvisers also bring music to life with the
same expressive musical elements, while supplying pitch and rhythmic
information used to create music within the boundaries of a particular
style. These elements of interpretation impart the "feel" to music.
Along with virtuosity, these are the qualities that are valued most
Sound Generation
Hard Disk Sample
Sound
Computer Computer o
Listening n
e
p
e
a
o
n
Composition
MIDI keyboard
DO
MIDI module
©

highly in musicians, whether it is the aggressive punctuation of a jazz
solo, a soprano's approach to the penultimate note of an aria, or the
long, drawn-out climax of an electric guitar solo. While these qualities
are assumed in all good players, it is precisely these elements that are
most difficult for the computer to generate, since they come not only
from the context of the music, but from an emotional experience as
well as a lifetime of making music. Although researchers have discov-
ered some rules that may impart musicality to computer music, no
model has yet come close to the complex subtleties created by humans.
Using the techniques of interactive composition, elements of a live
performance can be used to impart a human musical sense to a ma-
chine, forming a bridge to the musical traditions of the past through
the interpretation of expressive information. At the same time, the
computer opens up new possibilities for musicians to expand their abil-
ities beyond the physical limitations of their instrument. These tech-
niques invite our most highly esteemed musicians to continue using
their greatest talents while participating in the process of making music
in the computer age.
Many of the interactive methods for performance can also be used
by composers to experiment with ideas while creating a new work.
Composers have always used processes to generate large musical struc-
tures from simple musical material. A canon (round) is an example of
a simple and widely used musical process: begin a melody with one
singer, begin the same melody with a second singer while the first con-
tinues, and so on. Many types of musical processes can be easily repre-
sented in software by an algorithm, step-by-step instructions used to
accomplish a specific task. Interactive techniques provide an intuitìve
platform for real-time exploration of musical processes. This immedi-
acy in generating and manipulating musical materials provides the
composer with an interactive laboratory where musical ideas and time-
varying compositional processes are quickly realized and refined. The
benefit of getting immediate aural feedback from this kind of experi-
mentation cannot be overemphasized. Within this laboratory environ-
ment composers can generate scores for acoustic works, create sit-
uations for improvisation with other musicians, or compose solo pieces
to be played directly from the computer. The same tools can help shape
interactive pieces on-the-spot during rehearsals or performances and
can even be used to control nonmusical aspects of a concert presenta-
tion, such as the video display or the control of lighting systems.
Copyright Material

Audience Reception and Participation
Audience members, untrained in the intricacies of computers or com-
position, may not be interested in the complexities of software design,
the sophistication of musical processes, or the amount of memory in a
computer. They come to concerts for a variety of reasons, not the least
being to enjoy the drama of a live performance. It is exciting to watch
the musical skill of a great performer, to witness the interaction be-
tween members of an ensemble, and to take in the pageantry of cos-
tumes, ritual, lighting, and stage personalities (Wishart 1995).
Live interactive music contains an element of magic, since the com-
puter music responds "invisibly" to a performer. The drama is height-
ened when the roles of the computer and performer are clearly defined,
and when the actions of one has an observable impact on the actions
of another, although an overly simplistic approach will quickly wear
thin. On the other hand, complex responses that are more indirectly
influenced by a performer may produce highly successful musical re-
sults, but without some observable connection the dramatic relation-
ship will be lost to the audience.
Outside of the concert and studio setting, interactive techniques in-
vite participants into the music-making process. Installations, com-
puter games, and works on CD-ROM may require audience or user
input to select and process music, allowing nonmusicians the feeling
of actively participating in creating music. Computer users may be
asked to become performers, playing music from a computer keyboard
or other computer input device. They may also be asked to become
composers, selecting, ordering, and generating computer music from
on-screen controls. Amateurs and students may come to a better under-
standing of music by their direct involvement in making music. Inter-
active movies, games, web sites, and educational titles are all more
compelling when the sound responds immediately to the user's ac-
tions. These recent inventions may be better understood by put-
ting them in perspective with the pioneering work that led to their
development.
A Brief History of Interactive Composition
Prior to the invention of recording, all music was interactive to some
degree. That is, all music was performed live; musicians interacted with

each other, with their instruments, and with their audience. Technical
innovations in the twentieth century have reduced opportunities for
musical interaction. Recording eliminated the rapport between audi-
ence members and performers; since music could be heard anywhere
at any time, the focus of the moment, and the energy needed to create
it, was lost. Multitrack tape techniques further eliminated interaction
between musicians, making it possible for an engineer to record a band
with each member appearing at the studio on separate occasions to
record their part on separate tracks (although many bands prefer to
capture the excitement of their live interaction in the studio). Studio
musicians may respond or react to prerecorded music, rather than in-
teracting with live players. Their primary interaction is through feed-
back with a producer or engineer. This mode of creating music has
more recently spilled over into large pop music concerts that employ
prerecorded tapes, with the musicians on stage playing a minimal role
or even lip synching, so that the sound is as close to the original studio
recording as possible.
Computer music, however, did not begin as an interactive art form.
The first general-purpose computer music program was created by Max
Mathews at Bell Laboratories in the early sixties (Dodge and Jerse
1985). The first computer music systems could not be designed for in-
teraction since the primitive equipment was not capable of handling
the immense number of calculations needed for a live performance.
These systems required hours of programming and waiting before even
a single short melody could be heard. Part of the attraction for some
composers was to have absolute control over all aspects of a composi-
tion, specifying each and every detail to the computer, which would,
in turn, implement them flawlessly. Interestingly, the limitations of
these systems and the experimental nature of the software created un-
predictable results that did lead to meaningful "interactions" between
composers and computers; composers programmed what they thought
they would hear; computers interpreted the data differently, and often
composers were surprised to hear the results. Then they either adjusted
the data to sound more like their original intention, or decided that
they were delighted by their 'mistake" and continued in that new di-
rection. More than a few composers have remarked that some of their
best work was discovered unintentionally through a flaw in the system
or by entering erroneous data. The final result of early computer works

was a tape, distributed as a recording, or played through loudspeakers
for an audience.
Many composers continue to create tape pieces, preferring to work
in an optimal studio environment to realize an ideal version of a work
with great detail, complexity, and subtlety. Since interactive systems
are often limited by the requirement to run in real time, some of the
most advanced techniques in computer-generated music are only avail-
able on non-real-time systems (although faster computer processors are
closing this gap).
To some people, the lack of visual stimulus may pose a problem for
presenting tape music in a concert setting. The addition of a musician
playing along with the tape adds an interesting human component to
a concert presentation, but may limit the performer's interpretation of
tempo and phrasing since, no matter how passionate or unusual the
performer's interpretation, the tape always remains the same. For a
large number of computer music compositions, however, tape remains
the most viable, permanent, and dependable medium. Thus, inter-
active composition represents an interesting subset of the field of com-
puter and electronic music.
Early Analog Experiments
During the sixties and early seventies, the first devices used for creating
computer music were very expensive, and housed at only a few re-
search facilities such as Columbia University, Stanford University, and
Bell Labs. At the same time, analog electronics were being employed
in concert settings to process the sound of instruments and to create
synthetic sounds in real time. So-called live electronic systems began
to be used in the early sixties and proliferated throughout the seven-
ties. Many of these pieces used tape delay techniques or processed ana-
log instruments through specially built electronic circuitry contained
in 'modules," with each module altering the sound in a specific way,
such as adding distortion or reverberation. A few composers showed
the promise of interactive systems, where the system behaved differ-
ently with different musical input, allowing a performer not just to
trigger preset processes, but to shape them as well.
The early electronic works of John Cage influenced a number of com-
posers experimenting with "live electronic" music in the sixties. Their

interest in improvisation and indeterminacy naturally led to the
first interactive electronic systems. Gordon Mumma's Hornpipe (1967)
showed promising new ways of musical thought. Mumma describes
Hornpipe as "an interactive live-electronic work for solo hornist, cyber-
sonic console, and a performance space." He coined the term cyber-
sonic, described as interactive electronic circuitry that alters and creates
sound based on a performer's input. Mumma's "cybersonic console"
contained microphones for "listening" to the sounds made by the horn
as well as for analyzing the acoustical resonance of the space. During the
course of the piece, the hornist freely chose pitches that affected the elec-
tronic processing in different ways. Thus, the hornist's performance
and the resultant sound altered by the acoustics of the room created an
interactive loop that was further processed by electronics (Cope 1977).
In the mid-sixties, the introduction of voltage-controlled synthe-
sizers opened the way for interactive techniques. A control voltage is
an electrical signal that can be used to automate analog synthesizer
processes. Almost anything that can be changed on an analog syn-
thesizer module can be controlled with voltages. The amount and
duration of voltages becomes an abstraction that can be applied to nu-
merous parameters. With control-voltage synthesizers, keyboards pro-
duce higher voltages for higher tones, and lower voltages for lower
tones. Voltages from the keyboard can be redirected so that each pitch
can produce a different vibrato rate, for example. Envelope followers
turn any kind of analog signal, even acoustic sounds played via micro-
phone, into voltages. In this way, changes in dynamic levels can be
applied to any number of parameters, affecting the synthesizer. For ex-
ample, in several of his tape compositions beginning with Touch, com-
poser Morton Subotnick used his voice to control various parameters
of synthesized sounds on a Buchla analog synthesizer by translating
the amplitude of his arch-shaped phrases and short accented syllables
into voltages via an envelope follower. Even though the final result was
a studio composition that exists only on tape, the interactive tech-
niques applied during the composing process imparted a human ele-
ment that would otherwise be missing.
Subotnick later worked with long-term collaborator and electrical
engineer, Donald Buchla, to develop an early digital/analog hybrid
system that would handle control voltages from analog input signals.
The result was an evening-length multimedia "opera," Ascent Into Air

(1983), featuring interactive computer processing of live instruments
and computer-generated music, all under the control of two cellists
who are part of a small ensemble of musicians on stage. In another
large staged work, Hungers (1986), musicians controlled the playback
and display of multiple video images in addition to musical processes.
Subotnick worked with composer/programmer Marc Coniglio to create
the software for Hungers, which eventually became Interactor, a large
computer program for interactive composition.
Early Computer Experiments
Most of the computer music research and composition during the sev-
enties centered on sound synthesis and processing methods using
mainframe computers to produce tape pieces. One notable exception
was the GROOVE system, a pioneering work in real-time computer sys-
tems developed by Max Mathews and F. Richard Moore at Bell Labs.
The GROOVE system, in use at Bell Labs from 1968 to 1979, featured
a conducting program that enabled a person to control the tempo, dy-
namic level, and balance of a computer ensemble that had knowledge
of a predetermined musical score. The system was used by performers
to investigate performance nuances in older music, as well as by com-
posers, such as Emmanuel Ghent and Laurie Speigel, to conduct origi-
nal compositions (Dodge and Jerse 1985).
David Behrman, another pioneer in interactive composition, spent
much of his early career creating works featuring real-time processing
of acoustìc instruments. He was one of a few composers who began
to use microcomputers when they first became available in the mid-
seventies. In John Schaefers's book, New Sounds, Behrman explains: "I
used the computer as an interface between some circuitry I had built
that made electronic music, and a pitch-sensing device that listens for
pitches made by acoustic instruments." He maintains that his pieces
"are in the form of computer programs and hardware." In his work
Figure in a Clearing, a cellist improvises on a set of notes, and the com-
puter creates harmonies and timbres that depend on the order and
choice of those notes. As the performer responds to the harmonies, the
improvisation triggers a new set of computer sounds (Schaefer 1987).
Composer Joel Chadabe has employed concepts of interaction in his
music since 1967, when he began creating works for a Moog analog
Copyr; ed Material

system that involved the automated control of timbre and rhythm
(Chadabe 1989). Ten years later, along with Roger Meyers, he devel-
oped interactive music software to power one of the first portable
digital systems. In an article in 1983, "Interactive Composing: An Over-
view," Chadabe described his piece Rhythms:
In Rhythms, the computer automatically generates melodies and rhythmic pat-
terns, articulated in sounds reminiscent of Indonesian, Caribbean, and African
percussion instruments. I perform by pressing keys at the terminal keyboard,
thereby transposing chords, changing pitch relationships within chords, trig-
gering melodic variations, altering rhythmic patterns, overlapping voices, and
introducing random notes. But although I trigger each set of changes to begin,
I cannot foresee the details of each change. I must react to what I hear in decid-
ing what to do next. It is a distinctive characteristic of interactive composing
that a performer, in deciding each successive performance action, reacts to in-
formation automatically generated by the system.
Many of the early interactive computer systems built in the late seven-
ties and early eighties were actually digital/analog hybrid systems that
consisted of a simple computer sending voltages to an analog synthe-
sizer. George Lewis, a well-known jazz trombonist, began building such
a system in 1979, using a computer with 1 kilobyte of RAM to control
a Moog synthesizer. His program evolved, and continues to evolve, into
a more elaborate system that enables him to use his improvisational
skills to create a true dialogue with the computer (Lewis 1994; see
chap. 3)
Early MIDI Systems
The rapid development of computer technology in the early eighties
led to dramatically improved techniques for interactive composition.
First, the availability of small, inexpensive, and sophisticated personal
computers enabled numerous musicians and programmers to begin ex-
ploring interactive computer music on their own, without the need
for support from large institutions. Companies began to make music
software commercially available, and introduced the first computer
music sequencers, editors, and notation programs. Second, a group of
prominent musical instrument manufacturers agreed on a standard
method for sending and receiving musical information digitally, estab-
lishing MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) as a universal stan-
dard. Third, researchers began to solve some of the central problems of

interactive music that had previously eluded computer music program-
mers: how to schedule musical events in real time, how to get a com-
puter to follow a score, and how to get a computer to recognize musical
input (see chap. 9).
Many of the problems of score following were first solved indepen-
dently by Barry Vercoe working at IRCAM and MIT and Roger Dan-
nenberg working at Carnegie-Mellon University, who presented their
findings at the 1984 International Computer Music Conference. Their
work had a large impact on subsequent research in interactive music
systems (leading two years later to the development of a number of
interactive programs, including Max, Jam Factory, and Interactor).
Other methods had already been tried for improvisation, where the
computer responded immediately to any unknown pitch or dynamic
information. Two influential symposiums held at the STEIM studios in
Amsterdam in 1984 and 1986, STEIM Symposium on Interactive Com-
posing and Live Electronic Music, brought together an influential
group of researchers and composers to share and discuss their work.
The talks focused on new computer techniques as well as on the design
and performance of new electronic instruments (see chap. 10).
The development of MIDI had an immediate impact on the prolifera-
tion of portable interactive systems that could be used easily and de-
pendably in concert situations. MIDI controllers provided a consistent
way of expressing performance nuances and other physical gestures to
the computer. The limited amount of data transferred via MIDI enabled
common personal computers to handle music processing in real time.
However, these same limitations meant that important musical infor-
mation regarding timbre, vibrato, and other constantly changing sub-
tleties of nuance was not well-represented.
Encouraged by the availability and new potential of personal com-
puter systems, Chadabe founded a company, Intelligent Music, to
provide an outlet for interactive composition software for Apple's Mac-
intosh Computer. Joining Chadabe's company was David Zicarelli,
a top Macintosh music programmer who had become well-known
for his innovative interface design for other MIDI software. The com-
pany's first software packages, M and Jam Factory, were released in
1986 (Zicarelli 1987). Zicarelli created Jam Factory, and became one
of Chadabe's collaborators for M . Both applications controlled MIDI
systems with software that offered immediate feedback using graphic

and gestural interfaces to modify ongoing musical processes. These
programs relied on a performer's actions to create and manipulate mu-
sical patterns generated by the software. MIDI devices or a Macintosh
keyboard and mouse could be used to influence musical parameters in
real time while listening to the resulting changes. Zicarelli writes, "My
motivation for writing Jam Factory was my interest in creating a pro-
gram that would listen to MIDI input and 'improvise' immediately at
some level of proficiency, while allowing me to improve its ability."
Mills College was also a center for the development of interactive
systems in the mid-eighties. The Hierarchical Music Specification Lan-
guage (HMSL), an object-oriented programming language developed at
Mills, has been used extensively for interactive music composition and
improvisation. Further additions have added sound synthesis capabili-
ties using a Motorola 56000 processor on an Audiomedia or Sound-
Tools card, enabling HMSL to control sound-generating circuits while
also controlling MIDI devices (Polansky and Rosenboom 1987).
By 1990, numerous highly programmable interactive MIDI systems
had proven successful in concert situations. Work in this area contin-
ued at MIT, producing Tod Machover's Hyperinstrument system and
Robert Rowe's Cypher. Cypher, along with Daniel Oppenheim's Dmix,
and Karla Scaletti's Kyma, feature graphical interfaces that encourage
composers to realize musical ideas quickly, with many of the details
and much of the comexity of the programming language (such as C
or Lisp) hidden from the user. All of these programs generate MIDI
data, but Kyma adds synthesis and sound processing capabilities as part
of an integrated composition package. Max is, by far, the most widely
used program of this nature.
History and Development of Max
Max was developed at the Institute de Recherche et Coordination
Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris, beginning in 1986. The prin-
cipal author was Miller Puckette, an MIT graduate who originally de-
signed Max to control IRCAM's powerful 4X synthesizer. The 4X was
created by a team of engineers who spent several years to produce a
costly digital synthesizer that could handle sophisticated sound syn-
thesis in real time. Of the 4X Puckette (1991) writes:
ed Material

Although the original idea was to build an oscillator bank [for sound synthesisi,
by 1985 most of the composers who tried to use the 4X were interested in
"signal processing," using the term to mean transforming the sound of a live
instrument in some way. This change of focus was the product of opportunity
and necessity. Opportunity because "signal processing" is capable of a richer
sonic result than pure synthesis, and since it is easier to create musical connec-
tions between a live player and electronics if the electronics are acting on the
live sound itself. Necessity because it was clear that after eight years of refining
the digital oscillator, we lacked the software to specify interesting real-time tim-
bral control at the level of detail needed. Signal processing, by contrast, can
often yield interesting results from only a small number of control parameters.
According to Puckette, the main challenge of synchronizing a live
player and the computer had two components. First, the computer
needed to obtain pitch information from the performer. Second, after
the stream of notes was detected, the computer needed to use "score
following" techniques to understand where the player was in a score
and respond appropriately.
Puckette had worked several years earlier with Barry Vercoe at MIT
on the problem of score following. Those years, 1982-1984, coincided
with the introduction of the Macintosh computer and the develop-
ment of MIDI. While the physical problems of note detection were
easily solved for keyboard instruments, where each key was an actual
switch, it was fairly difficult for other instruments. Hardware devices
known as pitch detectors give an indication of pitches played on acous-
tic instruments via microphone, but since the nature of the attack and
spectrum of each instrument is so varied, these devices have yet to be
proven accurate. In 1984, Lawrence Beauregard, a flutist working at
IRCAM in conjunction with Vercoe, took a standard flute and added
switches to the keys so that a computer could detect the player's fin-
gering. Since each fingering produces several pitches depending on
how hard the instrument is blown, an acoustic pitch detector was
added to deduce the correct pitch, making it reliable enough to use
in concert.
It took approximately three years to produce the first concert works
that demonstrated score-following techniques using the Beauregard
flute and the 4X. The 1987 concert featured Jupiter by Philippe Ma-
noury and Aloni by Thierry Lancino. Because of the difficulty of pro-
gramming the 4X, Max was developed as control software for the 4X,
running on a Macintosh computer. The 4X was set up as a MIDI device,

with Max controlling the equivalent of hundreds of MIDI controllers,
making productions easier and more efficient.
From there, Max grew into a versatile graphical programming lan-
guage designed for real-time control of MIDI devices. Other pro-
grammers contributing to the early development of Max included Lee
Boynton, Cort Lippe, and Zack Settel. In 1990, the continuing evolu-
tion of Max split into two distinct directions. One path led to David
Zicarelli, who began working on a commercially available version of
Max at Intelligent Music. Max was extended under Zicarelli's author-
ship, and eventually released by Opcode Systems, Inc., in 1991 as a full-
featured Macintosh programming environment with improved screen
graphics, playback of standard MIDI files, multimedia capabilities, and
a large collection of new features. Because of its ease of use and avail-
ability, Max has been adopted by a large number of composers. It was
especially welcomed by those who had been frustrated by the slow pro-
duction time of non-real-time music systems, or who had been ham-
pered by their inexperience with computer programming. Much of the
success of Max can be attributed to contributions made from a commu-
nity of programmers and composers who have greatly expanded the
program's capabilities with custom libraries of additional functions
that are distributed without cost by Opcode, and many more that are
exchanged freely over the Internet.
Meanwhile, IRCAM continued developing new hardware systems as
a response to composers' demands for interactive real-time signal pro-
cessing. In 1990, the IRCAM Signal Processing Workstation (ISPW) was
introduced to replace the 4X system. Puckette adapted Max for the
ISPW, adding a library of signal-processing objects. In addition to con-
trolling musical events, Max could now influence the production and
processing of audio signals, controlling such things as sampling, oscil-
lators, harmonizers, delay lines, filtering, and pitch tracking (Lindeman
1990). The ISPW represented a flexible and powerful hardware environ-
ment, replacing the need for MIDI devices, with Max as a single unified
"front end" to control every aspect of music production (Lippe and
Puckette 1991). The ISPW was a great advance for interactive composi-
tion, but was too costly to be affordable by most individuals. Unfortu-
nately, the life span of the ISPW was brief, due to its dependence on
the NeXT computer to run. NeXT stopped making computers just a
few years after the ISPW was completed.

The primary software used for signal processing and synthesis on the
ISPW is FTS ('faster than sound"). IRCAM has continued the develop-
ment of FTS as a system that runs on multiple hardware and software
platforms. Most recently, Miller Puckette's new software system, Pd
(Pure Data), provides the main features of Max and FTS while ad-
dressing some of the shortcomings of the original Max paradigm. By
taking advantage of faster processor speeds, Pd is able to integrate
audio synthesis and signal processing with video processing and 3-D
graphics in a single real-time software environment. The graphics pro-
gram, GEM (Graphics Environment for Multimedia), was written by
Mark Danks to operate within the Pd environment. This holds great
promise for composers and visual artists to explore an interactive and
unified audiovisual medium.
These new capabilities provide composers, using off-the-shelf equip-
ment, with a sophisticated interactive system capable of handling not
only MIDI data but also real-time sound synthesis, timbre analysis,
pitch tracking, and signal processing (for more on this topic see chapter
8). Since much of this software is still in the development stages, the
remainder of this text demonstrates concepts of interactive music us-
ing the Opcode version of Max and commonly available MIDI hard-
ware. These techniques should remain viable in future incarnations of
Max and in other interactive systems.

2 Interaction: Defining Relationships between
Computers and Performers
Regardless of musical style or technique, a central issue that confronts
all composers of interactive music is the drama of human-computer
interaction. What is the relationship between humans and computers?
Strong and clear musical ideas or an extramusical context will suggest
the appropriate paradigm for this relationship. What role does the
computer play? Is it an equal partner improvising with a "mind of its
own"? Is it a slave, taking all its orders from the human performers
by following or mimicking their every move? Is it a meta-composer,
absorbing musical material and developing it with endless variations?
Since interactive relationships occur naturally between performers
in traditional music ensembles, a study of traditional models of per-
formance and composition will yield rich material for computer in-
teraction. Hopefully, new modes of thought based on the computer's
unique capabilities will evolve from a closer look at known perfor-
mance models. This chapter will examine three types of models useful
for interactive composition: performance models, instrument models,
and composition models.
Performance Models
Music notation needs to be "interpreted," or made "musical," by a per-
former. While the general choice of pitch and rhythm are not open to
interpretation in traditional classical music, much of the musi-
cal information is supplied by the performers. This multitude of con-
tinuously changing parameters, such as tempo, vibrato, or dynamics,
necessitates interaction among several players. These parameters are

frequently discussed by musicians in the process of rehearsing a piece:
intonation, tempo, phrasing, timbre production, vibrato, and dy-
namic balance.
Active two-way listening informs each player of the current state of
the music which suggests appropriate ways to proceed. Appropriate-
ness is defined differently for each musical style and technique. The
performer's awareness of the implied rules for a given style helps to
create a musically satisfying result. Most improvised music, for ex-
ample, gives the performer much wider freedom to act, since he or she
can simultaneously play the roles of interpreter and composer to create
a dialogue with other musicians. Usually this lies within a predeter-
mined framework containing basic musical material presented in a
known musical structure, along with variation techniques based on
collectively held assumptions for the rules of style. The improviser's
choices change the very fabric of the piece, with ensemble members
listening and responding in kind. Interactive pieces are capable of im-
provisational responses because they create flexible structures that gen-
erate compositional material based on musical input. By relinquishing
absolute control over certain musical parameters, a composer can hope
to increase a performer's engagement and spontaneity.
Control issues cause contention even in the most staid of music tra-
ditions. Who is in charge? Who follows and who leads? How much of
a "voice" do group members have? How much say does a composer
have? What tasks and decisions are left up to the performer? Part of
the interest and drama of a live performance lies in these balances of
power. The roles adopted by each player imply a set of constraints for
what they can or cannot do. Since computers are oblivious to protocol
or personality, composers must define roles for the computer and the
performer, giving the computer musical character by creating a power
relationship between the two. The drama that ensues during the course
of an interactive performance is shaped by the relationship between
humans and computers, a relationship that is flexible and may change
during the course of a piece.
Interactive schemes run the gamut from highly predictable, carefully
crafted structures, to open, free, and spontaneous expressions. Similar
relationships exist in all types of music and can be clearly seen in the
traditions of Western art music (classical music) and jazz. While many
twentieth century innovations show promising new ideas for rede-
signing performance relationships, jazz improvisation offers the most

23 Interaction: Defining Relationships Between Computers and Performers
complete working model for interactive music, since it encompasses
such a wide variety of performance techniques: notated music, impro-
visation based on a harmonic or melodic framework, free improvisa-
tion, and quotation. But no traditional model is either complete or
entirely appropriate for the computer, and all types of music suggest
various relationships that may prove useful to composers. Simulation
of real-world models is only a stepping stone for original designs idio-
matic to the digital medium. The following models look at control is-
sues in three traditions: symphony orchestra, string quartet, and jazz
combo, with suggestions for control design for computer pieces.
The Conductor ModelSymphony Orchestra
The paradigm of the symphony orchestra is one where the conductor
is the master controller, a personality acting as a conduit for musical
expression. The conductor follows and interprets a score, acting as the
single source for coordinating players' actions by directing the time
flow, shaping the dynamics, and adjusting the acoustical balance. The
symbiotic relationship between conductor and orchestra places all
the large, global decisions regarding ìnterpretation in the hands of the
conductor, who relies on the players' skills and judgment for further
interpretation. Feedback from the orchestra, in the form of musical
production and facial expressions, continually informs the conductor's
current and future actions.
Timing and dynamic balance are especially crucial in an orchestral
setting. With so many people to coordinate, it is important that all
participants have a good sense of time and a good set of ears. It is not
enough for a conductor's method of communication to be clear and
unambiguous. To command the authority needed to influence players,
a conductor must prove reliable by demonstrating skill, and believable
by demonstrating knowledge. Inferior conductors are largely ignored
by players, who decide that their own interpretation of the piece will
be more successful. Good orchestras are interactive when orchestra
members are responsive to a conductor's gestures, when they listen to
each other, and when the conductor listens to the orchestra as a collec-
tion of individuals.
The conductor model has been used extensively for interactive
composition. In fact, one line of the early research in interactive tech-
niques was dedicated to one goal: finding a method to allow a musician
igtited Material

real-time control over the tempo of a predetermined computer music
"score." With the conductor model, musical material is predetermined
with the performer acting as the conductor. A performer supplies
the beat (tempo) to the computer. A conducting pulse could come
from any MIDI device, such as tapping a foot pedal or playing simple
quarter notes with one hand, or from a performer using beat-tracking
algorithms, which derive the beat from a real-time analysis of a
performance. (See Timing Analysis in chapter 6.) One method uses
score-following techniques, where the computer contains both the per-
former's score and the computer score in its memory. The computer
follows the score by matching the performer's notes to the same part
stored in memory. The matched notes orient the computer in the piece
and trigger the notes stored in the computer score (see chap. 9). Mini-
mally, this method requires that the performer control the tempo of
the computer music in real time. More developed systems include con-
trol of additional parameters, such as dynamics, vibrato, and timbre.
In Tod Machover's Bug Mudra, for example, a specially designed glove
allows a conductor to control the mix levels, reverb, and panning of
the computer music while simultaneously conducting three performers
(Machover 1991).
Other specially designed conducting devices, such as Max Mathews's
Radio Baton, enable a musician to use one or two sticks (batons) to
control tempo and other musical aspects of a score stored in the com-
puter (Mathews and Schloss 1989). More recently, Guy Garnett's Flute
Fantasy, originally written for flute and tape, was redesigned using Max
to make the music more flexible and responsive to the performer, add-
ing a role for a conductor using a MIDI baton based on Donald Buchla's
Lightning device to control the computer's tempo, phrasing, and dy-
namics (Garnett 1992).
In interactive works for orchestra or large ensemble, the actual "con-
ductor" of the computer music may be a keyboard player or other
member of the ensemble. In a revised version of Pierre Boulez's Expio-
sante Fixe, a conductor directs a large ensemble, while a single flute is
tracked by a computer using score-following techniques to trigger all
the electronic events on an ISPW and on MIDI samplers.
(For a simple demonstration of how the conductor model works, see
the example on CD-ROM, Conduct Chopin, in the Tempo Follower sec-
tion for chapter 6. It allows a performer to control the tempo of a

Chopin Prelude stored in the computer's memory, by tapping the foot
pedal while the modulation wheel controls the dynamic level.)
The Chamber Music ModelString Quartet
The interaction in the chamber music model is more complex since
several musicians reciprocally influence each others' performance. In
a string quartet, for example, even though the first violinist is often
considered the effective "leader" (i.e., conductor) of the group, in real-
ity the interplay between musicians demonstrates shared control. Into-
nation, phrasing, and tempo are constantly in flux, with control often
passed around to the musician with the most prominent musical mate-
rial. This taking and yielding of control, which makes the string quartet
so dynamic, is a strong feature built into the composition itself. It is a
drama about the relationship of four musicians, each one capable of
exhibiting character and independence by adding their musical per-
sonality to the score. These relationships are displayed even more viv-
idly in improvised performances.
Examples of the chamber music model in interactive composition
are numerous. For example, the first movement of Snake Charmer, for
clarinet and computer (Winkler 1991), begins with a computer intro-
duction set at a fixed dynamic level. When the clarinet enters, it is able
to influence the dynamic level of the computer part for a short time,
after which the computer stops "listening" to the performer and con-
tinues on its own. This give and take occurs many times during a per-
formance, with occasional outbursts from the computer that cause the
clarinetist to increase his dynamic level to match the computer. Similar
methods have been used to give or take away control of the tempo and
other parameters from the computer (Rowe 1993).
The Improvisation ModelJazz Combo
The jazz combo provides abundant examples of interaction ripe for com-
puter simulation. Traditional jazz pieces provide a structure and a shared
conceptual framework in which musicians interact with each other,
influencing both the interpretation of written music (the head), and
the improvisation of primary compositional material (solos). Even the
basic harmonic structure of a tune is open to unlimited interpretation

by a performer, who selects voicing and variants of the harmony to suit
the immediate mood of the piece. A favorite trick of the jazz bassist,
for example, is to play a third below the root of the established chord,
thus turning, say, an E half-diminished chord into a C9 chord. Musi-
cians trade off taking control of the music, fashioning their solos into
spontaneous personal statements that alter and influence the sur-
rounding accompaniment. Relationships change frequently as two
members trade riffs, or a third jumps momentarily to the conversa-
tional foreground.
What makes this relationship function to produce music that does
not sound like random babbling is that there are a huge number of
shared assumptions and implied rules based on years of collective expe-
rience. This kind of musical intelligence can be simulated with in-
teractive software on a very simple level. Computers can recognize
patterns, identifying such things as scale types, chord progressions,
rhythmic and melodic patterns, and tempo. Using this information,
sets of rules and assumptions can be coded into computer algorithms
made to generate new music that seems natural and responsive to the
performer's material. Just as a jazz combo responds naturally to a solo-
ist's changing moods, so too can an interactive piece respond to a per-
former; each performance is a unique and unpredictable event, held
within more or less scripted boundaries. The limitation of the range
of possible parameter changes focuses the music, giving it a distinct
character.
Free Improvisation
The free jazz movement of the sixties produced performances that were
highly interactive, spontaneous, expressive, and unpredictable. Such
music offers a complex model of the highest level of interactivity. The
computer may interact subtly or cryptically with the performer, cre-
ating listenable music on its own, seemingly independent from the
live performer. Neither the performer nor the computer may be "in
control," but each one will have some influence on how the other
responds. The free improvisation model poses artistic and technical
challenges that may yield new musical forms idiomatic to the tech-
niques of interactive composition.

A good example of this idea of a "virtual" performer can be seen in
the work of composer and improviser George Lewis, who describes his
early experiences creating and performing with an interactive system
written in the Forth programming language in the late seventies:
Coming from a tradition (African-American) that emphasizes collective impro-
vised expression in music, this way of doing music with computers seemed
quite natural. The computer was regarded as "just another musician in the
band." Hours were spent in the tweaking stage, listening to and adjusting the
real-time output of the computer, searching for a range of behavior that was
compatible with human musicians. By compatible, J mean that music transmits
information about its source. An improvisar (anyone, really) takes the presence
or absence of certain sonic activities as a guide to what is going on (Lewis 1994).
Lewis's strategy allows for a great deal of independence between a com-
puter and a performer, establishing musical personalities that do not
directly control each other, but rather have mutual influence that con-
tributes to the final outcome of an improvisation. His goal is to make
the computer's 'playing" listenable as music on its own by viewing its
behavior as separate from and independent of the performer. He
explains:
For me this independence is necessary in order to give the improvising musi-
cian something to think about. Later, when I speak of musical "interaction"
with some of the later models of this computer program, I mean that the inter-
action takes place in the manner of two improvisors that have their own "per-
sonalities." The program's extraction of important features from my activity is
not reintroduced directly, but used to condition and guide a separate process
of real-time algorithmic composition.
The performer interacts with the audible results of this process, just as the
program interacts with the audible results of what I am thinking about musi-
cally; neither party to the communication has final authority to force a certain
outcomeno one is "in charge." I communicate with such programs only by
means of my own musical behavior.
Thus, performance features recognized by the software are applied indi-
rectly to the computer music causing responses that are not always
obvious but are still influenced by a performer's actions. To deal suc-
cessfully with such a free form requires great skill on the part of the
performer who is, to a large extent, the composer as well. More often,
a composer will create a more or less rigid framework or structure in
which the interaction will unfold.

Musical Form and Structure
Music is a temporal art, an art whose primary medium is time. Most
composers, hopefully, are gifted at generating interesting musical ma-
terials. It is in the composing of these materials that the deeper art is
revealed. Composing, in this case, is about musical structure, musical
form, and especially time. This is how dramatic situations are created
and unfold: What is the music about (characters, scene, plot)? What
changes? How does it change (dramatic action)? When does it change
(dramatic timing)? Taking away some performer control might result
in a precisely crafted piece, with structure and timing essential to the
realization of a work. Adding more performer control will increase the
opportunity for spontaneous expression and serendipitous results. It is
possible to contain a performance within a carefully described struc-
ture, while still allowing performer freedom within those confines.
Popular rock songs, for instance, may feature an improvised guitar solo
within a tightly structured performance. While a performer might
experience great freedom and connection in a freely improvised per-
formance, a conceptual or structural framework gives the music a co-
herent shape and stylistic consistency that provides a road map for the
performers and the audience. Thus, one of the new challenges facing
composers of interactive works is to create malleable forms based on
flexible musical structures that respond to human input.
Levels of Indeterminacy
When beginning to form a conceptual basis for understanding inter-
active relationships, traditional models can be useful. However, since
the virtue of the computer is that it can do things human performers
cannot do, it is essential to break free from the limitations of traditional
models and develop new forms that take advantage of the computer's
capabilities. Of primary concern is differentiating between predeter-
mined and indeterminate actions.
Predetermined actions are known before the performance begins,
represented to the performer as a notated score, and to the computer
as a sequence (or an algorithm producing fixed results). Predetermined
actions are usually easier to implement, are very dependable, can be
created with great attention to detail, and can represent the composer's

idealized vision of a worka polished, finished version. Even within a
traditional performer's score, however, there are many indeterminate
elements open to interpretation (such as subtleties of intonation, tim-
ing, phrasing, and articulation). Thus, indeterminacy exists on several
levels, based on the ability to predict the final outcome of a perfor-
mance. However, it is usually a term denoting significant musical fea-
tures that are not precisely fixed or determined in advance.
Composers interested in process, relationships, action, and dialogue
may prefer highly indeterminate actions that are improvisational or
based on processes where the specific outcome is unknown. The out-
come may vary from completely surprising results to a range of known
possibilities. Compared to predetermined actions, indeterminate ac-
tions tend to be more spontaneous, expressive, and interactive. They
also can be more difficult to implement, harder to control, and less
reliable. When a performer improvises, for example, the input is unex-
pected to the system, whereas with a notated score the computer may
contain a version of the performer's score and look for expected input.
(See score following, chapter 9.) Improvisational works need software
that recognizes performance features or conditions to trigger events.
Similarly, the computer output may be indeterminate, ranging from a
highly constrained process that produces variations with minute differ-
ences to wildly random results that will continually surprise the perfor-
mer. Indeterminacy often results from surrendering some control to
unpredictable processes with widely changing behavior.
Improvisational processes have a high degree of indetenninacy since
musical features are not precisely fixed or determined in advance. The
concept of indeterminacy is ideally suited for computer music since
the degree of randomness and the range of random parameters can be
specified precisely (see chap. 7). Compositional techniques of indeter-
minacy were pioneered in the forties and fifties by composer John
Cage, who created very strict rules (algorithms) to generate large scores
for both acoustic ensembles and electronic tape pieces. To create some
of his pieces, he used random procedures to pick one of many composi-
tional options or to set musical parameters. He also experimented with
indeterminacy in performance, offering verbal instructions or graphic
images to performers in place of traditional scores. Many of the pieces
used "chance operations," such as throwing coins, to create everything
from the smallest details to the larger musical structures (Nyman 1980).

Many composers were influenced by Cage's work and implemented
some of his ideas in different and imaginative ways. Of particular note
is the work of Earle Brown, whose "open form" compositions were in-
spired by Alexander Calder's mobiles. Whereas Cage used random pro-
cedures to be free of his own influence over musical materials, Brown
used his compositional skills to create all his musical material before-
hand, allowing musicians to choose from this material within an inten-
tionally ambiguous form. Two works for orchestra, entitled Available
Forms (1962-63), consist of many short passages of music labeled with
large numbers. During a performance, the conductor improvises the
selection and order of the musical material, selecting passages of music
and instruments by holding up the number of fingers representing the
musical excerpts and cuing in a soloist, section, or the whole orchestra.
In Available Forms, the score segments are entirely written out, but the
selection of instrumentation, density, timing, and prewritten material
is left entirely in the hands of the conductor. In this way the music was
represented in changeable form, like Calder's mobiles, whose materials
never changed but whose form was constantly in flux as the various
sections spun around (Griffith 1981).
European composers, most notably Karlheinz Stockhausen, also cre-
ated works in mobile form that used elaborate indeterminate processes
to create musical material and form. The orchestral works of Witold
Lutoslawski features short quasi-improvisational moments surrounded
by larger, carefully notated sections that define the form on the large
scale. Thus, there are indeterminate events within a predetermined
structure. The groundbreaking experimental works from the fifties and
sixties are worthy of study as models of interaction and indeterminacy
that may be useful to computer musicians.
Linear vs. Nonlinear Structures
The structure of a finished work is most often comprised of multiple
sections, with local events determining the connection of one note or
sound to the next. Both local events and larger compositional structures
may be more or less predetermined or indeterminate. The design of inter-
active software will depend on the types of interaction and the amount
of freedom desired in the larger structure and in the smaller events.
ferial

Compositional structures may be considered linear, with sections of
music ordered sequentially as in a traditional score, or nonlinear, with
sections ordered differently for each performance, determined by per-
former input or computer processes (see fig. 2.1). Within each large
section, smaller "local" events may be predetermined and ordered as
in a traditional score, or they may contain aspects of indeterminacy.
Nonlinear structures have sections whose order is not determined
before a performance, with several parts of a composition available at
any given time. For example, a score might contain five measures of
music that can be performed in any order. Thus, the way that sections
are chosen, or the method for navigating large collections of material,
will have an essential impact on the form of a work. The timing and
ordering of musical sections in response to user input requires new
modes of compositional thought that challenge traditional notions of
form and cohesion. Structure, form, timing, order, development, and
transition: These are some of the issues that are of primary concern
to composers of a traditional score. A composer employing nonlinear
structures must be willing to give up total control of these important
compositional decisions, delegating them to a performer or to improvi-
sational computer processes. If sections seem to pop up without con-
nection or purpose, there is a danger of losing the feeling of the work
as a completed whole, and losing the connected, forward-propelling
impetus that gives some music a coherent dramatic structure. What is
gained is a malleable form, full of spontaneity and invention, given
shape by a skillful performer. Similar concepts of nonlinear structure
may be viewed in CD-ROM titles, hypertext, and multimedia works
where issues of navigation affect cohesion and experience.
A single large computer program with many highly interactive pa-
rameters could also serve as a nonlinear structure without specifying
sections, since such a complex system could be always on" and re-
sponsive to a performer's input in a number of unpredictable ways.
This model assumes that the computer's response will be rich and var-
ied, a virtual entity capable of making informed musical decisions.
Such a program structure would seem to suggest free improvisation as
the input, but that is by no means the only option. In fact, a performer
playing a traditional written score within a very free interactive com-
puter environment may produce compelling results, with the subtleties

Nonlinear Structures. Any one section of music may be preordered or
followed by another section.
Figure 2.1
Linear and nonlinear structures
of score interpretation reflected in the computer music, and the com-
puter, in turn, influencing the performer's interpretation of the score.
Predetermined vs. Improvisational Events
Notes, phrases, rhythms, sounds, dynamics, and articulation make up
the smaller musical events that form larger sections. Like the structures
that they create, musical events for both the performer and the com-
puter can be predetermined or improvisational. (Improvisational is a
better term than nonlinear for indeterminate note-to-note events, since
music at this micro level usually appears to be linear.) Written scores
for the performer have their counterpart as fixed sequences for the
computer. A sequence may be considered here not only as a pre-
recorded performance, but also as any computer process that produces
identical musical results each time it is run. For example, pitch sets
and rhythmic values or mathematical functions stored in the computer
could be used as input to generate the same musical passage for each
performance.
Improvisation is a huge subject that is beyond the scope of this book.
The extensive body of literature available on jazz improvisation is
worthy of study for concepts applicable to interactive works. A per-
former's improvisation may work in conjunction with improvisational
computer processes, simulating dialogue between two or more per-
B
A
V
A B C D
Linear Structures. ach section of music is sequentially ordered.
C D

formers. An improvisation may also trigger predetermined event data
stored in the computer by specifying target notes that could be used to
trigger such things as short sequences of predetermined grace notes or
to supply a stored harmonic accompaniment.
The computer can be in an improvisational "state," awaiting any
input without expectations from the performer, and containing ran-
domized variables that produce continuous variations or other unpre-
dictable results. A highly improvisational work could have several
sections, with each section's behavior static in the sense that it would
always be "on" and continuously responsive to performer input. Thus,
there could be great activity and variety within a section, but the char-
acter of each section would be different, based on selected computer
processes. Thus, each performance would be familiar, yet different. Im-
provisational sections may also evolve, with musical parameters chang-
ing gradually over time.
Between strictly predetermined music and "free" improvisation lie
strategies that combine both these techniques. Often a composer may
wish to have sections well-delineated and structured linearly to control
the sense of timing, pacing, or harmonic motion, with the smaller
events within this larger structure open to improvisation and surprise.
One thing to keep in mind is that a very high level of improvisational
skill and artistry is needed to create an entirely "free" performance suc-
cessfully. When using performers untrained in the art of improvisation,
it might be best to use either a written score or a guided improvisation
that offers musical models or instructions that constrain choices of
material. A few "free" sections, where musicians respond purely to the
computer music to create a dialogue, could be mixed with more pre-
determined sections.
These issues of control and expectation, and the drama they create,
are ripe for exploration, suggesting many types of relationships
uniquely idiomatic to the interactive medium. For example, a perfor-
mer may be controlling the tempo of the computer, when suddenly
the tempo is taken over by the computer, forcing the performer to
"keep up" with it, the resultant struggle creating audible tension. Or
part of a performer's improvisation may become the basis of computer
variations as they are sent to various transformative algorithms. These
techniques hold great promise for interactive composition, suggesting
a new paradigm for creating music. What is intriguing is that a player

must work to learn the personality of the computer algorithms in order
to engage in a dialogue with the computer, and the computer music
may, in turn, "learn" the musical personality of the performer, incorpo-
rating his or her human idiosyncrasies and the subtleties of playing
style.
Instrument Design and Limitations
Control can also be viewed on a more immediate level between per-
formers and their instruments. The physical limitations of each instru-
ment's unique sound-producing mechanism requires physical skills
that make an instrument difficult to control. This helps create the idio-
syncratic qualities associated with that instrument, the qualities that
give it cha ra ctei Many twentieth century composers, in their quest for
new sounds, challenged the physical limitations of instruments by
breaking free of their normal playing methods. John Cage, for example,
created pieces for prepared piano, which required the performer to insert
metal bolts, rubber bands, and pieces of paper into the piano strings to
alter the sounds of the instrument. Other composers used such ex-
tended techniques to play brass mouthpieces, place gongs in tubs of
water, or tap the wooden body of a string instrument.
Ironically, computer music, with its unlimited capacity for creating
new sounds, lacks the very physical limitations of playing techniques
and sound producing mechanisms that are responsible for producing
such richness and character in acoustic music. Thus, performance ges-
tures shaped by a partìcular instrumental technique become valuable
data when applied to sound and computer music processes that reflect
their idiosyncratic nature. Furthermore, it is possible to simulate some
aspects of these physical restrictions by limiting a computer's response
to range or dynamic level, changing articulations, or creating a tempo
that is slightly uneven. Chapter 7 will cover ideas for defining instru-
ments and "humanizing" techniques.
Human-machine interaction begins with the study the physical ac-
tions that produce music and the acoustic properties of instruments
that respond to these actions. Using the arm to bow a cello is an en-
tirely different physical activity from blowing into a saxophone, and
these gestures help produce the characteristic sound of a particular in-
strument. Orchestration utilizes the strengths and weaknesses of vari-

ous instruments by taking into consideration the subtleties that arise
with each instrument's unique method of sound production and play-
ing technique.
MIDI devices fall into several categories. Most dedicated MIDI con-
trollers are modeled after acoustic instruments, such as keyboard syn-
thesizers, electronic drum pads, or wind controllers. These devices take
advantage of a musician's expertise with an instrument. They act as a
familiar interface to digital sound modules, which may be an inte-
grated part of the instrument, as in the case of most MIDI keyboards,
or may be a self-contained rack-mounted unit accessed by an external
controller.
While most MIDI instruments do not produce acoustic sounds, hy-
brid MIDI/acoustic instruments, such as the Zeta MIDI violin or Ya-
maha MIDI Grand Piano, try to have the best of both worlds: real
acoustic sound produced from a traditional instrument, and an accu-
rate and dependable MIDI controller. This enables performers to play
with all the subtle variations of tone production and interpretation
developed over years of practice, while also sending digital informa-
tion. Many of these instruments have specially designed hardware
switches that determine MIDI information from the physical aspects
of a performance, such as the hand position on the neck of a string
instrument or the valve position of a wind instrument.
Pitch-to-MIDI converters are also used in hybrid MIDI/acoustic in-
struments to track pitch and dynamics, but their primary use is to add
MIDI capabilities to a traditional acoustic instrument by transforming
its audio signal, received via microphone, into MIDI data. While this
might seem ideal, the complexity of sound and the variety of playing
techniques available on an acoustic instrument makes the translation
from the acoustic realm to the digital realm difficult. So far, stand alone
pitch-to-MIDI converters have proven less accurate than specially de-
signed MIDI instruments.
Continuous controller devices augment the performance capabilities
of MIDI instruments by adding foot pedals, data sliders, aftertouch,
and modulation wheels. Continuous controllers add physical hooks to
synthesizer parameters that shape aspects of the sound and should
be considered important and expressive additions to models of tradi-
tional instruments. Max can follow each controller as it sends continu-
ous values between O and 127. Some controllers can even offer clues

Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:

God remain alone as He was in the beginning. To these doctrines
Abu Hudhayl seems to have been led by two considerations, both
significant for the drift of the Mu‘tazilites. First, there was about their
reasonings a grimness of logic touched with utilitarianism. Thus,
from their position that man could come by the light of his reason to
the knowledge of God and of virtue, they drew the conclusion that it
was man’s duty so to attain, and that God would damn eternally
every man who did not. Their utilitarianism, again, comes out
strikingly in their view of heaven and hell. These, at present, were
serving no useful purpose because they had no inhabitants;
therefore, at present, they did not exist. But this made difficulties for
Abu Hudhayl. What has a beginning must have an end. So he
explained the end as the ceasing of all changes. Second, he shows
clear evidence of influence from Greek philosophy. The Qur’an
teaches that the world has been created in time; Aristotle, that it is
from eternity and to eternity. The creation, Abu Hudhayl applied to
changes; before that, the world was, but in eternal rest. Hereafter,
all changes will cease; rest will again enter and endure to all
eternity. We shall see how largely this doctrine was advanced and
developed by his successors.
But there were further complications in the doctrine of man’s
actions and into some of these we must enter, on account of their
later importance. Not everything that comes from the action of a
man is by his action. God has a creative part in it, apparently as
regards the effects. Especially, knowledge in the mind of a pupil
does not come from the teacher, but from God. The idea seems to
be that the teacher may teach, but that the being taught in the pupil
is a divine working. Similarly, he distinguished motions in the mind,
which he held were not altogether due to the man, and external
motions which were. There is given, too, to a man at the time of his
performing an action an ability to perform the action, which is a
special accident in him apart from any mere soundness of health or
limb.
In these ways, Abu Hudhayl recognized God’s working through
man. Another of his positions had a similar basis and was a curious

AN-NAZZAM
combination of historical criticism and mysticism, a combination
which we shall find later in al-Ghazzali, a much greater man. The
evidence of tradition for things dealing with the Unseen World (al-
ghayb) he rejected. Twenty witnesses might hand on the tradition in
question, but it was not to be received unless among them there
was one, at least, of the People of Paradise. At all times, he taught,
there were in the world these Friends of God (awliya Allah, sing.
wali), who were protected against all greater sins and could not lie.
It is the word of these that is the basis for belief, and the tradition is
merely a statement of what they have said. This shows clearly how
far the doctrine of the ecstatic life and of knowledge gained through
direct intercourse between the believer and God had already
advanced.
But Abu Hudhayl was only one in a group of daring and absolutely
free-minded speculators. They were applying to the ideas of the
Qur’an the keen solvent of Greek dialectic, and the results which
they obtained were of the most fantastically original character.
Thrown into the wide sea and utter freedom of Greek thought, their
ideas had expanded to the bursting point and, more than even a
German metaphysician, they had lost touch of the ground of
ordinary life, with its reasonable probabilities, and were swinging
loose on a wild hunt after ultimate truth, wielding as their weapons
definitions and syllogisms. The lyric fervors of Muhammad in the
Qur’an gave scope enough of strange ideas from which to start, or
which had to be explained away. Their belief in the powers of the
science of logic was unfailing, and, armed with Aristotle’s “Analytics,”
they felt sure that certainty was within their reach. It was at the
court and under the protection of al-Ma’mun that they especially
flourished, and some account of the leading spirits among them will
be necessary before we describe how they reached their utmost
pride of power and how they fell.
An-Nazzam (d. 231) has the credit among later
historians of having made use, to a high degree, of
the doctrines of the Greek philosophers. He was
one of the Satans of the Qadarites, say they; he read the books of

the philosophers and mingled their teachings with the doctrines of
the Mu‘tazilites. He taught, in the most absolute way, that God could
do nothing to a creature, either in this world or in the next, that was
not for the creature’s good and in accordance with strict justice. It
was not only that God would not do it; He had not the power to do
anything evil. Evidently the personality of God was fast vanishing
behind an absolute law of right. To this, orthodox Islam opposed the
doctrine that God could do anything; He could forgive whom He
willed, and punish whom He willed. Further, he taught that God’s
willing a thing meant only that He did it in accordance with His
knowledge; and when He willed the action of a creature that meant
only that He commanded it. This is evidently to evade phrases in the
Qur’an. Man, again, he taught, was spirit (ruh), and the body
(badan) was only an instrument. But this spirit was a fine substance
which flowed in the body like the essential oil in a rose, or butter in
milk. In a universe determined by strict law, man alone was
undetermined. He could throw a stone into the air, and by his action
the stone went up; but when the force of his throw was exhausted it
came again under law and fell. If he had only asked himself how it
came to fall, strange things might have happened. But he, and all his
fellows, were only playing with words like counters. Further, he
taught that God had created all created things at once, but that He
kept them in concealment until it was time for them to enter on the
stage of visible being and do their part. All things that ever will exist
are thus existing now, but, in a sense, in retentis. This seems to be
another attempt to solve the problem of creation in time, and it had
important consequences. Further, the Qur’an was no miracle (mu‘jiz)
to him. The only miraculous elements in it are the narratives about
the Unseen World, and past things and things to come, and the fact
that God deprived the Arabs of the power of writing anything like it.
But for that, they could easily have surpassed it as literature. As a
high Imamite he rejected utterly agreement and analogy. Only the
divinely appointed Imam had the right to supplement the teaching of
Muhammad. We pass over some of his metaphysical views, odd as
they are. The Muslim writers on theological history have classified
him rightly as more of a physicist than a metaphysician. He had a

BISHR; MA‘MAR
concrete mind and that fondness for playing with metaphysical
paradoxes which often goes with it.
Another of the group was Bishr ibn al-Mu‘tamir.
His principal contribution was the doctrine of tawlid
and tawallud, begetting and deriving. It is the
transmission of a single action through a series of objects; the agent
meant to affect the first object only; the effect on the others
followed. Thus, he moves his hand, and the ring on his finger is
moved. What relation of responsibility, then, does he bear to these
derived effects? Generally, how are we to view a complex of causes
acting together and across one another? The answer of later
orthodox Islam is worth giving at this point. God creates in the man
the will to move his hand; He creates the movement of the hand and
also the movement of the ring. All is by God’s direct creation at the
time. Further, could God punish an infant or one who had no
knowledge of the faith? Bishr’s reply on the first point was simply a
bit of logical jugglery to avoid saying frankly that there was anything
that God could not do. His answer on the second was that God could
have made a different and much better world than this, a world in
which all men might have been saved. But He was not bound to
make a better world—in this Bishr separates from the other
Mu‘tazilites—He was only bound to give man free-will and, then,
either revelation to guide him to salvation or reason to show him
natural law.
With Ma‘mar ibn Abbad, the philosophies wax faster and more
furious. He succeeded in reducing the conception of God to a bare,
indefinable something. We could not say that God had knowledge.
For it must be of something in Himself or outside of Himself. If the
first, then there was a union of knower and known, and that is
impossible; or a duality in the divine nature, and that was equally
impossible. Here Ma‘mar was evidently on the road to Hegel. If the
second, then His knowledge depended on the existence of
something other than Himself, and that did away with His
absoluteness. Similarly, he dealt with God’s Will. Nor could He be
described as qadim, prior to all things, for that word, in Arabic,

suggested sequence and time. By all this, he evidently meant that
our conceptions cannot be applied to God; that God is unthinkable
by us. On creation, he developed the ideas of an-Nazzam.
Substances (jisms) only were created by God, and by “substances”
he seems to mean matter as a whole; all changes in them, or it,
come either of necessity from its nature, as when fire burns, the sun
warms; or of free-will, as always in the animal world. God has no
part in these things. He has given the material and has nothing to do
with the coming and going of separate bodies; such are simple
changes, forms of existence, and proceed from the matter itself. Man
is an incorporeal substance. The soul is the man and his body is but
a cover. This true man can only know and will; the body perceives
and does.
The last of this group whose views we need consider, is Thumama
ibn Ashras. He was of very dubious morals; was imprisoned as a
heretic by Harun ar-Rashid, but highly favored by al-Ma’mun, in
whose Khalifate he died, a.h. 213. He held that actions produced
through tawallud had no agent, either God or man. That knowledge
of good and evil could be produced by tawallud through speculation,
and is, therefore, an action without an agent, and required even
before revelation. That Jews, Christians, Magians will be turned into
dust in the next world and will not enter either Paradise or Hell; the
same will be the fate of cattle and children. That any one of the
unbelievers who does not know his Creator is excusable. That all
knowledge is a priori. That the only action which men possess is will;
everything besides that is a production without a producer. That the
world is the act of God by His nature, i.e., it is an act which His
nature compels Him to produce; is, therefore, from eternity and to
eternity with Him. It may be doubted how far Thumama was a
professional theologian and how far he was a free-thinking, easy-
living man of letters.
In all this, the influence of Greek theology and of Aristotle can be
clearly traced. With Aristotle had come to them the idea of the world
as law, an eternal construction subsisting and developing on fixed
principles. This conception of law shows itself in their thought frankly

THE VISION OF
GOD
at strife with Muhammad’s conception of God as will, as the
sovereign over all. Hence, the crudities and devices by which they
strove to make good their footing on strange ground and keep a
right to the name of Muslim, while changing the essence of their
faith. The anthropomorphic God of Muhammad, who has face and
hands, is seen in Paradise by the believer and settles Himself firmly
upon His throne, becomes a spirit, and a spirit, too, of the vaguest
kind.
It remains now only to touch upon one or two
points common to all the Mu‘tazilites. First, the
Beatific Vision of God in Paradise. It was a fixed
agreement of the early Muslim Church, based on texts of the Qur’an
and on tradition, that some believers, at least, would see and gaze
upon God in the other world; this was the highest delight held out to
them. But the Mu‘tazilites perceived that vision involved a directing
of the eyes on the part of the seer and position on the part of the
seen. God must, therefore, be in a place and thus limited. So they
were compelled to reject the agreement and the traditions in
question and to explain away the passages in the Qur’an. Similarly,
in Qur’an vii. 52, we read that God settled Himself firmly upon His
throne. This, with other anthropomorphisms of hands and feet and
eyes, the Mu‘tazilites had to explain away in a more or less
cumbrous fashion.
With one other detail of this class we must deal at greater length.
It was destined to be the vital point of the whole Mu‘tazilite
controversy and the test by which theologians were tried and had
their places assigned. It had a weighty part also in bringing about
the fall of the Mu‘tazilites. There had grown up very early in the
Muslim community an unbounded reverence and awe in the
presence of the Qur’an. In it God speaks, addressing His servant, the
Prophet; the words, with few exceptions, are direct words of God. It
is, therefore, easily intelligible that it came to be called the word of
God (kalam Allah). But Muslim piety went further and held that it
was uncreated and had existed from all eternity with God. Whatever
proofs of this doctrine may have been brought forward later from

THE WORD OF
GOD
the Qur’an itself, we can have no difficulty in recognizing that it is
plainly derived from the Christian Logos and that the Greek Church,
perhaps through John of Damascus, has again played a formative
part. So, in correspondence with the heavenly and uncreated Logos
in the bosom of the Father, there stands this uncreated and eternal
Word of God; to the earthly manifestation in Jesus corresponds the
Qur’an, the Word of God which we read and recite. The one is not
the same as the other, but the idea to be gained from the
expressions of the one is equivalent to the idea which we would gain
from the other, if the veil of the flesh were removed from us and the
spiritual world revealed.
That this view grew up very early among the
Muslims is evident from the fact that it is opposed
by Jahm ibn Safwan, who was killed toward the
end of the Umayyad period. It seems to have originated by a kind of
transfusion of ideas from Christianity and not as a result of
controversy or dialectic about the teachings of the Qur’an. We find
the orthodox party vehemently opposing discussion on the subject,
as indeed they did on all theological subjects. “Our fathers have told
us; it is the faith received from the Companions;” was their
argument from the earliest time we can trace. Malik ibn Anas used
to cut off all discussions with “Bila kayfa” (Believe without asking
how); and he held strongly that the Qur’an was uncreated. The
same word kalam which we have found applied to the Word of God
—both the eternal, uncreated Logos and its manifestation in the
Qur’an—was used by them most confusingly for “disputation;” “he
disputed” was takallam and “one who disputed” was mutakallim. All
that was anathema to the pious, and it is amusing to see the origin
of what became later the technical terms for scholastic theology and
its students in their shuddering repulsion to all “talking about” the
sacred mysteries.
This opposition appeared in two forms. First, they refused to go
an inch beyond the statements in the Qur’an and tradition and to
draw consequences, however near the surface these consequences
might seem to lie. A story is told of al-Bukhari, (d. 257), late as he

is, which shows how far this went and how long it lasted. An
inquisition was got up against him out of envy by one of his fellow-
teachers. The point of attack was the orthodoxy of his position on
the lafz (utterance) of the Qur’an; was it created or uncreated? He
said readily that the Qur’an was uncreated and was obstinately silent
as to the utterance of it by men. At last, persistent questioning drove
him to an outburst. “The Qur’an is the Word of God and is
uncreated. The speech of man is created and inquisition (imtihan) is
an innovation (bid‘a).” But beyond that he would not go, even to
draw the conclusion of the syllogism which he had indicated. Some,
as we may gather from this story, had felt themselves driven to hold
that not only the Qur’an in itself but also the utterance of it by the
lips of men and the writing of it by men’s hands—all between the
boards, as they said—was uncreated. Others were coming to deny
absolutely the existence of the eternal Logos and that this revealed
Qur’an was uncreated in any sense. But others, as al-Bukhari, while
holding tenaciously that the Qur’an was uncreated, refused to make
any statement as to its utterance by men. There was nothing said
about that in Qur’an or tradition.
The second form of opposition was to any upholding of their belief
by arguments, except of the simplest and most apparent. That was
an invasion by reason (aql) of the realm of traditional faith (naql).
When the pious were eventually driven to dialectic weapons, their
arguments show that these were snatched up to defend already
occupied positions. They ring artificial and forced. Thus, in the
Qur’an itself, the Qur’an is called “knowledge from God.” It is, then,
inseparable from God’s quality of knowledge. But that is eternal and
uncreated; therefore, so too, the Qur’an. Again, God created
everything by the word, “Be.” But this word cannot have been
created, otherwise a created word would be a creator. Therefore,
God’s word is uncreated. Again, there stands in the Qur’an (vii, 52),
“Are not the creation and the command His?” The command here is
evidently different from the creation, i.e., not created. Further, God’s
command creates; therefore it cannot be created. But it is God’s
word in command. It will be noticed here how completely God’s

word is hypostatized. This appears still more strongly in the following
argument. God said to Moses, (Qur. vii, 141), “I have chosen thee
over mankind with my apostolate and my word.” God, therefore, has
a word. But, again (Qur. iv, 162), He addresses Moses with this word
(kallama-llahu Musa taklima, evidently regarded as meaning that
God’s word addressed Moses) and said, “Lo, I am thy Lord.” This
argument is supposed to put the opponent in a dilemma. Either he
rejects the fact of Moses being so addressed, which is rejecting what
God has said, and is, therefore, unbelief; or he holds that the kalam
which so addresses Moses is a created thing. Then, a created thing
asserts that it is Moses’ Lord. Therefore, God’s kalam with which He
addresses the prophets, or which addresses the prophets, is eternal,
uncreated.
But if this doctrine grew up early in Islam, opposition to it was not
slow in appearing, and that on different sides. Literary vanity,
national pride, and philosophical scruples all made themselves felt.
Even in Muhammad’s lifetime, according to the legend of the poet
Labid and the verses which he put up in challenge on the Ka‘ba, the
Qur’an had taken rank as inimitable poetry. At all points it was the
Word of God and perfect in every detail. But, among the Arabs, a
jealous and vain people, if there was one thing on which each was
more jealous and vain than another, it was skill in working with
words. The superiority of Muhammad as a Prophet of God they
might endure, though often with a bad grace; but Muhammad as a
rival and unapproachable literary artist they could not away with. So
we find satire of the weaknesses of the Qur’an appearing here and
there, and it came to be a sign of emancipation and freedom from
prejudice to examine it in detail and balance it against other
products of the Arab genius. The rival productions of Musaylima, the
False Prophet, long enjoyed a semi-contraband existence, and Abu
Ubayda (d. 208) found it necessary to write a treatise in defence of
the metaphors of the Qur’an. Among the Persians this was still more
the case. To them, Muhammad might be a prophet, but he was also
an Arab; and while they accepted his mission, accepting his books in
a literary way was too much for them. As a prophet, he was a man;

MU‘TAZILITE
ATTITUDE
as a literary artist, he was an Arab. So Jahm ibn Safwan may have
felt; so, certainly, others felt later. The poet Bashshar ibn Burd (killed
for satire, in 167), a companion of Wasil ibn Ata and a Persian of
very dubious orthodoxy, used to amuse himself by comparing poems
by himself and others with passages in the Qur’an, to the
disadvantage of the latter. And Ibn al-Muqaffa (killed about 140), the
translator of “Kalila and Dimna” and many other books into Arabic,
and a Persian nationalist, is said to have planned an imitation of the
Qur’an.
Added to all this came the influence of the
Mu‘tazilite theologians. They had a double ground
for their opposition. The doctrine of an absolutely
divine and perfect book limited them too much in their intellectual
freedom. They were willing to respect and use the Qur’an, but not to
accept its ipsissima verba. Regarded as the production of
Muhammad under divine influence, it could have a human and a
divine side, and things which needed to be dropped or changed in it
could be ascribed to the human side. But that was not possible with
a miraculous book come down from heaven. In a word, they were
meeting the difficulty which has been met by Christianity in the latter
half of the nineteenth century. The least they could do was to deny
that the Qur’an was uncreated.
But they had a still more vital, if not more important, philosophical
base of objection. We have seen already how they viewed the
doctrine of God’s qualities (sifat) and tried to limit them in every
way. These qualities ran danger, they held, of being hypostatized
into separate persons like those in the Christian Trinity, and we have
just seen how near that danger really lay in the case of God’s kalam.
In orthodox Islam it has become a plain Logos.
The position in this of an-Nazzam has been given above. It is
interesting as showing that the Qur’an, even then, was given as a
probative miracle (mu‘jiz) because it deprived all men of power
(i‘jaz) to imitate it. That is, its æsthetic perfection was raised to the
miraculous degree and then regarded as a proof of its divine origin.

But al-Muzdar, a pupil of Bishr ibn al Mu‘tamir and an ascetic of high
rank, called the Monk of the Mu‘tazilites, went still further than an-
Nazzam. He flatly damned as unbelievers all who held the eternity of
the Qur’an; they had taken unto themselves two Gods. Further, he
asserted that men were quite capable of producing a work even
finer than the Qur’an in point of style. But the force of this opinion is
somewhat diminished by the liberality with which he denounced his
opponents in general as unbelievers. Stories are told of him very
much like those in circulation with us about those who hold that few
will be saved, and it is worth noticing that upon this point of
salvability the Mu‘tazilites were even narrower than the orthodox.
CHAPTER II
Al-Ma’mun and the triumph of the Mu‘tazilites; the
Mihna and Ahmad ibn Hanbal; al-Farabi; the
Fatimids and the Ikhwan as-Safa; the early
mystics, ascetic and pantheistic; al-Hallaj.
Such for long was the situation between the Mu‘tazilites and their
orthodox opponents. From time to time the Mu‘tazilites received
more or less protection and state favor; at other times, they had to
seek safety in hiding. Popular favor they seem never to have
enjoyed. As the Umayyads grew weak, they became more stiff in
their orthodoxy; but with the Abbasids, and especially with al-
Mansur, thought was again free. As has been shown above,
encouragement of science and research was part of the plan of that
great man, and he easily saw that the intellectual hope of the future
was with these theological and philosophical questioners. So their
work went slowly on, with a break under Harun ar-Rashid, a
magnificent but highly orthodox monarch, who understood no trifling
with things of the faith. It is an interesting but useless question

AL-MA’MUN
whether Islam could ever have been broadened and developed to
the point of enduring in its midst free speculation and research. As
the case stands in history, it has known periods of intellectual life,
but only under the protection of isolated princes here and there. It
has had Augustan ages; it has never had great popular yearnings
after wider knowledge. Its intellectual leaders have lived and studied
and lectured at courts; they have not gone down and taught the
masses of the people. To that the democracy of Islam has never
come. Hampered by scholastic snobbishness, it has never learned
that the abiding victories of science are won in the village school.
But most unfortunately for the Mu‘tazilites and
for Islam, a Khalifa arose who had a relish for
theological discussions and a high opinion of his
own infallibility. This was al-Ma’mun. It did not matter that he
ranged himself on the progressive side; his fatal error was that he
invoked the authority of the state in matters of the intellectual and
religious life. Thus, by enabling the conservative party to pose as
martyrs, he brought the prejudices and passions of the populace still
more against the new movement. He was that most dangerous of all
beings, a doctrinaire despot. He had ideas and tried to make other
people live up to them. Al-Mansur, though a bloody tyrant, had been
a great statesman and had known how to bend people and things
quietly to his will. He had sketched the firm outlines of a policy for
the Abbasids, but had been cautious how he proclaimed his
programme to the world. The world would come to him in time, and
he could afford to wait and work in the dark. He knew, above all,
that no people would submit to be school-mastered into the way in
which they should go. Al-Ma’mun, for all his genius, was at heart a
school-master. He was an enlightened patron of an enlightened
Islam. Those who preferred to dwell in the darkness of the
obscurant, he first scolded and then punished. Discussions in
theology and comparative religion were his hobby. That some such
interchange of letters between Muslims and Christians as that which
crystallized in the Epistle of al-Kindi took place at his court seems
certain. Bishr al-Marisi, who had lived in hiding in ar-Rashid’s time on

account of his heretical views, disputed, in 209, before al-Ma’mun on
the nature of the Qur’an. He founded at Baghdad an academy with
library, laboratories, and observatory. All the weight of his influence
was thrown on the side of the Mu‘tazilites. It appeared as though he
were determined to pull his people up by force from their
superstition and ignorance.
At last, he took the final and fatal step. In 202 a decree appeared
proclaiming the doctrine of the creation of the Qur’an as the only
truth, and as binding upon all Muslims. At the same time, as an
evident sop to the Persian nationalists and the Alids, Ali was
proclaimed the best of creatures after Muhammad. The Alids, it
should be remembered, had close points of contact with the
Mu‘tazilites. Such a theological decree as this was a new thing in
Islam; never before had the individual consciousness been
threatened by a word from the throne. The Mu‘tazilites through it
practically became a state church under erastian control. But the
system of Islam never granted to the Imam, or leader of the Muslim
people, any position but that of a protector and representative. Its
theology could only be formed, as we have seen in the case of its
law, by the agreement of the whole community. The question then
naturally was what effect such a new thing as this decree could have
except to exasperate the orthodox and the masses. Practically, there
was no other effect. Things went on as before. All that it meant was
that one very prominent Muslim had stated his opinion and thrown
in his lot with heretics.
For six years this continued, and then a method was devised of
bringing the will of the Khalifa home upon the people. In 217 a
distinguished Mu‘tazilite, Ahmad ibn Abi Duwad, was appointed chief
qadi, and in 218 the decree was renewed. But this time it was
accompanied by what we would call a test-act, and an inquisition
(mihna) was instituted. The letter of directions for the conduct of
this matter, written by al-Ma’mun to his lieutenant at Baghdad, is
decisive as to the character of the man and the nature of the
movement. It is full of railings against the common people who
know not the law and are accursed. They are too stupid to

AHMAD IBN
HANBAL
understand philosophy or argument. It is the duty of the Khalifa to
guide them and especially to show them the distinction between God
and His book. He who holds otherwise than the Khalifa is either too
blind or too lying and deceitful to be trusted in any other thing.
Therefore, the qadis must be tested as to their views. If they hold
that the Qur’an is uncreated, they have abandoned tawhid, the
doctrine of God’s Unity, and can no longer hold office in a Muslim
land. Also, the qadis must apply the same test to all the witnesses in
cases before them. If these do not hold that the Qur’an is created,
they cannot be legal witnesses. Other letters followed; the Mihna
was extended through the Abbasid empire and applied to other
doctrines, e.g., that of free-will and of the vision of God. The Khalifa
also commanded that the death penalty for unbelief (kufr) should be
inflicted on those who refused to take the test. They were to be
regarded as idolaters and polytheists. The death of al-Ma’mun in the
same year relieved the pressure. It is true that the Mihna was
continued by his successor, al-Mu‘tasim, and by his successor, al-
Wathiq, but without energy; it was more a handy political weapon
than anything else. In 234, the second year of al-Mutawakkil, it was
abolished and the Qur’an decreed uncreated. At the same time the
Alids and all Persian nationalism came under a ban. Practically, the
status quo ante was restored and Mu‘tazilism was again left a
struggling heresy. The Arab party and the pure faith of Muhammad
had reasserted themselves.
In this long conflict, the most prominent figure
was certainly that of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. He was
the trust and strength of the orthodox; that he
stood fast through imprisonment and scourging defeated the plans
of the Mu‘tazilites. In dealing with the development of law, we have
seen what his legal position was. The same held in theology.
Scholastic theology (kalam) was his abomination. Those who
disputed over doctrines he cast out. That their dogmatic position
was the same as his made no difference. For him, theological truth
could not be reached by reasoning (aql); tradition (naql) from the
fathers (as-salaf) was the only ground on which the dubious words

SCHOOLS OF
MU‘TAZILITES
of the Qur’an could be explained. So, in his long examinations before
the officials of al-Ma‘mun and al-Mu‘tasim, he contented himself with
repeating either the words of the Qur’an which for him were proofs
or such traditions as he accepted. Any approach to drawing a
consequence he utterly rejected. When they argued before him, he
kept silence.
What, then, we may ask, was the net result of this incident? for it
was nothing more. The Mu‘tazilites dropped back into their former
position, but under changed conditions. The sympathy of the
populace was further from them than ever. Ahmad ibn Hanbal, saint
and ascetic, was the idol of the masses; and he, in their eyes, had
maintained single-handed the honor of the Word of God. For his
persecutors there was nothing but hatred. And after he had passed
away, the conflict was taken up with still fiercer bitterness by the
school of law founded by his pupils. They continued to maintain his
principles of Qur’an and tradition long after the Mu‘tazilites
themselves had practically vanished from the scene, and all that was
left for them to contend against was the modified system of
scholastic theology which is now the orthodox theology of Islam.
With these reactionary Hanbalites we shall have to deal later.
The Mu‘tazilites, on their side, having seen the
shipwreck of their hopes and the growing storm of
popular disfavor, seem to have turned again to
their scholastic studies. They became more and more theologians
affecting a narrower circle, and less and less educators of the world
at large. Their system became more metaphysical and their
conclusions more unintelligible to the plain man. The fate which has
fallen on all continued efforts of the Muslim mind was coming upon
them. Beggarly speculations and barren hypotheses, combats of
words over names, sapped them of life and reality. What the ill-fated
friendship of al-Ma’mun had begun was carried on and out by the
closed circle of Muslim thought. They separated into schools, one at
al-Basra and another at Baghdad. At Baghdad the point especially
developed was the old question, What is a thing (shay)? They
defined a thing, practically, as a concept that could be known and of

which something could be said. Existence (wujud) did not matter. It
was only a quality which could be there or not. With it, the thing was
an entity (mawjud); without it, a non-entity (ma‘dum), but still a
thing with all equipment of substance (jawhar) and accident (arad),
genus and species. The bearing of this was especially upon the
doctrine of creation. Practically, by God’s adding a single quality,
things entered the sphere of existence and were for us. Here, then,
is evidently an approach to a doctrine of pre-existent matter. At al-
Basra the relation of God to His qualities was especially discussed,
and there it came to be pretty nearly a family dispute between al-
Jubba‘i (d. 303) and his son Abu Hashim. Orthodox Islam held that
God has qualities, existent, eternal, added to His essence; thus, He
knows, for example, by such a quality of knowledge. The students of
Greek philosophy and the Shi‘ites denied this and said that God
knew by His essence. We have seen already Mu‘tazilite views as to
this point. Abu Hudhayl held that these qualities were God’s essence
and not in it. Thus, He knew by a quality of knowledge, but that
quality was His essence. Al-Jubba‘i contented himself with
safeguarding this statement. God knew in accordance with His
essence, but it was neither a quality nor a state (hal) which required
that He should be a knower. The orthodox had said the first; his son,
Abu Hashim, said the second. He held that we know an essence and
know it under different conditions. The conditions varied but the
essence remained. These conditions are not thinkable by
themselves, for we know them only in connection with the essence.
These are states; they are different from the essence, but do not
exist apart from it. Al-Jubba‘i opposed to this a doctrine that these
states were really subjective in the mind of the perceiver, either
generalizations or relationships existing mentally but not externally.
This controversy spun itself out at great length through centuries. It
eventually resolved itself into the fundamental metaphysical inquiry,
What is a thing? A powerful school came to a conclusion that would
have delighted the soul of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Things are four, they
said, entities, non-entities, states and relationships. As we have seen
above, al-Jubba‘i denied the reality of both states and relationships.
Orthodox Islam has been of a divided opinion.

AL-JAHIZ; AL-
KINDI
But all this time, other movements had been in progress, some of
which were to be of larger future importance than this fossilizing
intellectualism. In 255 al-Jahiz died. Though commonly reckoned a
Mu‘tazilite he was really a man of letters, free in life and thought. He
was a maker of books, learned in the writings of the philosophers
and rather inclined to the doctrines of the Tabi‘iyun, deistic
naturalists. His confession of faith was of the utmost simplicity. He
taught that whoever held that God had neither body nor form, could
not be seen with the eyes, was just and willed no evil deeds, such
was a Muslim in truth. And, further, if anyone was not capable of
philosophical reflection, but held that Allah was his Lord and that
Muhammad was the Apostle of Allah, he was blameless and nothing
more should be required of him. Here we have evidently in part a
reaction from the subtilties of controversy, and in part an attempt to
broaden theology enough to give even the unsettled a chance to
remain in the Muslim Church. Something of the same kind we shall
find, later, in the case of Ibn Rushd. Finally, we have probably to see
in his remark that the Qur’an was a body, turned at one time into a
man and at another into a beast, a satirical comment on the great
controversy of his time.
Al-Jahiz may be for us a link with the
philosophers proper, the students of the wisdom of
the Greeks. He represents the stand-point of the
educated man of the time, and was no specialist in anything but a
general scepticism. In the first generation of the philosophers of
Islam, in the narrower sense, stands conspicuously al-Kindi,
commonly called the Philosopher of the Arabs. The name belongs to
him of right, for he is almost the only example of a student of
Aristotle, sprung from the blood of the desert. But he was hardly a
philosopher in any independent sense. His rôle was translating, and
during the reigns of al-Ma’mun and al-Mu‘tasim a multitude of
translations and original works de omni scibili came from his hands;
the names of 265 of these have come down to us. In the orthodox
reaction under al-Mutawakkil he fared ill; his library was confiscated
but afterward restored. He died about 260, and with him dies the

PLATO;
PLOTINUS;
ARISTOTLE
brief, golden century of eager acquisition, and the scholastic period
enters in philosophy as in theology.
That the glory was departing from Baghdad and
the Khalifate is shown by the second important
name in philosophy. It is that of al-Farabi, who was
born at Farab in Turkestan, lived and worked in the
brilliant circle which gathered round Sayf ad-Dawla, the Hamdanid,
at his court at Aleppo. In music, in science, in philology, and in
philosophy, he was alike master. Aristotle was his passion, and his
Arabic contemporaries and successors united in calling him the
second teacher, on account of his success in unknotting the tangles
of the Greek system. It was in truth a tangled system which came to
him, and a tangled system which he left. The Muslim philosophers
began, in their innocence, with the following positions: The Qur’an is
truth and philosophy is truth; but truth can only be one; therefore,
the Qur’an and philosophy must agree. Philosophy they accepted in
whole-hearted faith, as it came to them from the Greeks through
Egypt and Syria. They took it, not as a mass of more or less
contradictory speculation, but as a form of truth. They, in fact, never
lost a certain theological attitude. Under such conditions, then, Plato
came to them; but it was mostly Plato as interpreted by Porphyrius,
that is, as neo-Platonism. Aristotle, too, came to them in the guise of
the later Peripatetic schools. But in Aristotle, especially, there
entered a perfect knot of entanglement and confusion. During the
reign of al-Mu‘tasim, a Christian of Emessa in the Lebanon—the
history in details is obscure—translated parts of the “Enneads” of
Plotinus into Arabic and entitled his work “The Theology of Aristotle.”
A more unlucky bit of literary mischief and one more far-reaching in
its consequences has never been. The Muslims took it all as
solemnly as they took the text of the Qur’an. These two great
masters, Plato and Aristotle, they said, had expounded the truth,
which is one. Therefore, there must be some way of bringing them
into agreement. So generations of toilers labored valiantly with the
welter of translations and pseudographs to get out of them and into
them the one truth. The more pious added the third element of the

AL-FARABI
Qur’an, and it must remain a marvel and a magnificent testimonial
to their skill and patience that they got even so far as they did and
that the whole movement did not end in simple lunacy. That al-
Farabi should have been so incisive a writer, so wide a thinker and
student; that Ibn Sina should have been so keen and clear a
scientist and logician; that Ibn Rushd should have known—really
known—and commented his Aristotle as he did, shows that the
human brain, after all, is a sane brain and has the power of
unconsciously rejecting and throwing out nonsense and falsehood.
But it is not wonderful that, dealing with such materials and
contradictions, they developed a tendency to mysticism. There were
many things which they felt compelled to hold which could only be
defended and rationalized in that cloudy air and slanting light.
Especially, no one but a mystic could bring together the emanations
of Plotinus, the ideas of Plato, the spheres of Aristotle and the
seven-storied heaven of Muhammad. With this matter of mysticism
we shall have to deal immediately. Of al-Farabi it is enough to say
that he was one of the most patient of the laborers at that
impossible problem. It seems never to have occurred to him, or to
any of the others, that the first and great imperative was to verify
his references and sources. The oriental, like the mediæval
scholastic, tests minutely the form of his syllogism, but takes little
thought whether his premises state facts or not. With a scrupulous
scepticism in deduction, he combines a childlike acceptance on
tradition or on the narrowest of inductions.
But there are other and more ominous signs in
al-Farabi of the scholastic decline. There appears
first in him that tendency toward the writing of
encyclopædic compends, which always means superficiality and the
commonplace. Al-Farabi himself could not be accused of either, but
that he thus claimed all knowledge for his portion showed the risk of
the premature circle and the small gain. Another is mysticism. He is
a neo-Platonist, more exactly a Plotinian; although he himself would
not have recognized this title. He held, as we have seen, that he was
simply retelling the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle. But he was also

a devout Muslim. He seems to have taken in earnest all the bizarre
details of Muslim cosmography and eschatology; the Pen, the Tablet,
the Throne, the Angels in all their ranks and functions mingle
picturesquely with the system of Plotinus, his ἕν, his ψυχή, his νοῦς,
his receptive and active intellects. But to make tenable this position
he had to take the great leap of the mystic. Unto us these things are
impossible; with God, i.e., on another plane of existence, they are
the simplest realities. If the veil were taken from our eyes we would
see them. This has always been the refuge of the devout Muslim
who has tampered with science. We shall look for it more in detail
when we come to al-Ghazzali, who has put it into classical form.
Again, he was, in modern terms, a monarchist and a clericalist. His
conception of the model state is a strange compound of the republic
of Plato and Shi‘ite dreams of an infallible Imam. Its roots lie, of
course, in the theocratic idea of the Muslim state; but his city, which
is to take in all mankind, a Holy Roman Empire and a Holy Catholic
Church at once, a community of saints ruled by sages, shows a later
influence than that of the mother city of Islam, al-Madina, under Abu
Bakr and Umar. The influence is that of the Fatimids with their
capital, al-Mahdiya, near Tunis. The Hamdanids were Shi‘ites and
Sayf ad-Dawla, under whom al-Farabi enjoyed peace and protection,
was a vassal of the Fatimid Khalifas.
This brings us again to the great mystery of Muslim history. What
was the truth of the Fatimid movement? Was the family of the
Prophet the fosterer of science from the earliest times? What degree
of contact had they with the Mu‘tazilites? With the founders of
grammar, of alchemy, of law? That they were themselves the actual
beginners of everything—and everything has been claimed for them
—we may put down to legend. But one thing does stand fast. Just as
al-Ma’mun combined the establishment of a great university at
Baghdad with a favoring of the Alids, so the Fatimids in Cairo
erected a great hall of science and threw all their influence and
authority into the spreading and extending of knowledge. This
institution seems to have been a combination of free public library
and university, and was probably the gateway connecting between

IKHWAN AS-SAFA
the inner circle of initiated Fatimid leaders and the outside,
uninitiated world. We have already seen how unhappy were the
external effects of the Shi‘ite, and especially of the Fatimid,
propaganda on the Muslim world. But from time to time we become
aware of a deep undercurrent of scientific and philosophical labor
and investigation accompanying that propaganda, and striving after
knowledge and truth. It belongs to the life below the surface, which
we can know only through its occasional outbursts. Some of these
are given above; others will follow. The whole matter is obscure to
the last degree, and dogmatic statements and explanations are not
in place. It may be that it was only a natural drawing together on
the part of all the different forces and movements that were under a
ban and had to live in secrecy and stillness. It may be that the
students of the new sciences passed over, simply through their
studies and political despair—as has often happened in our day—into
different degrees of nihilism, or, at the other extreme, into a
passionate searching for, and dependence on, some absolute guide,
an infallible Imam. It may be that we have read wrongly the whole
history of the Fatimid movement; that it was in reality a deeply laid
and slowly ripened plan to bring the rule of the world into the
control of a band of philosophers, whose task it was to be to rule the
human race and gradually to educate it into self-rule; that they saw
—these unknown devotees of science and truth—no other way of
breaking down the barriers of Islam and setting free the spirits of
men. A wild hypothesis! But in face of the real mystery no
hypothesis can seem wild.
Closely allied with both al-Farabi and the
Fatimids is the association known as the Sincere
Brethren (Ikhwan as-safa). It existed at al-Basra in
the middle of the fourth century of the Hijra during the breathing
space which the free intellectual life enjoyed after the capture of
Baghdad by the Buwayhids in 334. It will be remembered how that
Persian dynasty was Shi‘ite by creed and how it, for the time,
completely clipped the claws of the orthodox and Sunnite Abbasid
Khalifas. The only thing, thereafter, which heretics and philosophers

had to fear was the enmity of the populace, but that seems to have
been great enough. The Hanbalite mob of Baghdad had grown to be
a thing of terror. It was, then, an educational campaign on which
this new philosophy had to enter. Their programme was by means of
clubs, propagating themselves and spreading over the country from
al-Basra and Baghdad, to reach all educated people and introduce
among them gradually a complete change in their religious and
scientific ideas. Their teaching was the same combination of neo-
Platonic speculation and mysticism with Aristotelian natural science,
wrapped in Mu‘tazilite theology, that we have already known. Only
there was added to it a Pythagorean reverence for numbers, and
everything, besides, was treated in an eminently superficial and
popularized manner. Our knowledge of the Fraternity and its objects
is based on its publication, “The Epistles of the Sincere Brethren”
(Rasa’il ikhwan as-safa) and upon scanty historical notices. The
Epistles are fifty or fifty-one in number and cover the field of human
knowledge as then conceived. They form, in fact, an Arabic
Encyclopédie. The founders of the Fraternity, and authors,
presumably, of the Epistles, were at most ten. We have no certain
knowledge that the Fraternity ever took even its first step and
spread to Baghdad. Beyond that almost certainly the development
did not pass. The division of members into four—learners, teachers,
guides, and drawers near to God in supernatural vision—and the
plan of regular meetings of each circle for study and mutual
edification remained in its paper form. The society was half a secret
one and lacked, apparently, vitality and energy. There was among its
founders no man of weight and character. So it passed away and has
left only these Epistles which have come down to us in numerous
MSS., showing how eagerly they have been read and copied and
how much influence they at least must have exercised. That
influence must have been very mixed. It was, it is true, for
intellectual life, yet it carried with it in a still higher degree the
defects we have already noticed in al-Farabi. To them must be added
the most simple skimming of all real philosophical problems and a
treatment of nature and natural science which had lost all
connection with facts.

THE IKHWAN
AND THE
FATIMIDS
It has been suggested, and the suggestion
seems luminous and fertile, that this Fraternity was
simply a part of the great Fatimid propaganda
which, as we know, honey-combed the ground
everywhere under the Sunnite Abbasids. Descriptions which have
reached us of the methods followed by the leaders of the Fraternity
agree exactly with those of the missionaries of the Isma‘ilians. They
raised difficulties and suggested serious questionings; hinted at
possible answers but did not give them; referred to a source where
all questions would be answered. Again, their catch-words and fixed
phrases are the same as those afterward used by the Assassins, and
we have traces of these Epistles forming a part of the sacred library
of the Assassins. It is to be remembered that the Assassins were not
simply robber bands who struck terror by their methods. Both the
western and the eastern branches were devoted to science, and it
may be that in their mountain fortresses there was the most
absolute devotion to true learning that then existed. When the
Mongols captured Alamut, they found it rich in MSS. and in
instruments and apparatus of every kind. It is then possible that the
elevated eclecticism of the Ikhwan as-safa was the real doctrine of
the Fatimids, the Assassins, the Qarmatians and the Druses;
certainly, wherever we can test them there is the most singular
agreement. It is a mechanical and æsthetic pantheism, a
glorification of Pythagoreanism, with its music and numbers;
idealistic to the last degree; a worship and pursuit of a conception of
a harmony and beauty in all the universe, to find which is to find and
know the Creator Himself. It is thus far removed from materialism
and atheism, but could easily be misrepresented as both. This, it is
true, is a very different explanation from the one given in our first
Part; it can only be put along-side of that and left there. The one
expresses the practical effect of the Isma‘ilians in Islam; the other
what may have been their ideal. However we judge them, we must
always remember that somewhere in their teaching, at its best,
there was a strange attraction for thinking and troubled men. Nasir
ibn Khusraw, a Persian Faust, found peace at Cairo between 437 and

IBN KARRAM
444 in recognizing the divine Imamship of al-Mustansir, and after a
life of persecution died in that faith as a hermit in the mountains of
Badakhshan in 481. The great Spanish poet, Ibn Hani, who died in
362, similarly accepted al-Mu‘izz as his spiritual chief and guide.
Another eclectic sect, but on a very different
principle, was that of the Karramites, founded by
Abu Abd Allah ibn Karram, who died in 256. Its
teachings had the honor to be accepted and protected by no less a
man than the celebrated Mahmud of Ghazna (388-421), Mahmud
the Idol-breaker, the first invader of India and the patron of al-
Beruni, Firdawsi, Ibn Sina and many another. But that, to which we
will return, belongs to a later date and, probably, to a modified form
of Ibn Karram’s teaching. For himself, he was an ascetic of Sijistan
and, according to the story, a man of no education. He lost himself
in theological subtleties which he seems to have failed to
understand. However, out of them all he put together a book which
he called “The Punishment of the Grave,” which spread widely in
Khurasan. It was, in part, a frank recoil to the crassest
anthropomorphism. Thus, for him, God actually sat upon the throne,
was in a place, had direction and so could move from one point to
another. He had a body with flesh, blood, and limbs; He could be
embraced by those who were purified to the requisite point. It was a
literal acceptance of the material expressions of the Qur’an along
with a consideration of how they could be so, and an explanation by
comparison with men—all opposed to the principle bila kayfa. So,
apparently, we must understand the curious fact that he was also a
Murji’ite and held faith to be only acknowledgment with the tongue.
All men, except professed apostates, are believers, he said, because
of that primal covenant, taken by God with the seed of Adam, when
He asked, “Am I not your Lord?” (Alastu bi-rabbikum) and they,
brought forth from Adam’s loins for the purpose, made answer, “Yea,
verily, in this covenant we remain until we formally cast it off.” This,
of course, involved taking God’s qualities in the most literal sense.
So, if we are to see in the Mu‘tazilites scholastic commentators
trying to reduce Muhammad, the poet, to logic and sense, we must

WOMEN SAINTS
see in Ibn Karram one of those wooden-minded literalists, for whom
a metaphor is a ridiculous lie if it cannot be taken in its external
meaning. He was part of the great stream of conservative reaction,
in which we find also such a man as Ahmad ibn Hanbal. But the
saving salt of Ahmad’s sense and reverence kept him by the safe
proviso “without considering how and without comparison.” All
Ahmad’s later followers were not so wise. In his doctrine of the state
Ibn Karram inclined to the Kharijites.
Before we return to al-Jubba‘i and the fate of the Mu‘tazilites, it
remains to trace more precisely the thread of mysticism, that kashf,
revelation, which we have already mentioned several times. Its
fundamental fact is that it had two sides, an ascetic and a
speculative, different in degree, in spirit and in result, and yet so
closely entangled that the same mystic has been assigned, in good
and in bad faith, as an adherent of both.
It is to the form of mysticism which sprang from
asceticism that we must first turn. Attention has
been given above to the wandering monks and
hermits, the sa’ihs (wanderers) and rahibs who caught Muhammad’s
attention and respect. We have seen, too, how Muslim imitators
began in their turn to wander through the land, clad in the coarse
woollen robes which gave them the name of Sufis, and living upon
the alms of the pious. How early these appeared in any number and
as a fixed profession is uncertain, but we find stories in circulation of
meetings between such mendicant friars and al-Hasan al-Basri
himself. Women, too, were among them, and it is possible that to
their influence a development of devotional love-poetry was due. At
least, many verses of this kind are ascribed to a certain Rabi‘a, an
ascetic and ecstatic devotee of the most extreme other-worldliness,
who died in 135. Many other women had part in the contemplative
life. Among them may be mentioned, to show its grasp and spread,
A’isha, daughter of Ja‘far as-Sadiq, who died in 145; Fatima of
Naysabur, who died in 223, and the Lady Nafisa, a contemporary
and rival in learning with ash-Shafi‘i and the marvel of her time in
piety and the ascetic life. Her grave is one of the most venerated

spots in Cairo, and at it wonders are still worked and prayer is
always answered. She was a descendant of al-Hasan, the martyred
ex-Khalifa, and an example of how the fated family of the Prophet
was an early school for women saints. Even in the Heathenism we
have traces of female penitents and hermits, and the tragedy of Ali
and his sons and descendants gave scope for the self-sacrifice,
loving service and religious enthusiasm with which women are
dowered.
All these stood and stand in Islam on exactly the same footing as
men. The distinction in Roman Christendom that a woman cannot be
a priest there falls away, for in Islam is neither priest nor layman.
They lived either as solitaries or in conventual life exactly as did the
men. They were called by the same terms in feminine form; they
were Sufiyas beside the Sufis; Zahidas (ascetics) beside the Zahids;
Waliyas (friends of God) beside the Walis; Abidas (devotees) beside
the Abids. They worked wonders (karamat, closely akin to the
χαρίσματα of 1 Cor. xii, 9) by the divine grace, and still, as we have
seen, at their own graves such are granted through them to the
faithful, and their intercession (shafa‘a) is invoked. Their religious
exercises were the same; they held dhikrs and women darwishes yet
dance to singing and music in order to bring on fits of ecstasy. To
state the case generally, whatever is said hereafter of mysticism and
its workings among men must be taken as applying to women also.
To return: one of the earliest male devotees of whom we have
distinct note is Ibrahim ibn Adham. He was a wanderer of royal
blood, drifted from Balkh in Afghanistan to al-Basra and to Mecca.
He died in 161. Contempt for the learning of lawyers and for
external forms appears in him; obedience to God, contemplation of
death, death to the world formed his teaching. Another, Da’ud ibn
Nusayr, who died in 165, was wont to say, “Flee men as thou fleest a
lion. Fast from the world and let the breaking of thy fast be when
thou diest.” Another, al-Fudayl ibn Iyad of Khurasan, who died in
187, was a robber converted by a heavenly voice; he cast aside the
world, and his utterances show that he lapsed into the passivity of
quietism.

PASSAGE OF
ASCETICISM TO
ECSTASY
Reference has already been made in the chapter on jurisprudence
to the development of asceticism which came with the accession of
the Abbasids. The disappointed hopes of the old believers found an
outlet in the contemplative life. They withdrew from the world and
would have nothing to do with its rulers; their wealth and everything
connected with them they regarded as unclean. Ahmad ibn Hanbal
in his later life had to use all his obstinacy and ingenuity to keep free
of the court and its contamination. Another was this al-Fudayl.
Stories—chronologically impossible—are told how he rebuked Harun
ar-Rashid for his luxury and tyranny and denounced to his face his
manner of life. With such an attitude to those round him he could
have had little joy in his devotion. So it was said, “When al-Fudayl
died, sadness was removed from the world.”
But soon the recoil came. Under the spur of such
exercises and thoughts, the ecstatic oriental
temperament began to revel in expressions
borrowed from human love and earthly wine. Such
we find by Ma‘ruf of al-Karkh, a district of Baghdad, who died in 200,
and whose tomb, saved by popular reverence, is one of the few
ancient sites in modern Baghdad; and by his greater disciple, Sari
as-Saqati, who died in 257. To this last is ascribed, but dubiously, the
first use of the word tawhid to signify the union of the soul with
God. The figure that the heart is a mirror to image back God and
that it is darkened by the things of the body appears in Abu
Sulayman of Damascus, who died in 215. A more celebrated ascetic,
who died in 227, Bishr al-Hafi (bare-foot), speaks of God directly as
the Beloved (habib). Al-Harith al-Muhasibi was a contemporary of
Ahmad ibn Hanbal and died in 243. The only thing in him to which
Ahmad could take exception was that he made use of kalam in
refuting the Mu‘tazilites; even this suspicion against him he is said to
have abandoned. Sari and Bishr, too, were close friends of Ahmad’s.
Dhu-n-Nun, the Egyptian Sufi, who died in 245, is in more dubious
repute. He is said to have been the first to formulate the doctrine of
ecstatic states (hals, maqamas); but if he went no further than this,
his orthodoxy, in the broad sense, should be above suspicion. Islam

GROWTH OF
FRATERNITIES
has now come to accept these as right and fitting. Perhaps the
greatest name in early Sufiism is that of al-Junayd (d. 297); on it no
shadow of heresy has ever fallen. He was a master in theology and
law, reverenced as one of the greatest of the early doctors.
Questions of tawhid he is said to have discussed before his pupils
with shut doors. But this was probably tawhid in the theological and
not in the mystical sense—against the Mu‘tazilites and not on the
union of the soul with God. Yet he, too, knew the ecstatic life and
fell fainting at verses which struck into his soul. Ash-Shibli (d. 334)
was one of his disciples, but seems to have given himself more
completely to the ascetic and contemplative life. In verses by him we
find the vocabulary of the amorous intercourse with God fully
developed. The last of this group to be mentioned here shall be Abu
Talib al-Makki, who died in 386. It is his distinction to have furnished
a text-book of Sufiism that is in use to this day. He wrote and spoke
openly on tawhid, now in the Sufi sense, and got into trouble as a
heretic, but his memory has been restored to orthodoxy by the
general agreement of Islam. When, in 488, al-Ghazzali set himself to
seek light in Sufiism, among the treatises he studied were the books
of four of those mentioned above, Abu Talib, al-Muhasibi, al-Junayd,
and ash-Shibli.
In the case of these and all the others already
spoken of there was nothing but a very simple and
natural development such as could easily be
paralleled in Europe. The earliest Muslims were burdened, as we
have seen, with the fear of the terrors of an avenging God. The
world was evil and fleeting; the only abiding good was in the other
world; so their religion became an ascetic other-worldliness. They
fled into the wilderness from the wrath to come. Wandering, either
solitary or in companies, was the special sign of the true Sufi. The
young men gave themselves over to the guidance of the older men;
little circles of disciples gathered round a venerated Shaykh;
fraternities began to form. So we find it in the case of al-Junayd, so
in that of Sari as-Saqati. Next would come a monastery, rather a
rest-house; for only in the winter and for rest did they remain fixed

in a place for any time. Of such a monastery there is a trace at
Damascus in 150 and in Khurasan about 200. Then, just as in
Europe, begging friars organized themselves. In faith they were
rather conservative than anything else; touched with a religious
passivism which easily developed into quietism. Their ecstasies went
little beyond those, for instance, of Thomas à Kempis, though struck
with a warmer oriental fervor.
The points on which the doctors of Islam took exception to these
earlier Sufis are strikingly different from what we would expect. They
concern the practical life far more than theological speculation. As
was natural in the case of professional devotees, a constantly
prayerful attitude began to assume importance beside and in
contrast to the formal use of the five daily prayers, the salawat. This
development was in all probability aided by the existence in Syria of
the Christian sect of the Euchites, who exalted the duty of prayer
above all other religious obligations. These, also, abandoned
property and obligations and wandered as poor brethren over the
country. They were a branch of Hesychasts, the quietistic Greek
monks who eventually led to the controversy concerning the
uncreated light manifested at the transfiguration on Mount Tabor
and added a doctrine to the Eastern Church. Considering these
points, it can hardly be doubted that there was some historical
connection and relation here, not only with earlier but also with later
Sufiism. There is a striking resemblance between the Sufis seeking
by patient introspection to see the actual light of God’s presence in
their hearts, and the Greek monks in Athos, sitting solitarily in their
cells and seeking the divine light of Mount Tabor in contemplation of
their navels.
But our immediate point is the matter of constant, free prayer. In
the Qur’an (xxxiii, 41) the believers are exhorted to “remember
(dhikr) God often;” this command the Sufis obeyed with a correlative
depreciation of the five canonical prayers. Their meetings for the
purpose, much like our own prayer-meetings, still more like the
“class-meetings” of the early Methodists, as opposed to stated public
worship, were called dhikrs. These services were fiercely attacked by

TAWAKKUL
the orthodox theologians, but survived and are the darwish functions
which tourists still go to see at Constantinople and Cairo. But the
more private and personal dhikrs of individual Sufis, each in his
house repeating his Qur’anic litanies through the night, until to the
passer-by it sounded like the humming of bees or the unceasing drip
of roof-gutters, these seem, in the course of the third century, to
have fallen before ridicule and accusations of heresy.
Another point against the earlier Sufis was their
abuse of the principle of tawakkul, dependence
upon God. They gave up their trades and
professions; they even gave up the asking for alms. Their ideal was
to be absolutely at God’s disposal, utterly cast upon His direct
sustenance (rizq). No anxiety for their daily bread was permitted to
them; they must go through the world separated from it and its
needs and looking up to God. Only one who can do this is properly
an acknowledger of God’s unity, a true Muwahhid. To such, God
would assuredly open the door of help; they were at His gate; and
the biographies of the saints are full of tales how His help used to
come.
To this it may be imagined that the more sober, even among Sufis,
made vehement objection. It fell under two heads. One was that of
kasb, the gaining of daily bread by labor. The examples of the
husbandman who casts his seed into the ground and then depends
upon God, of the merchant who travels with his wares in similar
trust, were held up against the wandering but useless monk. As
always, traditions were forged on both sides. Said a man—
apparently in a spirit of prophecy—one day to the Prophet, “Shall I
let my camel run free and trust in God?” Replied the Prophet, or
someone for him with a good imitation of his humorous common-
sense, “Tie up your camel and trust in God.” The other head was the
use of remedies in sickness. The whole controversy parallels
strikingly the “mental science” and “Christian science” of the present
day. Medicine, it was held, destroyed tawakkul. In the fourth century
in Persia this insanity ran high and many books were written for it
and against it. The author of one on the first side was consulted in

SPECULATIVE
SUFIISM
an obstinate case of headache. “Put my book under your pillow,” he
said, “and trust in God.” On both these points the usage of the
Prophet and the Companions was in the teeth of the Sufi position.
They had notoriously earned their living, honestly or dishonestly, and
had possessed all the credulity of semi-civilization toward the most
barbaric and multifarious remedies. So the agreement of Islam
eventually righted itself, though the question in its intricacies and
subtilties remained for centuries a thing of delight for theologians. In
the end only the wildest fanatics held by absolute tawakkul.
But all this time the second form of Sufiism had
been slowly forcing its way. It was essentially
speculative and theological rather than ascetic and
devotional. When it gained the upper hand, zahid (ascetic) was no
longer a convertible term with Sufi. We pass over the boundary
between Thomas à Kempis and St. Francis to Eckhart and Suso. The
roots of this movement cannot be hard to find in the light of what
has preceded. They lie partly in the neo-Platonism which is the
foundation of the philosophy of Islam. Probably it did not come to
the Sufis along the same channels by which it reached al-Farabi. It
was rather through the Christian mystics and, perhaps, especially
through the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and his asserted
teacher, Stephen bar Sudaili with his Syriac “Book of Hierotheos.” We
need not here consider whether the Monophysite heresy is to be
reckoned in as one of the results of the dying neo-Platonism. It is
true that outlying forms of it meant the frank deifying of a man and
thus raised the possibility of the equal deifying of any other man and
of all men. But there is no certainty that these views had an
influence in Islam. It is enough that from a.d. 533 we find the
Pseudo-Dionysius quoted and his influence strong with the ultra
Monophysites, and still more, thereafter, with the whole mystical
movement in Christendom. According to it, all is akin in nature to the
Absolute, and all this life below is only a reflection of the glories of
the upper sphere, where God is. Through the sacraments and a
hierarchy of angels man is led back toward Him. Only in ecstasy can
man come to a knowledge of Him. The Trinity, sin and the

PANTHEISTIC
SCHOOL
atonement fade out of view. The incarnation is but an example of
how the divine and the human can join. All is an emanation or an
emission of grace from God; and the yearnings of man are back to
his source. The revolving spheres, the groaning and travailing nature
are striving to return to their origin. When this conception had seized
the Oriental Church; when it had passed into Islam and dominated
its emotional and religious life; when through the translation of the
Pseudo-Dionysius by Scotus Erigena in 850, it had begun the long
contest of idealism in Europe, the dead school of Plotinus had won
the field, and its influence ruled from the Oxus to the Atlantic.
But the roots of Sufiism struck also in another direction. We have
already seen an early tendency to regard Ali and, later, members of
his house as incarnations of divinity. In the East, where God comes
near to man, the conception of God in man is not difficult. The
Semitic prophet through whom God speaks easily slips over into a
divine being in whom God exists and may be worshipped. But if with
one, why not with another? May it not be possible by purifying
exercises to reach this unity? If one is a Son of God, may not all
become that if they but take the means? The half-understood
pantheism which always lurks behind oriental fervors claims its due.
From his wild whirling dance, the darwish, stung to cataleptic
ecstasy by the throbbing of the drums and the lilting chant, sinks
back into the unconsciousness of the divine oneness. He has passed
temporarily from this scene of multiplicity into the sea of God’s unity
and, at death, if he but persevere, he will reach that haven where he
fain would be and will abide there forever. Here, we have not to do
with calm philosophers rearing their systems in labored speculations,
but with men, often untaught, seeking the salvation of their souls
earnestly and with tears.
One of the earliest of the pantheistic school was
Abu Yazid al-Bistami (d. 261). He was of Persian
parentage, and his father had been a follower of
Zarathustra. As an ascetic he was of the highest repute; he was also
an author of eminence on Sufiism (al-Ghazzali used his books) and
he joined to his devout learning and self-mortification clear

AL-HALLAJ
miraculous gifts. But equally clear was his pantheistic drift and his
name has come down linked to the saying, “Beneath my cloak there
is naught else than God.” It is worth noticing that certain other of his
sayings show that, even in his time, there were Sufi saints who
boasted that they had reached such perfection and such miraculous
powers that the ordinary moral and ceremonial law no longer applied
to them. The antinomianism which haunted the later Sufiism and
darwishdom had already appeared.
But the greatest name of all among these early
pantheists was that of al-Hallaj (the cotton carder),
a pupil of al-Junayd, who was put to death with
great cruelty in 309. It is almost impossible to reach any certain
conclusion as to his real views and aims. In spite of what seem to be
utterances of the crassest pantheism, such as, “I am the Truth,”
there have not been wanting many in later Islam who have
reverenced his memory as that of a saint and martyr. To Sufis and
darwishes of his time and to this day he has been and is a patron
saint. In his life and death he represents for them the spirit of revolt
against dogmatic scholasticism and formalism. Further, even such a
great doctor of the Muslim Church as al-Ghazzali defended him and,
though lamenting some incautious phrases, upheld his orthodoxy. At
his trial itself before the theologians of Baghdad, one of them
refused to sign the fatwa declaring him an unbeliever; he was not
clear, he said, as to the case. And it is true that such records as we
have of the time suggest that his condemnation was forced by the
government as a matter of state policy. He was a Persian of Magian
origin, and evidently an advanced mystic of the speculative type. He
carried the theory to its legitimate conclusion, and proclaimed the
result publicly. He dabbled in scholastic theology; had evident
Mu‘tazilite leanings; wrote on alchemy and things esoteric. But with
this mystical enthusiasm there seem to have united in him other and
more dangerous traits. The stories which have reached us show him
of a character fond of excitement and change, surrounding himself
with devoted adherents and striving by miracle-working of a
commonplace kind to add to his following. His popularity among the

Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.
More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge
connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and
personal growth every day!
ebookbell.com

Composing Interactive Music Techniques And Ideas Using Max 1st Edition Todd Winkler

More Related Content

Similar to Composing Interactive Music Techniques And Ideas Using Max 1st Edition Todd Winkler (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Composing Interactive Music Techniques And Ideas Using Max 1st Edition Todd Winkler