SAMĀʿ is an Arabic term for the music or listening parties arranged by Muslim mystics in the belief that music serves as spiritual nourishment (qūt-i rūhānī) and attunes one's heart to divine communion. The word samāʿ, which literally means "hearing," does not occur in the Qurʾān but was used in ancient Arabic in the sense of "singing." ʿAlī ibn ʿUthmān al-Hujwīrī (d. AH 469?/1076? CE) thought that through samāʿ the last of the veils between man and God could be lifted. Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) and others after him believed that mystics who devoted most of their time to austere practices such as penitences, vigils, and fasts needed listening parties to relieve the heart's boredom, to infuse it with fresh energy and vigor, and above all, to channel, rather than annihilate, emotion. Criticism of this institution...