Music and Morality: The Recovery of a Nation, c. 1880–1940

Chapter 8 (parallel to chapter 4 in part 1) examines the writings about music and morality related to the radif-dastgah tradition. This chapter compares and contrasts the discourse surrounding music from the perspective of two major figures in this music tradition, Ali Naqi Vaziri and Aref Qazvini. Each author asserted that music had a role to play in Iran’s finding its moral standing in the modern world, with some ways of making music being valuable for their ability to improve the moral integrity of Iran, and other ways of making music being dangerous, because they could hurt the moral standing of the nation. According to both authors, the morality of a musician was determined by his or her commitment to practicing and teaching music making in a way that strengthened the morality of the nation.