Sonic Mediations of the Lethal Divine: Tajwīd in the Islamic Discursive Tradition

This paper examines Qurʾānic recitation (tajwīd) as a mediation of the divine voice, offering new understandings of the sonic sublime in Islam. It foregrounds an original understanding of tajwīd as an act of mediation that brings the lethal divine into realms possible for human sensation. The paper traces the topos of emotional recitation across the Qurʾān, ḥadīth, and Sufi writings, adopting an interdisciplinary approach drawing on ethnomusicology, philology and phenomenology. In doing so, it highlights the sonic properties of recitation, an understudied dimension in this context. It emphasizes the role of eschatological imagery in cultivating the emotional dynamics of tajwīd, highlighting the sensual imagination of recited futures. It further examines how the Qurʾān frames listening to its recitation, identifying a sensual-emotional vocabulary tied to sound. The study argues that this modality centers on khushūʿ, a form of “sonic humility” expressed through practices such as weeping and prostration.