WANBAYANING: Voicing a Transcultural Islamic Feminist Exegesis

This chapter is a kind of musical sketch or catetan (note) of a vocal practice, where terms, transliterations, and translations can be repositioned to elicit different meanings, nuances, sonic manifestations, and conceptual dynamics. The key term, wanbayaning, is my own, and the focus of the present exegesis. This approach is inspired by, but not limited to, learned aspects of Indonesian aesthetics and approaches to language. This is also a sketch of a method of composition, based in a nonreductive exegetical process that supports experiences of sacredness while reading—“‘Iqra!” (Read! [Qur’an 96:1])—and listening (myarsa). At the SOSIM conference, I