Friday, August 24, 2007

A Moroccan Sufi Brotherhood in Fez


Along with the Gnawa and the Aïssawa, the Hamadcha are one of the three most important so-called ‘popular’ Sufi brotherhoods in Morocco. The Hamadcha brotherhood was founded by Saint Sidi Ali Ben Hamdouch in the seventeenth century, and has become famous through the originality of its repertoire, its spellbinding dances, and the trance-therapy skills of its members.

We have recently had a flurry of emails asking about the on-line presence of the Hamadcha and although we have published it before, here is a reminder.

The link THE HAMADCHA SUFIS - will take you to the site authored by Frédéric Calmès, a musician specializing in Arabic music as well as a student and a researcher in anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

He has lived in Fez for about six years and studied with the Hamadcha Sufi brotherhood led by the moqaddem (leader) Abderrahim Amrani Marrakchi.

Frédéric Calmès (photo Sandy McCutcheon)

A video of the Hamadcha is here: http://www.hamadcha-fez.com/video-en.htm

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2 comments:

Rachel said...

There's also a classic about the Hamadsha in Meknes in the anthropological literature: The Hamadsha by Vincent Crapanzano.

The View From Fez said...

Yes we have a copy...and his other book - Tuhami, portrait of a Moroccan - also great.