Tale of a Sufi Cat

Nordeen and his wife Aicha are going out for the evening. The last thing they do is put their cat out.

The taxi arrives, and as the couple walk out of the house, the cat scoots back in.

Nordeen returns inside to chase it out.

Aicha, not wanting it known that the house would be empty, explains to the taxi driver, 'My husband is just going upstairs to say goodbye to my mother.'

Several minutes later, an exhausted Nordeen arrives and climbs back into the taxi saying, 'Sorry I took so long, the stupid idiot was hiding under the bed and I had to poke her with a coat hanger several times before I could get her to come out!'

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The Fez Sufi Festival - images of time suspended

The View from Fez is in debt to Gerard Chemit for "donc quelques photos d'un moment que l'on aurait aimé suspendu..." (pictures of a time we would have liked suspended).

Gerard is not the only member of the audience to also wish that spectators who want to chat loudly should do so in their own homes...and those who think themselves so important that they arrive late and make everyone move in defiance of those who came arrived on time. (Des spectateurs qui, puisqu'ils estiment être "importants" arrivent en retard et font déplacer tout le monde au mépris de ceux qui sont arrivés à l'heure...) Ah... some things never change.

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Fez Sufi Festival day two

To enjoy the concerts held each evening during the Festival all you need to do is simply let your emotions join in and express yourself in your own way, but it can also help if you understand the philosophy behind the performance. Philip Murphy is an anthropologist and music-ethnologist at the University of California on a Fulbright scholarship to Fez to research Sufi music. He explains the samaâ.

‘The Samaà is a form of Sufi music, and the literal translation from Arabic is audition, to listen or to hear, but with spiritual connotations. It also refers to a ritual taking place in the zawiya, Arabic for the corner of a Sufi house or meeting place, which could be attached to a Mosque, and which would indicate that the original samaâ used to meet in a corner. Samaa is something that happens in the zawiya but is now becoming part of these cultural festivals. It was never really a performance for outsiders, it was more for the Sufi’s themselves, but has now become a staged thing that has entered the world music market and festival circuits. It seems that it is a very personal celebration between the group themselves but it has also taken on the modern role as a public performance of what they do. There are some differences, for example with the Moroccan-Andalusian style there will usually be some kind of orchestra, but in the zawiya the typical way of doing it is without instruments, so it’s often just vocalising.

The samaâ isn’t really considered singing, it’s more melodic vocalising. It has been called chant, but it can be translated in different ways. The word is inshad in Arabic, which can be translated as chant or melodic vocalising, it’s distinct from singing, which has other connotations. To our ears it’s very melodic and the melodic rules, the ways that you develop melody are similar for both, but it has to do with place, time, the role of music, it’s so very difficult to give an exact definition.

Sufism tends to be very focussed on the prophet Mohammed. Muslims are also, but Sufism tends to prophet centred. A lot of the poetry they focus on in samaâ is about the prophet, for example, The Burda – The Poem of the Cloak, by the poet Busiri, which is a very famous Sufi text.

The word tariqa in the name of a group, such as Tariqa Qadiriyyaq Boutchichiyya, literally means ‘the way’. In this context it means the Sufi way, literally means a path, a road, which, when applied to Sufism will relate to a specific order, but they think of it as the way to God. A lot of Sufis will say there are many paths, and this is our path.’

Saturday, April 14, 2012

10am: Conference: "Can one teach knowledge? "
4pm: Roundtable: "From Eva Vitray Meyerovitch reader of Iqbal: Islam in Motion"
5.30: Recital The Hikams of Rabiaa.
8.30pm: Closing Concert: Music and Arab-Andalusian Sufi brotherhoods of Samaâ

Photos by Derek Workman

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MARATHON DES SABLES - Results Day Six

STAGE 5:
JEBEL EL MRAÏER / MERDANI : 42,2 Km

At 8am. Hygrometry: 53%. Temperature: 15°C
At 1pm. Hygrometry: 18%. Temperature: 29°C

Number of runners on the start line: 800. 4th stage withdrawals: 21 (total: 54)

Running in a post-card

Strings of dunes, dried-up lakes, wadis, the 5th leg of  the Sultan MARATHON DES SABLES served a full menu to the competitors. 42.2km to get through to get a bit closer to the final goal.

Hardly 200 metres away from the bivouac, the long pack of runners starts on the first string of dunes of the day. It is doubtlessly the most beautiful kick-off since the beginning of the 27th edition of Sultan MARATHON DES SABLES.

In an idyllic post-card setting, the 800 competitors still in the race ran a classic marathon leg of 42.2km under a bright sun. Whilst Moroccan competitor Aziz El Akad flew towards his first victory of the week, the rest of the “procession” was discovering astonishing landscapes of dunes sometimes gorged with water due to Thursday’s storms. 

Another feast for the eye was the colour contrasts of the white wadis, the black stones of the dried-up lakes and the pink-orange of the dunes. At the end of the 42.2km awaited the monumental dunes of Merzouga, the highest dunes in Morocco, which the competitor will have to cross on Saturday before their final deliverance. 

MEN

5th leg

1. Aziz El Akad (D9-MAR), 42,2km in 3h08’11’’
2. Salameh Al Aqra (D148-JOR), 4’19’’ behind
3. Mohamad Ahansal (D8-MAR), 6’41’’ behind

General ranking

1. Salameh Al Aqra (D148-JOR), 18h42’15’’
2. Mohamad Ahansal (D8-MAR), 24’01’’ behind
3. Aziz El Akad (D9-MAR), 1h 42’31’’ behind

WOMEN

5th leg

Meryem Khali (D5-MAR), in 4h5’50’’
Karine Baillet (D130-FRA), 14’16’’ behind
Susanna de Oliveira Simoes (D870), 17’44 behind

More details at the marathon website
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The 6th Fez Festival of Sufi Culture

The organisers of the Sixth Festival de Fès de la Culture Soufie, must have looked up at the skies for the first day of the conference with sad faces. After a string of bright blue sunny days, the heavens were iron grey. By 9 a.m, an hour before the opening ceremony, a light drizzle had become a heavy downpour, which continued most of the day.

This year's conference is entitled, ‘Sapiences Soufies’ ‘Sufi Wisdom, The Literature of the Hikam in the Sufi Tradition’, and the opening ceremony was held under the ornate ceiling and huge brass candelabras of the main hall of the Musee Batha.

Festival Director, Faouzi Skali, welcomed delegates  from around the world

Sufi literature was expressed through poetry, stories, educational or metaphysical presentations, or as a literature of ‘the wise’ (hikam), words of wisdom that are glimpses of the unveiling of spiritual routes both inside and on our behavior.

These meditations, such as the hikam of Ata Illah Ibn al Iskandari, nourish the hearts of disciples, but are also a collective culture imbued with the values and conceptions of mind and spirit that wove the matrix of the civilization of Islam.

Photograph Gerard Chemit

Photograph; Gerard Chemit

Some contemporary authors have used this in their own way through the impregnation of a work that is both powerful, original and universal. This is the case of Muhammad Iqbal, a Pakistani Sufi thinker, who died in 1938, and who left a rich and deep body of work that is honoured in the sixth edition of the Festival of Sufi Culture.


A hikam is an aphorism; a phrase, or a short sentence, which aims to touch the heart directly. It’s not limited by space or time. This teaching is aimed to touch a soul, in every culture and every time. The most famous hikam are found in the Kitab al-Hikam of Shayk Ata Illah Ibn al Iskandari, a 12th century poet. The essential core of the work is to be found in the author's collection of spiritual aphorisms, 264 in total. Part of the conference will considering whether the hikam still have relevance to everyday life.

Give yourself a rest from managing!When Someone else is doing it for you,don't you start doing it for yourself!

A feeling of discouragement when you slip upis a sure sign that you put your faith in deeds.

Unfortunately, the rain didn’t let up, so the evening sawaâ was held in the main hall. A full house greeted Tariqa Charqawiyya, as eleven men robed in white and cream made their way to the stage. Other than a muted drum, the only accompaniment to the pulsing a cappella was the clapping of hands, first by the ensemble, and gathering pace as the audience joined in. Most of the Tariqa maintained their clapping, but a tall figure in the centre of the group appeared to lose himself in the ritual, moving his right hand and fingers as expressively as he moved his feature, his left hand covering his ear in the style that would be recognisable to anyone who had ever been to a western folk club.

The audience reacted ecstatically as the tempo of the sawaâ increased; heads nodded, shoulders swayed, feet stomped, and an elegantly dressed man with a neat goatee beard stood up and bounced up and down on his toes.

The music of the Nidhamouddine Brotherhood of New Delhi, could not have been more different, the Qawwali heavily driven by two harmoniums accompanied by tabla, dhol, and masterful vocals. The common ground the performers had with Tariqa Charqawiyya, that of Sufi poetry and giving praise to the Prophet, had no resemblance as far as its rhythm and melody was concerned, but each was a stunning performance that received great appreciation and standing ovations from the audience.

Programme for Friday 13 April, 2012:


10am: Hikam and path of spiritual chivalry (futuwwa).
4pm: Conference hikam and culture.
8:30 p.m: Samaâ of the Tariqa Qadiriyya Boutichichiyya (Morocco)
9:00 pm: Samaâ of the Tariqa Khalwatiyya Turkey.


Words and photos by Derek Workman
Additional photographs: Gerard Chemit 

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Marché Maroc Fès artisanal craft fair begins April 23rd

The United States Peace Corps and USAID is holding the annual Marché Maroc artisanal craft fair in Fès. The four-day fair begins Monday, April 23rd, and ends Thursday, April 26th, from 11:00 – 19:00 daily.

Marché Maroc Fès will showcase the work of diverse artisan groups from the various regions of Morocco. The artisans themselves will sell their goods in a comfortable, haggle-free atmosphere. Some of the artisans will demonstrate their craft at the fair—woodcarving, couscous rolling, wool spinning, and others.

This fair brings artisans directly to the customer in a market that is often dominated by middlemen. Products offered at the craft fair are guaranteed authentic and hand-made, and will be sold at fixed prices. This is an opportunity to support the culturally rich artisan community of Morocco and gain access to fine examples of the country’s handicrafts.

Although the craft fairs to date have been made possible largely due to the Peace Corps’ involvement, future fairs will be wholly artisan-run and organized. Peace Corps is transitioning out of its work in the small business development sector at year’s end.

The Marché Maroc series also organizes artisanal craft fairs in Marrakech, Rabat, and Essaouira.

The United States Peace Corps is a federal organization with more than 50 years of Volunteer service in countries around the world. Volunteers commit to 27 months of service in countries like Morocco and 78 others. The Peace Corps has a long and successful history of service in the Kingdom of Morocco.

The craft fair will take place in the open-air courtyard of the Cultural Complex, Al Hourya, Avenue de la Palestine, in Ville Nouvelle. The fair is next to the Imam Malik Mosque, within walking distance of Gare de Fès, and a short taxi ride from the old Medina.


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