Playing with spirituality: the adoption of mulid motifsin Egyptian dance music

Jennifer Peterson

Published online: 27 November 2008# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract This study introduces a trend of Egyptian dance music called mulid that isnamed after festivals held in honor of the Prophet Muhammad, his family, andMuslim saints. Distinct from Islamic pop in its grassroots sound and ambiguousapproach to piety, this trend draws musically and lyrically on mulids and the Sufitradition of inshad (spiritual, ritual-focused singing) in a youthful, boisterous dancestyle. The range of approaches it takes in doing so is wide, from that of appreciationfor the danceable musicality of inshad, to a quest to impart ‘traditional’ moralmessages to youth, to playful fun-making of Sufi ritual and the mulid milieu. Thisstudy examines the content of mulid dance songs, the festive and social contexts inwhich they are used, and some of the cultural debates surrounding them. In doing so,it explores the ambiguous ways in which Egyptian youth culture is appropriatingnotions of piety in grassroots musical entertainment. It further discusses why thisfusion of street-smart attitudes and spiritual-based motifs, existing as it does outsideof the ‘clean’ Islamic pop current, nonetheless typically fails to incite religioussensibilities.

Keywords Popular music . Popular culture . Islam . Sufism . Piety

Introduction

The Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, or mulid as rendered in Egyptian Arabic, is arelatively quiet national holiday most conspicuously marked by the sale of sweets

Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295DOI 10.1007/s11562-008-0064-9

J. Peterson (*)Cairo, Egypte-mail: guinevere@riseup.net

and dolls.1 Across the country, sugar discs and Turkish delight are sold besideblond baby dolls dressed in tulle and tiaras. Egyptians enjoy time off work, wisheach other season’s greetings, and watch televised commemorations featuringreligious figures and the president.

Yet in contrast to this low-key atmosphere, the Prophet’s mulid is also celebratedin a number of festive events across the nation that facilitate the more playfulintermingling of spiritual and secular joys. One case is the coinciding culmination ofan annual memorial held near the southern city of Edfu for Sheikh Mustafa AbdelSalaam, widely perceived as a saint.2 His festival, also called a mulid, welcomesvisitors day and night from near and afar. It offers a range of diversions including ahorseback competition; rounds of Upper Egyptian stick-fighting; swings; rows ofcarts selling snacks, toys, costume jewelry, and cassette tapes; an opportunity tomake supplications at the sheikh’s shrine; and all-night sessions of Sufi music,singing, and swaying movement called dhikr, which is a ritual of rhythmicallyinvoking God meant to facilitate the achievement of heightened spiritual states.Some of Egypt’s most famous Sufi singers, munshidin (sg. munshid, meaning singerof inshad, spiritual song), perform at this mulid, some offering their service gratisout of love and respect for the saint.3

Elsewhere, too, the Prophet’s mulid assumes dimensions of a public festival,although, in contrast to the concurrent mulid of Mustafa Abdel Salaam, the ProphetMuhammad is exclusively commemorated. In Cairo, Sufi orders hold a smallprocession in which they wave colored banners and beat drums, and whichculminates at the shrine of Al-Hussein, the Prophet’s martyred grandson. In theDelta, the village of Minyat Al-Murshid hosts a lively procession that stars a mockpresident of the republic surrounded by ‘guards’, and which effuses a youthful,frolicking atmosphere.4 And also in the Delta, a small festival is held in the town ofAl-Ibrahimiya that culminates with an evening performance by a sayyit (singer ofSufi songs and narrator of moral tales) who families gather to listen to while sittingon mats and drinking tea.5 Earlier that day, villagers flock to town in their best

1 Mulid is a colloquial variation of the classical Arabic mawlid (pl. mawalid), literally meaning a birthday.The colloquial term mulid (pl. mawalid) is used for the Prophet’s birthday and festivals held incommemoration of his family and Muslim saints, although these are typically scheduled to coincide withthe date of their death rather than birth. The classical term mawlid is instead used for personal celebrationsheld at the discretion of their hosts, marking, for example, the birth of a child, the successful pouring of ahouse’s foundations, or a son being exempted from military service. At a mawlid, dinner is provided toguests and a sheikh recites the tale of the Prophet Muhammad’s in utero gestation period and birth.Candles are lit on a tray before him that bears bread and salt covered with a towel. At the end of therecitation, the bread and salt are consumed by all those present.2 This mulid is hosted in the prominent Sufi hospice of Sheikh Abdel Salaam, the saint’s son. SheikhMustafa Abdel Salaam died in the 1980’s.3 In recent years these munshidin have included Sheikh Ahmed Barrin, Sheikh Abdel Adhim Al-‘Atwani(a famous reciter of the poem Al-Burda, the Prophet’s Mantle), Sheikh Ahmed Al-Bayumi, Sheikh YassinAl-Tuhami, Sheikh Amin Al-Dishnawi, and Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tuni.4 Personal communication with Samuli Schielke, March 2008. See also Schielke 2006, 65–66, 92. MinyatAl-Murshid is located in the governorate of Kafr Al-Sheikh.5 The capital of a district, Al-Ibrahimiya is located in the governorate of Al-Sharqiya. Its center, throughwhich the procession runs, is filled with early-20th century homes and shop fronts.

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clothes to eat fried mincemeat pies, watch the magic show, try their luck at ashooting gallery or test of strength, and scramble for hard candy thrown at theafternoon procession.

Perhaps the most spectacular sight in Al-Ibrahimiya’s mulid parade is a cameltrimmed with paper flowers and carrying on its back three musicians playing thethroaty reed mizmar. One musician sits atop the camel and the other two on strawcushions suspended from each of its sides. Other traditional live music is providedby members by Sufi orders beating frame drums, swaying in sync, and sometimesfeaturing a flautist. They mostly dress in a symbolic and light-hearted ‘Arab style,’in white gowns, white head cloths, and black sunglasses. The spiritual leader of onelocal order is paraded in the company of provincial security officials and other menwearing suits.

Although the tradition has largely fallen into decline, the Al-Ibrahimiya paradecontinues to feature carts sponsored by professional trades, and in 2008 theprocession included two. One represented profession was sellers of aluminumkitchenware who, dressed ‘Arab style’, enthusiastically banged lids and trays as theywere pulled by a donkey covered in balloons and ribbons. The other was teenagedDJs who worked behind a mixing station and blasted dance music from speakersstacked high in a truck bed. Their contribution to the festivities was a mobile versionof the DJ stations that have become almost standard at street weddings andengagement parties, and increasingly common at some mulids, mainly those held formajor saints in the old urban quarters of Cairo.

The music these DJs played is called mulid, taking the name of the Prophet’sbirthday and the types of festivals held on its date outside Edfu and in Al-Ibrahimiya. This popular dance trend draws upon the mulid and Sufi inshad invarious ways: musically, lyrically, through rhetorical references, and by repackagingthe mulid’s chaos, fun, and excitement into youth-oriented, street-smart media.6 Inthe 2008 Al-Ibrahimiya parade, inspiration came full circle, with motifs borrowedfrom the mulid becoming part of the mulid itself.

Despite its borrowing from and even existing within largely spiritual contexts,however, the mulid dance trend should not be confused with the various strands ofclean Islamic pop that have swept much of the Muslim world, nor with New Ageinfluenced world music that draws on Sufi traditions. Mulid dance music, even whileappropriating spiritual motifs, is not an attempt within the Islamic revival to justifyentertainment as a pious pastime, nor does it pretend to make sophisticatedrepresentations of religious high art. Mulid dance music is rough, playful, andambiguous in comparison to the staid and virtuous tones of Islamic pop or the oftenreverent borrowings of world music and ethnic fusion.

Given its ambiguous approach to spirituality, then, why should this musicalexpression of raucous youth culture be such an accepted part of the mulid’smerrymaking, its fairground atmosphere notwithstanding? Is the irreverent coolnessof teenage boys really compatible with the overarching spiritual context ofcelebrations held in honor of the Prophet Muhammad and Muslim saints? Is itdeemed appropriate to mix street-smart attitudes with borrowings from festivals in

6 To hear examples of mulid dance songs, follow online links in Peterson (2008b).

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which Sufi and family atmospheres predominate? Associating spiritual practice withmusical entertainment has always been a sensitive issue in Islam, and given thesobering tendency that the Islamic revival has brought to life in Egypt by instilling asocial conservatism much stricter than that of years past, one might expect theambiguous mixing of spiritual references and rowdy dance tunes to be frownedupon. The mulid dance trend’s lack of association with pop music that reconciles theIslamic revival with modern and fashionable youth culture would further seem tomake it suspect when measured by the standards of mainstream piety.

This study explores the ways in which Egyptian youth have adopted mulid motifsas a theme in boisterous dance music in varied, often ambiguous, ways, yet withoutoverstepping the general bounds of cultural and religious propriety. In doing so, itillustrates some of the ways in which spirituality is currently being played with inEgypt, earnestly at times and jestingly at others, while remaining within the limits ofwhat is generally perceived as decent. Rather than inciting righteous indignationover affronts made to pious propriety, the mulid dance trend instead tends to raisequestions over simpler matters of taste.

Appropriating spiritual expressions

The mulid dance trend was first developed in the wedding milieu, not at mulidfestivals. It is said to have been initially introduced during 2001 in the low-incomeCairo neighborhood of Al-Matariya as a musical variation to instrumental dancetunes. Later, mulid-oriented lyrics were added that reinforced the songs’ associationwith saint festivals and carved out a niche in the informal grassroots music genrecalled sha‘bi, which literally means ‘popular.’ Sha‘bi implies being down-to-earth,low-income, and ‘of the people,’ in contrast musically to slick, sugar-sweet,corporate pop music. It is common for sha‘bi stars to begin their careers as singers instreet weddings, and sha‘bi hits are often tested out at nuptial celebrations beforebeing recorded and commercially distributed.

Although Egyptian marriages are legally officiated in keeping with the marriagerites of the couple’s faith, Islamic ceremonies conducted by a religious figure areoften held privately and in advance of the public wedding festivities. Muslimweddings are thus largely ‘secular’ events that focus on socially publicizing themarital bond and exuberantly celebrating the pride and joy felt on the occasion of itsconsummation. Islamic touches are few, usually limited to a song listing the 99names of God that is typically played at the party’s outset. Another example of anIslamic touch is a recent fashion of some brides entirely covering their hair in form-fitting, glittery veils. ‘Islamic’ weddings, in which no one dances and music islimited to religious-oriented anthems accompanied by a frame drum, exist butremain uncommon, while weddings featuring nashid (hymn) bands and halal(religiously sanctioned) songs continue to represent only a minimal percentage ofthose held across the country.7 Sufi-oriented weddings in which munshidin performare relatively rare and most typically held only in Upper Egypt. The overwhelming

7 Email communication with Karin van Nieuwkerk, 7 April 2008. See also van Nieuwkerk’s introduction(van Nieuwkerk 2008, this issue).

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majority of Muslim weddings in Egypt feature either a live sha‘bi band or a DJ, withthe latter growing in popularity because it costs significantly less than the former.

Given their focus on conspicuous celebration and the enactment of jubilant fun,Egyptians call weddings afrah (sg. farah), which literally means ‘joy.’ Music is theirmainstay, with the entire event amplified at a consistently high decibel andorchestrated by an MC (Master of Ceremonies) shouting into a microphone. Thuswhen musicians in Al-Matariya began to borrow melodies from Sufi inshad to flavorwedding soundtracks, their danceable musicality was no doubt an essential criterionin their selection. In its original context of dhikr, Sufi inshad is a vital catalyst to thisdance-like ritual movement whose practice aims to elevate the spiritual experience ofparticipants. In weddings, the transferred melodies have much the same effect,moving guests to dance and express their joy in a way that contributes to a collectiveatmosphere of elation. In a study on the ‘enchantment’ induced by inshad, MichaelFrishkopf describes the genre as one that is similar, and thus presumably transferredwith ease, to the sha‘bi style:

At first glance, the processes of expressive emotion in Sufi inshad may appearsimilar to those of sha‘bi (“popular”) singing. Indeed, Sufi and secular music inEgypt, rural and urban, do share many elements [...] Musical accompaniment isclose to secular folk music, adapted to accommodate dhikr, and often evokes adance-like ethos [...] The interludes [...] consist of taqasim [instrumentalimprovisations] or musical lazimat (‘melodies,’ often taken from songs of UmmKulthum and other famous Arab singers).8

The adoption of Sufi melodies in sha‘bi dance music can be said to take on the‘spirit’ of Sufi spirituality rather than the ‘letter’ of religious dictums or piousformulae. Remaining the most common manifestation of mulid motifs in sha‘bidance tracks, purely musical borrowings make nonverbal yet strong associationswith the Sufi context of inshad and dhikr. They also create a comparable ‘spiritual’atmosphere of highly charged emotive force, one that moves listeners to dance andlose themselves in the moment.9 Ahmed Wahdan, a musician with extensiveexperience in sha‘bi and mulid milieus, aptly describes what he calls the mulidrhythm as being one that ‘forces the spirit to dance.’10 By this he is referring to bothSufi inshad and the mulid dance trend that has adopted it.

The ‘spiritual’ atmosphere that the mulid dance trend facilitates is one dominatedby unfettered joy, such as when friends and family celebrate a wedding, or teenagedboys dance enthusiastically at a mulid or other street festivity, forming circles andshowing off their flashiest, most spectacular moves. Carefree celebration of this kindis not deemed incongruent with the music’s source of inspiration, for mulids havealways included forms of secular entertainment featuring music, singing anddancing. In fact, this joyful party ambience is in keeping even with the mulid’sspiritual context: Sufis emphasize joy as an intrinsic element of the love felt and

8 Frishkopf (2001), p. 236, 246, 250.9 On secular music as a religious experience, see Mark LeVine (2008, this issue). On the experience ofrapture in the context of Sufi inshad and the sha‘bi mulid dance trend, see Peterson (2008b).10 Peterson (2008b).

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shared at the mulid for God, the Prophet, and the saints. It is telling that, like theweddings at which mulid dance songs were developed and where they facilitate arambunctious party atmosphere, mulids are also sometimes referred to as a farah, anoccasion of ‘joy.’11

Yet it is not only the joyous ‘spirit’ of Sufi spirituality that is appropriated bythe mulid dance trend. A significant proportion of mulid dance songs alsoborrow lyrical texts and styles from the Sufi milieu in a relatively straightforwardmanner, even while retaining a dance beat and street-smart sha‘bi tone. Oneexample is a mulid song titled ‘sallu ‘alayhi nabina’ (Pray on our prophet) that,like many mulid dance songs, is available online as an independent and un-authored track informally distributed as a production by an anonymous DJ. Thesong is for the most part a straightforward imitation of inshad as might beperformed in an authentic Sufi context, and its chorus is in fact featured in someinshad. The only alterations made to its performance include minor electronicornamentation and the addition of a driving sha‘bi dance beat. Another un-authored example found online is a dance track titled ‘mulid + sidi ‘ali’ (mulid +Saint Ali) that employs more extensive electronic adaptations of inshad melodiesand includes a slightly humorous sounding folkloric chorus with a phrase thatnonetheless exists in the Sufi milieu (yaba — Oh Daddy). The bulk of this track,however, is a lengthy and straightforward imitation of Sufi inshad that mostlyconsists of calls and supplications to the Prophet Muhammad and Muslim saints.As testimony to its consonance with Sufi musical and lyrical approaches, itsmelodic variation of yaba was reincorporated into Sufi inshad performed at the2008 mulid of Al-Hussein in Cairo.12

The most prominent example of earnestly borrowing Sufi lyrics and themes inmulid dance tracks, however, is that of young sha‘bi star Mahmoud Al-Leithy. His2005 debut album ‘asfurayn (Two sparrows) included a mulid track that was untitledon the original cassette tape but informally named in the public sphere qasadt babak(I aimed for your door), mulid al-zikr (mulid of dhikr), and mulid al-leithy (Al-Leithy’s mulid). In this track, Al-Leithy borrowed the lyrics and styles of Sufimunshidin, most conspicuously those of Delta munshid Sheikh ‘Arabi Farhan Al-Balbisi, but also of superstar munshid Sheikh Yassin Al-Tuhami from UpperEgypt.13

The moralistic folk wisdom featured in Al-Balbisi’s lyrics is complemented in Al-Leithy’s track by phrases taken from the traditional opening to the Beni Hilal epic, aperformance of song and spoken narration considered a pillar of Egyptian folklore.A fan enthusiastically describes the outcome in an Arabic-language blog thus:

The mulid of Mahmoud Al-Leithy is distinctive in the history of Egyptiansha‘bi singing, and, in my humble opinion, will form a signpost for an entirestage in mulid songs. It is constructed upon an astonishing musical mix that

11 For more on mulid dance music and weddings, see Peterson (2008a).12 I am indebted to Aymen Amer for this observation. The finale night of the Al-Hussein mulid was onTuesday, 29 April.13 The lyrics to this track are provided in annex two.

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uses a chorus, percussion, an electronic keyboard, a violin, and of courseMahmoud Al-Leithy’s voice, which is distinguished by a degree of flexibility Ihaven’t heard except in the voices of Cheb Khaled and Ahmed ‘Adawiya. Youcan’t listen to Al-Leithy’s voice without falling in love with it, especially, forexample, when he sings ‘inspect your soul.’ The words of Al-Leithy are thesecond astounding element in his work, for, in the mulid song, for example, heuses segments of poems by Omar ibn Al-Farid, the sultan of lovers, and mixesthem with other segments from his own mind and from the oral heritage ofEgyptian singing to create a blend. For example, he sings, ‘The body is mybody/and the torment is in the soul/oh Protector, one of protection/don’t exposeus.’ In this song Al-Leithy also addresses Omar ibn Al-Farid, saying, ‘HaggOmar,’ and that is also the name of the producer. Al-Leithy cries, ‘I am thekilled, oh Hagg Omar, I am the killed, oh Hagg’.14

It was Al-Leithy’s qasadt babak that brought him sha‘bi stardom and secured aplace for earnest renditions of inshad styles in boisterous dance songs. However, thiswas not a singular exception. Many of Al-Leithy’s other songs are also consideredmulid tracks or employ some form of mulid instrumentation, and now even his third,2008 album, kan fih walad (There once was a boy), continues to feature the mulidstyle. In addition to other mulid borrowings, the album’s track sidi ‘abd al-rahim(Saint Abd Al-Rahim) goes as far as incorporating the raspy, rhythmical breathing ofdhikr participants as a repetitive musical element. This focus on the mulid style ispartly explained by the fact that Al-Leithy describes himself as emotionally attachedto its source of inspiration. He nostalgically tells of being raised in the mulid milieuwith circus performer relatives and a grandfather who taught him madih, whichmeans praise (of the Prophet) and is generally interchangeable with the terminshad.15 Al-Leithy says that singing madih is ‘the most beautiful thing in the world.The best speech that comes out, the most sincere, is that singing [...]’.16

Given such an outlook, it is not surprising that among his popular base Al-Leithyis overall deemed ‘respectable’ and ‘polite.’ His songs, even while inspiring youth todance boisterously, and being featured at backstreet weddings in which drugs andalcohol may be plenty, are generally characterized by a moralistic bent. This uprightapproach is one that Al-Leithy describes as a mission of music with a message or al-fann al-hadif (art with a purpose), one in which he strives to make madih ‘shik’(chic). A song on his 2007 album ya rabb (Oh Lord) is particularly illustrative ofthis mission, and although not in the mulid style, it is sometimes labeled as such on

14 This text was posted on an open blog posting site called wassa‘ khayalak (Expand your mind), locatedonline at http://shadow.manalaa.net/node/607, accessed 4 May 2008. Cheb Khalid is an Algerian raisinger, Ahmed ‘Adawiya is widely considered the father of Egyptian sha‘bi song, and Omar ibn Al-Faridis a 13th-century Sufi mystic and poet whose verse is sung by munshidin and most prominently by SheikhYassin Al-Tuhami. ‘Hagg’ is a title given to men who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and moregenerally is used as a title of respect for older men. Translation of the lyrics in this text reflect thetranscription of the blogger and differ slightly from my own transliteration and translation of the songfound in annex two.15 This and other references and quotes from interview with Mahmoud Al-Leithy in Imbaba, 25 April2007.16 Peterson (2008a).

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sha‘bi dance music websites. Al-Leithy talks about this song, al-anbiya’ (Theprophets), in highly moralistic, educational terms:

The most important thing is that the song has a purpose, not just any words andthat’s it. You know, there are 25 prophets — messengers — that half of theworld’s Muslims don’t know. When I made this song, it had a purpose. Whatwas it? Those who didn’t know the prophets learnt about them from the song.

Young children are the coming generation — they must know their religion. Ifyou grab them by the ear and say you must listen to this tape by SheikhMuhammad Hassan and Muhammad Hussein Ya‘qub [...] you’ll find that thekid doesn’t lean towards it. [...] So, I can help on my part. I can teach theseyoung kids the 25 prophets. I collected the 25 prophets and sang about them inthe style of Hamada Hilal and Sami Yusef.17

In addition to relatively straightforward musical and lyrical borrowings, however, afinal way that spiritual contexts are appropriated by the mulid dance trend is as anelement of playful fun. If the danceable music of mulid tracks helps to create arambunctious party atmosphere, lyrics that employ mulids as a source of fun-makingonly serve to heighten their street-smart attitude. In contrast to the sincere (yet ‘cool’)madih of Al-Leithy, mulid dance tracks incorporating vocals of this type espouse aboisterous, irreverent, tongue-in-cheek style. The context of mulids, with their saintveneration, Sufi rituals, and humble forms of entertainment, becomes an object of jestwhen juxtaposed against these songs’ associations of backstreet urban toughness.

To some extent, the humor in these songs stems in the unexpectedness ofreferences to mulids in sha‘bi dance music. Whereas mulids are spiritual events witha festive atmosphere the popular imagination sees as rustic and quaint, sha‘bi musicmay reflect a milieu perceived as hardened, street-smart, and sometimes morallycorrupt. For although the urban sha‘bi genre generally incorporates rural and folktraditions, some strands also espouse a cheap nightclub feel that seems incongruouswith the type of innocent fun associated with mulids, and it is this apparentdisjunction that grants them a cheeky tone.

An example of a sha‘bi ambience that seems especially hardened whenjuxtaposed with the comparatively wholesome mulid milieu is the incorporation offemale speech in an affected, ultra-feminine, coquettish style that conjures up imagesof barmaids in thick, cheap makeup and tight, tacky dress. Sha‘bi lyrics may alsomake explicit references to the use of drugs, as in the widely popular al-bango mishbita‘i (The pot’s not mine), in which the singer throws the blame of drug possessionon his friends when apprehended. A mulid track titled mulid karkar 1 (The mulid ofKarkar 1) combines these two associations of vice in the persona of a saucy-sounding woman who speaks of the hash dealer downstairs and asks God to forgivehim when he doesn’t have any marijuana to give her.

The mulid songs by sha‘bi singer Gamal Al-Sobky, credited with first introducinglyrics to the nascent mulid trend in 2002, espouse this boisterously tongue-in-cheek

17 Sheikh Muhammad Hassan and Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Ya‘qub are popular cassette tape andsatellite television preachers, Hamada Hilal is a sha‘bi crooner, and Sami Yusef is British Muslim pop starwhose songs are religiously oriented.

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approach. In his debut song naruh al-mulid (Let’s go to the mulid), Al-Sobky’s coarse,streetwise-sounding voice seems humorous when he theatrically shouts names of Godor phrases like ‘Hey uncle, pray!’ Similarly, his imitation of a Delta inshad stylesounds silly when what is perceived as simple, wholesome naïveté is contrasted withthe rough associations produced by his overall boisterous performance and presumablyhardened persona.18 Another of Al-Sobky’s mulid songs, mulid al-layla al-kabira(Mulid of the big night), incorporates some of the puppet operetta it is named after andwhich playfully and yet earnestly portrays the many facets of a mulid festival in alight-hearted, folkloric manner. Its adoption in a sha‘bi dance context, however, ismade comic through the juxtaposition of naïve and streetwise ambiences. The song isalso amusing in that Al-Sobky playfully sings about riding swings and setting offfirecrackers at the mulid, as though he were an innocent child frolicking at the festival.This theme of children’s innocent playmaking is adopted in two other mulid songscalled hummus wa halawa (Chickpeas and sweets) and ‘arusa wa hassan’ (A doll and ahorse), in which the mulid souvenirs of snacks and toys, believed to carry the blessingsof the saint, are brought into the foreground and jestingly characterized as the truemakings of a good time. Another Al-Sobky mulid song includes a sound byte in whicha performer imitates a boy asking his father to buy him a party hat at the mulid, funnybecause the backstreet singer presumably has more suspect ways of getting his thrills.19

The mulid dance trend exhibits mild irreverence towards the mulid milieu in otherways, too. An un-authored track titled mulid al-darawish (Mulid of the dervishes)features an overly-theatrical declaration of having spent time with (and apparentlyhaving been deeply touched by) Sufi dervishes that undermines any impression ofsincerity through its hyperbolic performance. This is followed by an affectedlamentation about not having had the fortune to father a son, sung in a mawwal stylecommon to both inshad and the sha‘bi genre, but in such an exaggerated manner thatit seems silly, granting the song an overall light-hearted feel.20 Another track titledmulid al-‘abd wal-shaytan (Mulid of the worshipper and Satan) opens with a spokenword narration of their conversation in a style suggestive of mawwal.21 Despite therough-sounding voice of the sha‘bi singer, this narrative maintains a relatively serioustone until it is finally punctuated by a driving dance rhythm and the lyrics turn toshadier content and tones associated with the cheap nightclub scene. Although the songdoes not poke fun at its moralistic introduction per se, its contrast with the rest of thetrack’s more streetwise ambience gives an overall impression of playful irreverence.

A fun-making, flippant attitude towards the spectacles of a mulid is not unique tothe mulid dance trend, however. In many cases it is enacted in a harsher, moremocking form by youth who see Sufi practice as exotic, outdated, or backward.While not adopting the pious dictums of the Islamic revival in their own demeanor,

19 This is a version of al-‘abd wal-shaytan (The worshipper and Satan) performed by Gamal Al-Sobky.20 A mawwal is a traditional vocal opening to a song that often consists of a drawn-out lamentation or scat(typically improvised variations of ‘Oh night, oh eye’).21 This is Gamal Al-Sobky’s version of the song, which opens with a moralistic mawwal but then moveson to a motley array of lyrics, all performed in a hardened, streetwise style. These lyrics includecontroversial references to the events of September 11, 2001 and coquettish female vocals (for examplesuggestively inviting those who don’t want to play to watch). A later, more popular version of the songbased strictly on the mawwal opening was performed by Mahmoud Al-Husseini.

18 The lyrics to this track are provided in annex one.

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they may still espouse rather fundamentalist ideals as to how religious practiceshould be embodied. One example of this self-contradictory attitude is offered by a DJwho, while intellectually convinced that music is haram (forbidden by Islam), remainspassionate about it and works hard to create an extreme party atmosphere at his DJdance stations featured in street festivities and at some Cairo mulids. He speaks of anintense personal struggle between his conviction and his passion, even as he gleefullytells of performing superbly when drunk on indisputably haram vodka.

Youth like him who vacillate between Islamist ideals and contrary realities areoften ready to disclaim mulids and Sufi ritual as un-Islamic and thus religiouslyimpermissible even as they enthusiastically participate in various aspects of mulidcelebrations. Mulids thus seem to nearly always host groups of teenagers raucouslyenjoying the easy targets for laughter that their many out-of-the-ordinary scenesprovide. At Sufi dhikr sessions, youth linger on the edges of the ritual space andeither mockingly mimic the earnest participants’ rhythmic movement or dance insuggestive or carefree ways that seem incongruous with the event’s spiritual purport.This behavior is usually tolerated to an extent, but such youth are also sometimeschastised by dhikr organizers and chased away.22

More distant from actual mulids but closer to the mulid dance trend scene is anotherexample of ambivalent mockery, that of a DJ who remixes mulid and other dance songson his home computer. He says that he greatly admires the words and spirit of some Sufiinshad, and yet admits that his only experience with actual dhikr was with a recordingplayed in his home and practiced with a group of extremely drunk friends. Thoroughlyenjoyed but not taken seriously as mystical ritual, the performance of dhikr for theseboys was nothing more than a silly, frenzied game, fueled by the ‘intoxication’ of Sufiinshad as well as that of hard liquor. Their simultaneous admiration and irreverence forspiritual song was an ambiguity they gleefully embodied in the privacy of a home, butwhich, had it been public, would have surely offended the sensitivities of the pious.

Crimes of taste

In a study of the emotional effects of Sufi inshad, Michael Frishkopf notes thesensitivity of associating spiritual practice with musical entertainment. He writes,

[...] even the word ghina’ [singing] is too laden with secular connotations, andso Sufi music, together with other genres of Islamic singing (ibtihalat,tawashih, and qisas diniya), is referred to as inshad (“hymnody”); the singerof religious song is called a munshid [...] Most contemporary Egyptian Sufiscarefully distinguish spiritual uses of music from the production of tarab[‘enchantment’ or ‘rapture’] as a sensual end in itself.23

This sensitivity over marking off spiritual domains from more secular realms ofentertainment is reminiscent of what Kristina Nelson calls the sama‘ polemic, atheological debate over the permissibility of musical audition of the Qur’an.24 It also

22 For treatment of the ‘fun mawlid’ and the festive experience of youth, see Schielke (2006), 68–71.23 Frishkopf (2001), 243.24 Nelson (2001), 32–51.

280 Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295

explains the popularity of the term nashid (a variant of inshad) in describing formsof non-traditional singing that project a modern image of Islamic piety. It suggeststhat religious sensibilities would be offended by the adoption of Islamic motifs inmusic whose ‘spiritual’ intent is, for the most part, merely the enabling of aremarkably fun time. Thus when pious standards over the careful demarcation ofreligion are applied, the appropriation of inshad by the perceived crudeness of muliddance songs and the sha‘bi genre is expected to cause outcry. And indeed, onemunshid has privately expressed reservations over mixing inshad with dance musicfor fear of it distorting Sufism’s image.25

Yet public, righteous outcry over the mulid dance trend has in fact beenextremely limited. The only serious public debate that has been raised over itspropriety is the case of complaints made against the first lyrical mulid dancesong, Gamal Al-Sobky’s naruh al-mulid (Let’s go to the mulid). The issue at stake,however, was not the precedent of mixing inshad and other spiritual mulidreferences into secular dance music. Rather, concern was raised over a specificphrase in the song’s lyrics that was deemed sacrilegious. An Islamic preacher whotook offense filed complaints with the public attorney and railed against Al-Sobky inhis Friday sermons, measures that led state security to contact Al-Sobky, just likesha‘bi star Shaaban Abdel Rahim had been following his controversial hit bakrahIsra’il (I hate Israel).26 The ‘threat’ to national security in Al-Sobky’s case was lyricsthat could be interpreted as suggesting that ‘no’ was being said to the ProphetMuhammad, thus questioning a foundation of Islam and undermining religiousauthority.

The case had two interesting outcomes. One is that the tape it was recorded on,al-mulid, was banned by the authorities, increasing popular demand for it and raisingits price seven times on the black market. Al-Sobky says that it was reportedly thebest-selling album of the season. The other outcome was that Al-Sobky readilydisowned the offending lyrics and the song was re-produced without them. He wasapparently not too attached to the offending phrase or its allegedly misconstruedmeaning, and in fact the song’s performance gives the sense that it had beenmisinterpreted due to the use of a vocal repetition technique. Al-Sobky concurs thatthe lyric, taken literally, ‘is completely wrong/inappropriate’ but that ‘nothing ismeant by it’ because it was recorded ‘live,’ meaning spontaneously.27 With thissimple argumentation and a nod to the sheikh’s censure, the case was quietlydropped.28

The outcry over Gamal Al-Sobky’s first mulid song stemmed from a belief that itslyrics had crossed a religious and cultural red line by questioning Islamic doctrineand committing blasphemy. The fact that public protests over mulid dance songshave not been repeated suggests that as long as such lines are not crossed, mildirreverence towards spiritual references is generally acceptable, or at least not aforbidden sin. Mulid songs remain religiously and socially permissible because they

25 Peterson (2008b).26 On Shaaban Abdel Rahim, see Grippo (2006).27 Interview with Gamal Al-Sobky in Shubra Al-Khayma, 18 April 2007.28 Peterson (2008a).

Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295 281

do not incorporate unquestionably religious texts such as the Qur’an and Hadith(Prophetic Tradition) or sound bytes from sermons or the types of Islamic singing(ibtihalat and tawashih) deemed indisputably pious enough to be played on Cairo’sQur’an radio station. The Al-Sobky case notwithstanding, no public crises havedeveloped over mulid songs, and even the Al-Sobky affair seems insignificant whencompared to that of Lebanese artist Marcel Khalife, who put to music a poem thatincorporates Qur’anic verses and was subsequently tried for blasphemy before thecourt.29

Steering well clear of overtly religious texts, the mulid trend instead incorporateselements of the Sufi tradition of inshad on the one hand, and scenic references to thefestive atmosphere of mulids, with their fairground attractions and spontaneousexpressions of joyous spirituality, on the other hand. As a literary and performinggenre, Sufi inshad is often ambiguous, relying heavily on metaphor that could beinterpreted in spiritual or secular ways. In fact it often incorporates secular art, suchas the love songs of Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum, that is reinterpreted in a mysticallight when made part of spiritually-focused performance. The ambiguity of Sufipoetic texts thus makes it difficult to draw red lines around them, opening up theopportunity to adapt them to a variety of disparate contexts without provokingcensure.

Like the flexibility of Sufi borrowings from non-spiritual contexts, the Sufi mulidmilieu is characterized by acceptance of an array of approaches that may eveninclude the irreverent. Sufism as a philosophical worldview typically espouses awide degree of tolerance for seemingly disparate attitudes, especially in the contextof expressing love and joy. The public arena of the mulid in particular embracesfestive experience of untold manifestations. The sponsor of a Sufi service tent at aCairo mulid describes the event’s spiritual joy and festivity thus:

This is a farah [mulid/wedding/joyous occasion] and the people act out theirjoy (bi-yifrahu) each in their own way. That girl dressed up in trendy pants isnot in mulid dress but rather like that for a wedding or holiday (‘eid). See howthat boy is walking down the street, clapping his hands? People eat more thanthey should, dance about, wave their arms, [and] laugh hysterically as thoughvisiting with a dear old friend.30

This statement was made in justification for the loud secular dance music beingplayed live between the mosque’s door and her Sufi service tent. Rather thanforming an offense or even nuisance, to this Sufi patron it was seen as a legitimateexpression of the mulid’s joy. And thus mulids readily encompass even theboisterous dance music that borrows their name. Youth set up amplified dancespaces near the mosque and shrine, Sufi performers borrow phrases from the youthsongs, and everyone acts in a lighthearted, jesting manner at the mulid procession, astook place with the Sufis and DJs in Al-Ibrahimiya on the Prophet’s birthday.31

29 See Jonas Otterbeck (2008, this issue).30 Peterson (2008a).31 Peterson (2008a).

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Yet Sufism’s willingness to embrace seemingly unorthodox behavior can go evenfurther than this. In what Samuli Schielke calls the ‘antinomian’ mulid, the ‘garbage ofsociety’ are actually welcomed in a quest to convert them from their impious ways.Schielke quotes a Sufi as saying ‘Where else can I find the deviant (munharif) whodrinks and gambles than here in the mawlid. I hunt here, take him step by step until hereaches purity. You can’t go to someone in a bar and take him straight to the mosque topray. [...] The Law prohibits that I seek the company of the munharif. But I go to himto make him like me.’32 With such a scope of willingness to accept or engage withpeople from all walks of life and with a wide range of attitudes, the jesting funespoused by boisterous mulid dance songs does not form a threat to the mulid milieu.Instead, it assumes a legitimate role in the mulid’s merrymaking, often taking the placeof the live sha‘bi bands that have long provided secular entertainment at these events.

As for treatment of the spiritual context of mulids as seen from outside the Sufimulid milieu, here, too, a wide degree of tolerance for playful jest exists, albeit fordifferent reasons. Mulids have been an object of religious and cultural debate inEgypt for centuries. With the rise of Islamist and modernist discourses, they haveincreasingly fallen into disfavor among the general populace and authorities alike.The Sufi focus on commemorating saints is increasingly viewed as a religiousinnovation that, while not technically forbidden, is often meted severe disapproval.And culturally speaking, the spiritual beliefs and practices and the humble forms ofentertainment found at mulids are often perceived as quaint, folkloric, or evenbackward.33 Taking mulid references as inspiration for sha‘bi dance songs is thusneither seen as an affront to the forms of pious propriety promoted by the Islamicrevival, nor as an assault on cultural values that favor notions of progress andmanifest modernity.

The modernist and Islamist debates about mulid festivals are only partly aboutreligious dictums and pious behavior. They are also about social image and taste,and it is this latter concern that assumes significance in the debates over muliddance songs. Rather than questioning the propriety of adopting spiritual-basedmotifs in rowdy dance music, matters of discriminating taste typically constitute thereal issue at hand. As part of the sha‘bi music genre, mulid songs are subjected to thesame vilification as being lowbrow, uncouth and vulgar as other sha‘bi music trendsand indeed anything identified as part of sha‘bi culture.34 Viewed as below theartistic standards of ‘high culture’ in Egypt, mulid songs are generally not welcomedon the airwaves and in other mainstream entertainment media, and are typicallyconsidered by detractors to be little more than clamorous and tasteless chaos.

With its borrowing from ambivalent and often marginalized spiritual contexts, andits embodiment of a rough, sha‘bi character, mulid dance songs remain distinct fromthe pious and middle-class associations of clean, Islamic pop. As a result, the trend issomewhat ironically positioned beyond the sensitivity involved in marrying

32 Schielke (2006), 147–149.33 For detailed analysis of the religious and cultural debates on mulids, see Schielke (2006, 2004). On thelow status of secular entertainment at mulids, see van Nieuwkerk (1996), and on the marginality ofCairene street musicians, see Puig (2006).34 On the place of sha‘bi art and demeanor in debates about ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture in Egypt, seeArmbrust (1996, 1992).

Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295 283

entertainment to piety. The moralistic tendency of some of its songs and performersnotwithstanding, the mulid dance trend does not make the overt claims of the Islamicrevival’s pop and other trends to reconcile devoutness with young, modern, andfashionable social identities. Typically associated with forms of middle-class socialand economic mobilization, mainstream Islamic youth culture carefully maintains aprojection of purity and uprightness that justifies its conspicuous consumption ofcomfortable and modern lifestyles still typically seen in Egypt as ‘Western.’35 Activein the production of ‘lite, air-conditioned’ Islam, such trends place themselves at theheart of public debates over how one can be a good, and also modern, Muslim.36

In contrast, and on the relative margins of society, sha‘bi mulid dance songsremain outside such public debates as they negotiate more ambiguous balancesbetween the piously moral and the jadedly tough. Emphasizing street-smartambience even as they negotiate notions of morality and spirituality simply placesthem outside the playing fields of mainstream middle-class religious discourses.Although class distinctions of this kind are not always so solid or useful indescribing the complex identities and lifestyles of real individuals, they remain ofrelevance in contrasting the taste and deportment projected by Islamic pop and muliddance music and their related proximity, or lack thereof, to public debates over thelegitimacy of infusing entertainment with piety. They further explain the diversion ofire over the mulid trend from that which is religiously fueled to that marked bycondescension for its sha‘bi, and therefore culturally inferior, identity.

One example of this taste-oriented, rather than religious, distinction is found in anonline discussion on the permissibility of amplifying Qur’an recitation on publictransportation, in which Qur’an recordings are compared to the anathematic noisepollution of mulid and sha‘bi songs. A supporter of allowing Qur’an recitationposted an apparently indignant comment that read ‘A couple of days ago I rode acollective bus at seven in the morning. He was playing cassettes of loud and reallyclamorous songs. Imagine — seven in the morning and he’s playing mulid songs andheartbreak!’ as though nothing could be more offensive, jarring, and incongruouswith the expected calm of an early morning.37 Nothing about the holiness of theQur’an opposed to the irreverence of mulid songs was mentioned.

More striking and better publicized commentary on the perceived tastelessness of themulid dance trend was made when it was lampooned in the 2007 comedy film Karkarstarring Muhammad Saad, who is famed for his roles as an incoherent neighborhoodbum perpetually high on drugs.38 In Karkar, widely deemed one of Saad’s worstfilms, he plays several roles, one of which is a boorish mechanic who masquerades asa female in hopes of marrying his deranged but wealthy cousin (called Karkar — andalso played by Saad). We are introduced to this character as he rides a moped to work,blasting incoherent mulid music with the sole screamed phrase of ‘’uluh!’ (‘Tellhim!’). Later in the film, the song is heard again when the ‘female’ cousin drivesstraight into Karkar’s mansion and dances in a bizarrely suggestive manner that would

35 For an overview of Islamic pop culture in Egypt, see Kubala (2007).36 On the ‘Islamization of neo-liberalism’, see Haenni and Tammam (2003).37 Posted at http://www.ournormandy.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-4329.html, accessed 4 May 2008.38 Karkar (2007) was directed by Ali Ragab and produced by Al-Sobky for Artistic Production.

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appeal only to the kind of mad man that Karkar is. Mulid music, in both cases, is usedto noisily symbolize the epitome of incomprehensively bad taste.

With ever a sense of humor, however, the mulid song featured in Karkar wassubsequently adopted by the mulid dance trend and worked into several remixes, oneof which was noted above. The popular success of this adoption in turn led anapparently incensed Egyptian blogger to ridicule both the film and song by satirizingthem in a whimsical literary posting called mulid sidi Karkar (The mulid of SaintKarkar). This text characterizes sha‘bi culture, the mulid, and the mulid dance trendas incomprehensible and chaotic haphazardness. It opens:

Sultan Pasha arrived, disgusted by what was taking place around him. He said,‘Ever since the mulid songs appeared that are sung by one of the groups in thestyle of nights of spiritual song and dhikr, in a haphazard manner, it has becomeeasy for any song or musical phrase to turn into a mulid.’ I said, ‘What’s theproblem? It’s normal...We’re living in a big mulid.’39

This blogger is not horrified that the spiritual mulid milieu has been adopted as apseudo-identity of boisterous dance songs, whether in the filmKarkar or in the informalcircuits of home computer-based DJs. What seems to distress him is that, in addition tothe already troubling existence of bad movies such as Karkar, the film’s ridicule ofmulid tackiness has assumed a life of its own, having been appropriated as a legitimateform of sha‘bi art in itself. Karkar’s ‘’uluh!’ (‘Tell him!’) is easily accessed onEgyptian web forums that feature sha‘bi music and is in fact heard on the street,usually blasting from Cairo’s tuktuks — motorized rickshaws common in sha‘bineighborhoods that are industrially only a small step up from the moped driven byKarkar’s transvestite mechanic.

The matter at hand for this presumably educated and upwardly mobile blogger isthat haphazard gaucheness can so easily ‘turn into a mulid’ and gain widespreadpopularity on the street, eventually blurring the distinction between the orderedcoherence of everyday life and the festive, chaotic time of a mulid. He decries thisspread of sha‘bi taste and deportment as the symptom of a cultural and social spherethat has lost the dignified elegance found in the days of ‘Sultan Pasha.’ His lamentthat ‘we’re living in a big mulid’ bemoans the fact that these days anything can bepopular, no matter how criminally tasteless it may seem.

Conclusion

The young DJs’ amplification of mulid dance songs at the Prophet’s birthdayfestivities in Al-Ibrahimya illustrates the proximity of this trend to its source ofinspiration, not only with regard to sound or attitude, but also in real-life use. Evenas the mulid dance trend might approach mulids, Sufi practice, and expressions ofspiritual piety in a playful manner, it nonetheless assumes a legitimate role in Al-Ibrahimiya’s procession for the Prophet’s birthday. Light-hearted and carnivalesqueas it is, with even the Sufi orders wearing ‘Arab’ sunglasses and pink turban bands,the procession readily encompasses mildly irreverent and joking attitudes.

39 Posted at http://abdoubasha.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html, accessed 4 May 2008.

Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295 285

In keeping with this tolerance for various modes of celebration, DJ stations that featuremulid tracks are flourishing at somemulids in Cairo. At the 2007mulid of Sayyida Sakina,located on a street filled with saints in an old quarter of the city, DJ stations outnumberedthe Sufi service tents, munshidin, and popular bands. Two walls of speakers werestacked against the mosque beside the shrine entrance, and rowdy crowds of boysgrouped around them, spraying foam and dancing enthusiastically. Sitting on thecurb nearby, matronly figures clapped in time to the mulid songs’ rhythms.40

Neither DJ culture nor playfully irreverent mulid dance songs have been purgedfrom the mulid scene, unlike earlier forms of secular entertainment that wereeventually deemed too morally inappropriate for such events, such as female andtransvestite dancers, for example. As rebellious and street-smart as male youthculture and the mulid dance trend may at times be, they are ultimately neither at oddswith the mulid milieu nor pose an immediate threat to the mainstream culturalagendas of the Islamic revival. Having a raucously fun time, dancing energetically orsuggestively in the street, and even being playfully irreverent towards the spiritualcontext of mulids is behavior that, while not to everyone’s taste, is currently notprovocative enough to incite shrill religious or social outcry.

Yet with the minor exceptions of mulid songs making public advancements in thesoundtracks to comedy films and the limited production of sha‘bi video clips, itremains an art form socially marginalized from the mainstream of commercial pop,including its clean Islamic strands. This, and the fact that they draw on theambiguous and often marginalized context of saint festivals, largely neutralizes theirpotential to cause alarm over their ambiguous mixing of spiritual and street-smartambiences. As long as the boisterousness of mulid dance songs keeps clear of redlines such as formal religious teachings and the authority of the state, and remainsdistanced from mainstream Islamic attempts to reconcile piety with coolness, a littleirreverence towards spirituality seems to be considered fair play. What appears toconcern critics of the mulid dance trend is not its potential affront to spiritualsensibilities, but rather it allowing everything, from Sufi poetry to bad movies to ruralpastimes to the cheap nightclub scene, to be mixed together in a mulid cocktail of rowdymusic seen by mainstream, middle-class sensibilities as the epitome of bad taste.

Annex one41

Lyrics to naruh al-mulid (Let’s go to the mulid) by Gamal Al-Sobky

Following are the lyrics, transliterated and translated, to the original version ofGamal Al-Sobky’s debut mulid song, including the phrase that a sheikh interpretedas saying ‘no’ to the Prophet Muhammad. The many greetings are typical of GamalAl-Sobky’s songs and reminiscent of an MC at a sha‘bi wedding who collects giftsof cash from guests and loudly greets and praises them, typically in disregard of theperformance underway.

40 Peterson (2008a).41 I am indebted to Aymen Amer for his assistance with the transliteration and translation of the lyricsfound in annexes one and two.

286 Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295

(Arabic transliteration)42

awi yayella yellabismillah al-rahman al-rahimyasurr sharikat al-imam lil-intag al-fanni wal-tawzi‘ bi-intag awal tawzi‘ha bi-shara’it al-kassetal-mulid! al-mulid! al-mulid!tahiyat lil-ustaz nabil imam wal-ustaz hassan aliha-nruh al-mulid abu anwar, ha-nruh al-mulid!

allah! hayy! salli ‘ala rusul allah!ma-tkhafshi! (ma-tkhafshi!) x4ha-nruh al-mulid! x7ma-tkhafshi! (ma-tkhafshi!) x4hayy! ya allah!

ma-tkhafshi ya mubtali gayt li-tabib garahma dam dakhalt al-‘ayada ha-tla’i ‘andak rahya marid al-qalb yilli ramak al-hawaruh li-habib al-nabi huwwa al-tabib wal-dawaya tabib! (ya tabib!) x6

allah! (allah!) x5ma-tkhafshi! (ma-tkhafshi!) x5ha-n’ul ya rabb!’ul ya rabb!ha-n’ul ya rabb!’ul ya abu anwar!

kalimat habibi al-nabi lazim nidala‘hawa fi zikra laylat al-nabi halif l-awala‘hawala‘ha (wala‘ha) x5‘ala bab al-kiram da’at da’a wara da’awa huwa asl sayidna al-nabi ‘amru ma ’al la’ala’aha-n’ul la’a (la’a) x4

’ul al-mulid!

’alu dawak al-nabi wal-tuba wal-sunnakhalik fi zikra al-nabi rah tadkhul al-gennaal-genna (al-genna) x5

42 The transliteration provided here and elsewhere in the text is intended to aid readers of Arabic but doesnot fully conform to standardized transliteration models. I have kept it as simple as possible, eliminating,for example, the marking of long vowels, some initial glottal stops, and emphatic consonants.

Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295 287

wa nigamma‘ (nigamma‘)fil-genna (al-genna)al-genna (al-genna)madad ya nabi! (ya nabi!) x7(madad ya rusul allah!)madad madad madad! (ya nabi!) x3yella naruh!

han-’ul tahiya ila al-mu’assasatahiya lil-hagg ‘issam fathitahiya li-‘am khalaf abdel rahmantahiya li-‘am taha abul-hazimkul al-mu’assasa, ah!

allah! allah!

a’ul tahiya li-shubrawa tahiya li-bahtimwa tahiya lil-‘arabwa tahiya li-awlad sabihawa tahiya li-awlad sha‘banwa tahiya li-awlad rashwantahiya li-abu al-ghaytwa kul ‘ai’lat abu shabikawa kul ‘ai’lat badawiwa aal ibrahim

ruh!ya basha!ya ‘amm salli! (salli!) x5al-mulid!

(English translation)

Strong, yeah!Come on, come on!In the name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate,Al-Imam Company for Artistic Production and Distribution is pleased with thedistribution of its first production of cassette tapes.mulid! mulid! mulid!Greetings to Mr. Nabil Imam and Mr. Hassan AliLet’s go to the mulid Abu Anwar! Let’s go to the mulid!

God!hayy!Pray on the Messenger of God!Don’t be afraid! (Don’t be afraid!)

288 Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295

Let’s go to the mulid!Don’t be afraid! (Don’t be afraid!)hayy!Oh God!

Don’t be afraid, oh sick one, you’ve come to a surgeonAs long as you’ve entered the clinic you’ll find that you have will disappearOh sick in the heart, you that love has thrown,Go to the beloved the Prophet, for he’s the doctor and medicineOh doctor! (Oh doctor!)

God! (God!)Don’t be afraid! (Don’t be afraid!)We’ll say “Oh Lord!”Say “Oh Lord!”We’ll say “Oh Lord!”Say, Abu Anwar!

The word of my beloved the Prophet we must pamperAnd on the anniversary of the night of the Prophet I swear I’ll burn it upBurn it up (Burn it up)On the door of the honorable I knocked and knockedFor our Lord the Prophet never said no.No.We’ll say No (No)

Say “mulid!”

They said your medicine is the Prophet, and penitence, and the PropheticTraditionKeep invoking the Prophet and you’ll enter heavenHeaven (heaven)And we’ll meet in heaven (heaven)Heaven

Support, oh Prophet (oh Prophet)(Support, oh Messenger of God)Support, support, support (oh Prophet)Come on, let’s go!

I greet Al-Mu’assasaGreetings to Hagg Essam FathiGreetings to Uncle Khalaf Abdel RahmanGreetings to Uncle Taha Abu HazimAll of Al-Mu’assasa, ah!

God! God!

Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295 289

I greet ShubraGreetings to BahtimGreetings to the ArabsGreetings to the sons of SabihaGreetings to the sons of Sha‘banGreetings to the sons of RashwanGreetings to Abul Ghaytand all the Abu Shabika familiesand all the Badawi familiesand the Ibrahim family.

Go!Hey Pasha!Hey uncle, pray! (pray!)mulid!

Annex two

Lyrics to qasadt babak (I aimed for your door) by Mahmoud Al-Leithy

Following are the lyrics, transliterated and translated, to Mahmoud Al-Leithy’s popularmulid song from his debut album, ‘asfurayn (Two sparrows). The main body of the lyricsis borrowed directly from two well-known munshidin, Sheikh Yassin Al-Tuhami (anaal-qatil ‘I am the killed’...) and, more substantially, Sheikh ‘Arabi Farhan Al-Balbisi.Refrains used to commence recitation of the Beni Hilal tribe’s epic ballad are alsoemployed (sections beginning ana bawahhid ‘I declare the singularity,’ awal kalamiabda’ ‘The beginning of my speech I begin,’ and al-salla ‘al-nabi timna‘ ‘Prayers on theProphet prevent’). In keeping with this imitation of inshad styles, much of the dialectused is rural and distinct from the Cairene Arabic used in Al-Leithy’s other songs.

(Arabic transliteration)

‘azizi al-mushahid, ‘azizi al-mustami‘, ma‘ nigm al-ughniya al-sha‘biya, mahmudal-laysi!

ya...ah...wo...oh...

al-ruh x2

al-gism yisli wal-‘adhab lil-ruhya sadil al-satar, usturhama-tafdahashwa-li-ghayrak inta abadan ma-tahwignashal-haq yi‘la wihna ‘al-haq ma-ni‘lashya wakhid al-‘ahd ‘ala ‘ammak, ya khuya, ma-ti‘lashzayy ill ’ablina ma ’alu - al-‘ain ‘ala al-hagib ma-ti‘lash

290 Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295

wa idha kunt bi-thibb hibb bes lazim lazim takun hassasfattish ‘ala ruhak habibi...habibi...la la la...

dana ya habibi dana’al ya ‘amm habibi danaya hagg ‘omar danawa nabi ya hagg danawallahi al-‘adhim bahabbak danawallahi al-‘adhim ya hagg

layl ya layl x3

wa undhur li-baytak wa la tundhurshi li-biyut al-nasilli ma-tardahshi ‘ala ruhak ma-tardahshi ya khuya a‘-nnaskalam ha-’ulu ya ’albi ya rayt yisma‘u kul al-nas:kan ‘addunya fituwatbi-yu’ulum ihna ahsan nassabahum ramayim ya khuyawa yadahwisu ‘alayhum al-nasisma‘ kalam rabbuna al-‘azizill ’alu li-gami‘ al-nasgannat al-khuld yadkhulha min al-nasal-kathimin al-ghayth wal-‘afin ‘an al-nas

ana al-qatilbila ithminana al-qatilbila ithmin wa la haragiwada‘tu qabl...

ana al-qatil anaana al-qatil ya hagg ‘ omardana al-qatil ya ‘ammwallahi al-adhim ana al-qatil

la la x4ana al-qatilbila ithmin wa la haragi

ana bawahhid illi khalaq al-nasmin muslimin wa nasarayama nas ‘alal-farash bitbatwal-‘alam batum hiyara

ana al-qatil anaana al-qatil lalayl x4ruh x4

Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295 291

awal kalami abda’ bi-dhikr allahilah wa ‘al-khalq radiwada‘ al-sama min ghayr ‘imdanwa bassat al-aradi

leh...lehruh...ruhal-salla ‘al-nabi timna‘ dukhul ibliswa ya bakht men nal al-ziyaraya bakhtuyama nas hadaha malayinwa yama nas

ruh...ruhya ‘amm yella ruhah wa‘-nnabi yaba ruhya khalid ya ‘omar ruh

yuh x4min x4

ruh ya hamada ruhruh ya hamada ruhruh ya Hamadaha-nruh ya Hamada

woh...ohruh...ruhya hamada ruhruh ya abu na’shat ruhruh ya hagg ‘omar ruhruh ruh (sound of ululation in the background)la la la (sound of applause)

(English translation)

Dear viewers, dear listeners,[You’re] with the star of sha‘bi song,Mahmoud Al-Leithy!

Ya...oh...wo...ow...

The spirit x2

The body diverts and the torment is for the soulOh Provider of protection, protect it, don’t expose itOther than you we have never needed anyone

292 Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295

The truth is high and we don’t go aboveYou who have taken the oath from your uncle, don’t go aboveLike those before us said, the eyes doesn’t go above the browIf you love, love, but you must be sensitiveInspect your soul, my love, la la la...

Me, my love, meHe said, oh Uncle, my love, meOh Hagg Omar, meBy the Prophet, oh Hagg, meBy God Almighty, I love you, meBy God Almighty, og Hagg

Night, oh night x4

See to your home and don’t look at the homes of the peopleWhat you don’t want for yourself, don’t accept, my brother, for the peopleWords I’ll say, my heart, that I wish all people would listen to:There were thugs on the earthwho said they were the best peopleThey became ashes, my brotherand the people stepped on themListen to the words of our Lord the belovedthat he said to all peopleThe heaven of eternity is entered by peoplewho contain their anger and forgive people

I am the killed, without sinI am the killed, without sin or shameI placed before...

I am the killed, II am the killed, oh Hagg OmarI am the killed, oh UncleBy God Almighty, I am the killed

La la x4

I am the killed, without sin or blame

I declare the singularity of that which created the people,Muslims and ChristiansHow many people have slept on beds,And how many confused

I am the killed, II am the killed, la

Cont Islam (2008) 2:271–295 293

Night x4Go x4

The beginning of my speech I begin with God,A god and satisfied with the peopleHe raised the sky without pillarsAnd spread out the Earth

Le leGo...go

Prayers on the Prophet prevent the entrance of the DevilHow lucky are those who can visit...Hagg Omar

Prayers on the Prophet prevent the entrance of the DevilHow lucky are those who can visit...how lucky

How many people have had millionsHow many people...Go...goOh Uncle, by God, goAh, by the Prophet, Daddy, goOh Khalid, oh Omar, go

Yuh x4Min x4Go, oh Hamad, go x2Go, oh HamadaWe’ll go, oh Hamada

Woh...Oh...

Go...goOh Hamada, goGo, oh Abu Nash’at, goGo, oh Hagg Omar, goGo, go (sound of ululation in the background)La la la (sound of applause)

References

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