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Michael Frishkopf: Thus spake the reed flute

In 1992, Michael Frishkopf -- an American ethnomusicologist -- set out to Egypt on a
year-long Fulbright fellowship, in order to conduct research for a dissertation about
sound, sufism, ritual and modernity. His research expanded to include not only inshad
dini (religious chanting) -- he was to become a Sheikh Yassin El-Tohami specialist -- but
Quranic recitation as well. More recently he has been researching Egyptian recording
companies and popular music, including inshad dini on cassette tape. Frishkopf vividly
recalls the first time he listened to Sheikh Yassin, perhaps Egypt's best known munshid
(practitioner of inshad ). The emotional response of participants -- including his own -was so overwhelming that he felt compelled to research the significance of this tradition.
Over the following years, he spent much time with Yassin, observing the rapid spread of
his fame, notably in the West, and tracing the changes to this musical tradition as it
encountered a wider audience. He learned Arabic and became a regular participant in
Sufi rituals, combining an outsider's detachment with complete immersion -- acquiring
memorable experiences that would mark him for life. His current research interests
include Islamic ritual, Arabic music, the Arab music industry, music and religion in West
Africa, digital multimedia archiving, and the sociology of taste. Frishkopf plays the nay
(reed flute) and also performs traditional music of Ghana. He founded the University of
Alberta Middle Eastern and North African Ensemble, and the West African Music
Ensemble, and maintains the conviction that music's affective and social power, properly
deployed, can help create cross-cultural understanding. Interview by Nahed Nassr
Interview by Nahed Nassr
No, my journey through Egypt wasn't easy, but it was fascinating, and richly rewarding. Difficult
journeys often are. Research results came slowly, and sometimes not at all. There were many
blind alleys, and I spent many years meticulously charting them. But while academia judges
research according to its products (i.e. publications), personally the research process is far more
meaningful, especially the close friendships I developed with true Sufis, such as the poet Sheikh
Abdel-Alim El-Nekheila in Imbaba, or Omar and Taha Gad and their family, at the shrine of Sidi
Omar Ibn Al-Farid in Abagiya. Their homes and families became extensions of my own.
For the foreigner, attempting to interpret Arab-Egyptian culture via the Arabic language is
difficult enough without attempting also to focus on musical and mystical experience -- two
domains famously resistant to language -- and the ecstatic, enigmatic utterances of Sufi poetry.
For even Arab Sufi writers -- poets especially -- are constantly grappling with the fact that the

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Sufi experience is essentially not linguistic. This is what makes Sufism, despite its important
social dimension, intensely personal, ineffable. Music fills a gap; as Huxley said: "After silence,
that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." But how then can one
research such a thing, much less write about it? Understanding comes slowly, through long
experience, and a kind of intuition, or firasa. On a very practical level, one of the early
milestones I recall on the journey was suddenly being able to figure out, while listening to
rapidly spoken Arabic, where one word ended and the next one began. I didn't necessarily know
what the words meant, but at least I could figure out what they were!
Research was also difficult because people, wondering why a foreigner would travel all the way
to Egypt to study the role of music in the mystical experience, and not finding any satisfactory
answer, would imagine all sorts of ulterior motives. Or they'd fear that cooperating with a
foreigner (an American at that) would bring some sort of musiba (Arabic for "catastrophe") upon
them. Or, being poor, they'd be too busy trying to make ends meet. Or, being poor, they'd seek to
use me as a means of making ends meet. Or, being rich, they'd fail to see me as a good business
opportunity. Or, being rich, they'd see me as an excellent business opportunity.
In Egypt, you don't always find things in their expected places. When I began to do archival
research, first of all at SonoCairo, it quickly became apparent that many historical documents I
was seeking weren't where I'd expected them to be, for the good reason that proper archiving is a
kind of luxury many Egyptian institutions don't have the time or energy to indulge in. For
instance, I finally found historic 1960s SonoCairo record catalogues not at SonoCairo (they
hadn't kept them) but at the Egyptian performing rights society, SACERAU!
All this was complicated by the difficulties of travel, and -- at the same time -- working
musicians' tremendous mobility, and lack of time or inclination for ruminative conversations
about music and spirituality. When I first arrived in Cairo I began to attend the weekly dhikr
(invocation ritual) at the maqam (shrine) of Sidi Ali Zein Al-Abidine in the Madbah district. This
dhikr was accompanied by a firqa (musical troupe) and a number of different munshidin (plural
of munshid ). I'd planned to work with the singers and musicians to get at the meaning of the
music, and perhaps learn how to play some of the instruments.
But finding time to spend with them, to sit quietly and discuss the music, was nearly impossible.
First of all, it seemed they didn't have a free moment either before or after the dhikr ; they were
almost always either sleeping, eating, working or travelling. Travelling took a lot of time, as they
all lived in remote locations, mostly in the Delta. When I visited their villages, I found most of
my time scheduled and pleasantly filled by meals, visiting friends and relations and sleeping.
Finding the time for my questions required lots of patience, waiting for the right moment. For
instance, Sheikh Yassin hardly spent more than a few days in any one place; following him
around meant hours of travel each day, attending his inshad performances (often ending around
3am), then sitting patiently with him afterwards, waiting for the throngs of visitors to subside
before half an hour for real conversation might become available, in the wee hours after dawn,
and before sleep.
But despite formidable difficulties in getting research results, I always enjoyed the research
process, because the Egyptians I met -- almost without exception, and regardless of social
position -- were warm, sociable, and generous, with a wonderful sense of humor. I still have
better and closer friends in Egypt than anywhere else. And the musical-spiritual experiences of
layali diniya (religious nights) in remote villages or unfamiliar harat (alleyways) buried deep
within Cairo's most densely populated neighbourhoods, filled with poetry, music, and chant,
continuous and intense, were so wonderfully rich. Indelibly imprinted, they have become part of
me.
Due to all the difficulties -- logistical and linguistic -- of sitting and talking about music and
spirituality, I spent a great deal of time participating in Sufi performances, ranging from the
informal to the formal, from ecstatic public festivals to more private structured rituals, from

recitations to music. As a musician who spent endless stretches of time simply observing, I
became very attuned to performative aspects of these events: subtle uses of time and space,
tempo and tonality, movement.
I attended public inshad performances held for religious and life-cycle occasions, performances
by professional munshidin such as Sheikh Yassin and Sheikh Ahmed El-Tuni, as well as the
regular tariqa (Sufi order) hadras (rituals) of a variety of mystical organisations, especially the
Jaafariya, the Jazuliya, the Hamidiya Shadhiliya, the Burhamiya and the Bayoumiya. Each has its
own distinctive fragrance: inshad of the Jaafariya is elegant and restrained; that of the Jazuliya
and Burhamiya more ecstatic. The sinuous melodies of Sheikh Mohamed El-Helbawy's ibtihalat
(a form of solo inshad ), performed in the mosque before dawn, and culminating in the azan (call
to prayer) are intensely meditative, stirring the silence of a sleeping city. The collective recitation
of wird (a Sufi compendium of prayers) by the Ashraf Al-Mahdiya (disciples of Sheikh
Salaheddin El-Qusi) is so powerful, even without melody. Such experiences were unforgettable.
Many performances took place during Ramadan. I recall the most moving of these during Lailat
Al-Qadr (the night on which the Quran was revealed in the holy month of Ramadan), for instance
the all-night hadra of the Hamidiya Shadhiliya in their mosque in Mohandessin, or the tarawih
(extended evening prayer undertaken in Ramadan) as led by Sheikh Mohamed Gebril at the
mosque of Amr Ibn Al-Aas: moving Quranic recitations followed by an hour-long dowaa
(supplication), stirring tens of thousands of worshippers to weep. But my warmest memories of
these religious performers during Ramadan stem not from their performances, but from
invitations to their homes to consume delicious Iftar meals together. I'll always remember the
kindness and generosity of Sheikh Yassin and his family during my many visits to their home in
Hawatka, near Assiut, where every year he would hold a large Ramadan Iftar.
Of course all these experiences have shaped my academic life, because they provided me with
the multiple perspectives I needed to begin to understand the affective dimensions of Islam in
Egypt, and to translate that understanding into academic discourse. But more important for me is
their place in my personal life, which they transformed.
Munshidin are situated at an unusual crossroads, between music and spirituality. When a good
munshid sings Sufi poetry, though it's written by someone else, the text becomes his, even though
he didn't write it, because it expresses his own mystical feeling. (The same goes for female
munshidat, of course, though they are relatively few!) Indeed the first requirement of a great
munshid is this ability to sing with sincerity. Naturally musical ability is necessary too -- the
capacity to sing in correct intonation, to master a variety of maqamat (musical modes), and to
improvise effectively within them. And of course he must memorise reams of poetry.
Sheikh Yassin is special because of the depth of his feeling while performing, something that
depends, to a significant extent, on his ability to select poetry that says what he wants to say,
poetry that harmonises with his own spiritual state. It helps that his poetic repertoire is vast,
drawn from a broad spectrum of sources, from the classical Sufi poets (Ibn Al-Farid, Al-Hallaj,
Al-Burai, Ibn Arabi), to contemporary poets such as Sheikh Abdel-Alim El-Nakheily (who has
additionally done so much to nurture his talent by helping him select that repertoire). Moreover,
Sheikh Yassin is an extraordinary musician; he understands the maqamat intuitively, and uses
improvisation brilliantly to bring out his intended meanings.
But I think that Sheikh Yassin's most striking quality is his voice, so deep, so passionate, so
poignant, so eloquent; a voice, rich with harmonics and shajan (sorrow), that allows him to
communicate his internal feeling to the listeners assembled before him, from heart to heart, as the
Sufis say. No one else has a voice like that. The audience feels that he feels his words, and this
feeling itself intensifies their own. Their feeling, expressed more roughly in gesture and
exclamation, returns to Sheikh Yassin, and a performative feedback loop is created, leading to the
collective ecstasy Sufis call wajd -- but which the secular listener might equally label tarab
(enchantment). Beyond this rapid, localised performance loop is a slower, broader sociological

loop, by which fame is amplified -- people pay more attention to famous people, and so fame
always multiplies itself. Once he was "discovered" by the Egyptian intelligentsia it was only a
matter of time before he made his appearances at the Opera House and in the capitals of Europe.
Though hard to analyse in words, the performative loop is key to this music's spiritual power. But
from a scholarly point of view, perhaps the sociological loop is more interesting, because it led to
some eminently describable changes in performance, resulting in the emergence of a new inshad
style appropriate to new segments of his rapidly expanding audience. Sheikh Yassin realised that
when performing abroad he had to convey his message musically more than poetically, since
audiences there generally do not understand Arabic. Also his concert-hall performances (whether
in Europe or in Cairo's Opera House) needed to account for the fact that their audiences listen
quietly in their seats, rather than while performing dhikr chant and movement as in Egypt.
So he elaborated and extended the non-metric middle wasla (section) of his performances, what
is sometimes called ibtihalat. This section, comprising non-metric singing interspersed with
taqasim (improvisations) on a single accompanying instrument (violin or reed flute) usually
occupies only 30 minutes of a traditional Egyptian performance, and is inserted -- as a kind of
break -- between longer segments of rhythmically-driving dhikr. In his new style he expands this
middle wasla to fill nearly the entire performance, and expands the instrumental section from a
single accompanying instrument to a classical takht (Arab chamber ensemble), giving each
instrumentalist ample time to improvise solo taqasim. He's still expressing his spirituality, but in
a more musical way, more compatible with the concert-listening traditions audiences abroad are
already familiar with, and which their halls are designed to accommodate.
Personally, however, my best memories of his inshad are performances in Upper Egypt -- his
hadras for Mawlid Al-Nabi (anniversary of the prophet) in Aswan, for instance -- where Sufi
orders, banners, poetry, and dhikr are still primary threads within the social fabric and where he
seems, amidst a sea of large turbans, surrounded by tall palms, adjacent to the narrow Nile valley,
all wrapped by desert, most completely in his element. Those, and his yearly Cairo performances
in honour of the great Sufi poet Sidi Omar Ibn Al-Farid, at the latter's shrine in Abagiya, and at
the Cairo mosque of the Imam Al-Hussein.
Music is the ultimate vehicle for the social expression of the inexpressible, for generating
collective emotion through immediate performer-listener interactions, most obviously in religious
ritual. It is this kind of collective emotion which provides the essential basis for the maintenance
of the social group itself, as Durkheim recognised long ago. Music goes where language,
ordinary language at least, cannot. Its tremendously important social and religious role is not
properly recognised within academia precisely because the media of academic enquiry are
limited to language (what academic journal would publish a melody?!), while language's ability
to comment on music is extremely limited.
While music's spiritual-social-emotional role occurs worldwide, it is more prominent in societies
which have maintained pre-media traditions alongside the parallel emergence of mass media
channels. Mediation, via TV, radio, or MP3, tends to reduce music's immediate spiritualemotional power, as feedback loops between performer and listener are broken, as the listening
group becomes atomised, and as music's commodity value takes precedence over its social and
spiritual value. As an ethnomusicologist, I've been most interested in regions where the public
socio-spiritual power of traditional music still permeates broad sectors of society. While I'd like
to investigate such music beyond my primary areas of research, Egypt and Ghana, one cannot be
everywhere at once, especially because researching this particular phenomenon requires
concentrated research; you can't spread yourself too thin, or you won't understand anything at all.
My particular selection is partly taste, and partly the happenstances of my personal life.
Music speaks for itself, communicates itself, as sound, and as a bodily, physical practice. It can't
say everything about itself, but what it says is undoubtedly important. It also speaks volumes
about the culture in which it is embedded, which it expresses, maintains and transforms. Without

devaluing the role of linguistic knowledge in university education, I feel that giving music ample
space to do its own talking is crucial too. One can't fully understand a music without having
participated in it, at least as a listener. It certainly isn't necessary to become a master performer -a little goes a long way.
I learned these things through my own musical experiences in Egypt and Ghana, and felt that my
students should be able to learn in the same way. This is why I founded two world music groups
at the University of Alberta, and also why I do not admit members by audition; I wholeheartedly
reject the competitive "sports" mentality of so many musical groups: that participation is
contingent on ability rather than the desire to learn; that only the "talented" should participate;
that the "goal" is to "win" (as if there were any non-arbitrary way of judging who the winner
might be!) or to make money. Reducing musical performance to numbers -- to winners and
losers, to dollars -- are yet another manifestation of the quantification -- hence dehumanisation -of human life.
The humanistic goal of music performance is neither winning nor selling, but learning,
understanding and communicating; learning through the music itself, and from co-participants as
well. I therefore encourage a mix of students in the Middle East and North African music
ensemble: musicians and music students, yes, but also those studying the region from other
perspectives (e.g. history), or those who consider this music to be part of their heritage,
regardless of musical level. These groups are constantly in demand for performances in our local
community, because their performances carry vital messages and values -- not just about the
music and its culture but also about the ideals of diversity and tolerance of North American
society, and people's commitment to those ideals. In performance that progressive message
becomes effectively present, and makes a statement no speech can match.
In my opinion the relationship between Egyptian society and inshad dini in Egypt now is the
same as before, but the nature of inshad is changing. The forces of techno-media and
commodification within the market system are relentless, and have inevitably affected even
relatively conservative musical domains such as inshad. While the effect on some inshad genres
may be quite adverse (for instance, aside from a few remaining masters such as Sheikh Mohamed
El-Helbawy, tawashih diniya -- another form of inshad, once a staple, is virtually defunct in
Egypt), the rise of media- inshad, performances of singers like Sheikh Mashari Rashid, has also
enriched the media space, which for a time seemed overstuffed by musical and poetical fluff.
New Islamic trends may have attenuated the use of the word "Sufi" a bit. But that word has
always been ambiguous, and the boundaries between what is Sufi and what isn't, if they exist at
all, are much more fluid than many people imagine. What is Sufism, really, but a continual focus
on tawhid (the oneness of God), a continuous remembrance, or dhikr, whose highest expression
is Divine love (which then becomes a model for human social relations as well)? Sufi inshad is
merely an aesthetic focussing technique. And this is what the new religious media-star singers
continue to accomplish.
In my view, there are two basic categories within new inshad developments. The first comprises
the new mediated munshidin ; those who specialise in performing Islamic poetry, and who are
singing the same kinds of themes munshidin have always sung. Usually this music is performed
in a distinctively Islamic style; for instance vocal timbre is influenced by tilawa (recitation of the
Quran), and use of musical instruments is limited. The other comprises popular singers who
occasionally turn to sing religious lyrics, sometimes adding a layer of Islamic instrumentation
(e.g. duff, nay ) but not changing anything essential. I call these songs aghani diniya (religious
songs) rather than inshad. The mediated munshidin differ from their traditional forebears
primarily in that there is now the possibility for them to become true media stars, with
widespread celebrity (and financial compensation) powered by international networks of
broadcast and distribution. These networks simply were not available in the "traditional" setting,
which relied upon live performances, and (from the 1970s) limited cassette distribution. Such
celebrity and wealth certainly poses some risks for a singer whose reputation hinges essentially

on spirituality. But in a sense such a risk has always been present, albeit on a smaller scale.
But while music is always powerful, the danger is of detachment of aesthetic from ethical value.
The aesthetic should not be allowed to become the anaesthetic. Music's power is ambiguous, as
Muslim thinkers such as Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali long ago recognised. To be used in a socially
progressive way -- a human way -- music must be tightly bound to progressive social values. The
tendency is for wealthier societies to absorb some world-music and then feel -- rather smugly,
perhaps -- that they've understood the "other". Often they aren't even hearing the real "other" at
all, but rather a faux-other which springs up out of the wealthy society itself, loudly proclaiming
its "otherness", simply to meet a perceived demand. In this case, while the music may be
wonderful, there's no cultural dialogue, only monologue.
And it's likewise important to avoid the irony of one-way dialogues, an unfortunately common
consequence of economic inequality. Cultural dialogue through music typically involves music
and musicians moving from the developing to the developed world (the reverse typically affects
an elite minority only), and most musicians are (understandably) more interested in economic
relief than dialogue.
Meanwhile the reverse path is paved not by dialogue-seekers, but by forces of "globalisation"
which want to export as much Western music as possible in exchange for money. Thus it isn't
obvious that a real dialogue is going to happen, just because music is exchanged. There has to be,
first of all, a desire for dialogue, and that in turn means the right intentions have to be present
among all parties. Such a situation is not easy to arrange. So while music, in all its spiritual and
emotional power, can play a progressive role, it's nave to think that this role will be assumed as
matter of course.
Emotion, music and religion are all ambiguous, ambivalent forces. They are powerful, but their
effects are uncertain because it's impossible to predict with certainty whether they'll play a
progressive role or not. Music can be brutal; national anthems may support fascist atrocities.
Religions can promote intolerance. Emotions can generate negative consequences, judging by the
positive standard of progressive values, i.e. values of justice, equality, peace, freedom,
cooperation, altruism. I don't believe that people are more likely to allow their emotions to lead
them into negative actions now than they ever were, but perhaps the risks are greater, as the
world has become far more unstable than before.
Since the 1990s, I've changed a lot (marriage, children, age); Egypt has changed some (more
people, more cell phones, more satellite TV, Internet, more traffic, more wealth, more poverty).
And having changed and watched Egypt change, and even participated in its changes, I feel more
than ever part of the flux -- not a privileged observer standing high on a rock somewhere. So I
don't have any specific messages to offer, except maybe a message about messages: to be as open
as possible when receiving them, and as honest as possible when sending them. And the paradox
that communications technology doesn't necessarily increase real communication. This much was
already clear to Thoreau 150 years ago, when he wrote (in Walden ) "Our inventions are wont to
be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to
an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to
Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to
Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."
In my opinion, these "serious things" all concern real, human communication. Egypt's long
civilisation does not immunise against the economically-motivated, technologically- enabled
radical transformations of the present. I used to love the way Egyptians went to cafs to meet
their friends, not even knowing exactly whom they'd meet there. Many people didn't have a
telephone in their homes -- communication required actually going to the caf, and involving
oneself in a face-to-face social situation. Nowadays appointments are made by mobile; people
SMS to say they'll be late, or that they can't make it after all. Of course the entire world is
moving to embrace technology, and there's no point in opposing such "progress", especially since

many practical advantages are to be derived from it. But real progress needs to be progressive.
We need to preserve progressive values -- human values, that is, rather than economic ones -from the past to guide progress in the present. Sufi music, centred on a universal love, carries
many of them.
Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

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