The Sacred Music of Fez by William Dalrymple

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Riad Numero 9
"Fusing Moroccan and Asian influences, this restored riad is ideal for exclusive rental, and lies in the heart of Fez's ancient medina." Price from: GBP 80.59 See all hotels in Fez > In 1195, a travelling scholar and mystic from Spain arrived at Fez, the oldest of the imperial capitals of Morocco. Ibn Arabi was brilliant metaphysician, one of the great minds of his day: his admirers called him the Sultan of Gnostics, and ash-shaykh al-akbar, the greatest master. If Ibn Arabi was one of the most remarkable standard bearers of the high civilisation of Islamic Spain at the height of its scientific and philosophical achievement, then the tolerant and pluralistic university town of Fez was the perfect setting for his talents. In the 12th century it was one of the great centres of learning of the Arab world, packed with libraries and schools, and with a university founded over 200 years before Oxford and Cambridge. It was while staying in Fez that Ibn Arabi experienced a moment of blinding spiritual illumination, reaching what he called the Abode of Light. In the aftermath, he sat in the his Fez cell attempting to reconcile the systems of ancient Greek philosophy with the visionary currents of mystical Islam, and it was here that he began work on what would eventually be his great masterpiece- still one of the central texts of Islamic mysticism- the Meccan Revelations. Today, almost all the mosques, madrasas, bazaars and caravansarais than Ibn Arabi knew eight hundred years ago are still extant, and mostly quite unchanged. Lying between the olive groves of the Rif mountains and the Cedar-wooded summits of the Middle Atlas, Fez is one of the most perfectly preserved mediaeval cities in the world and, along with Aleppo, perhaps the most perfectly preserved Arab townscape in existence. Then as now the city is a dense warren of streets girdled round with castellated mud brick walls which

look out over pale rolling hills dotted with white-washed farmsteads and terraces of silverleafed olive trees. The citys roofs are still clad with lime green tiles, the view over them broken every so often with the vertical punctuation of thin, pencil-like minarets and narrow plumes of black smoke from the Fez potteries. Then as now the streets are so narrow that you have to press yourself against the shops to avoid being crushed by donkeys laden with wood, carpets or spices. But it is not just the groaning mediaeval fabric of the city that has survived. The old loom of the citys life is also still intact, with its medieval guilds and communal bakeries, its hammams and water-pipes and mint tea shops, its textile traders and mule-driving porters. Most of all, Fez is still a major centre for the Sufi brotherhoods who were so much a part of the life of Ibn Arabi during his stay in the town. In its setting Fez is not unlike Jerusalem, with its steep, narrow bazaars and dense concentration of holy shrines; but while Jerusalem is still as ever a tinder box of religious conflict and ethnic strife, Fez is a town obviously at ease with itself, and the gentle spirit of its Sufi Islam is quite different from the rival fanaticisms that possess the Middle East. The landscape too is greener and less arid than Jerusalem, in feeling closer to the wide rolling plains of Andalucia than the white rock and goat scrub of the Levant. The city was founded in 808 AD by the great Moroccan ruler Idris II, who built the mosque of Mulai Idris, a shrine still considered so sacred that non-Muslim may not approach its entrance. Nearby rise the magnificent domes of the Qarawiyin Mosque, the largest in Africa, while around it stand a series of airy and elegant courtyard houses - riads - some of which are now converted into guest houses. Most beautiful of all are the exquisite jewellike mediaeval madrasas - especially the astonishing Attarine or the Bou Inania - their marble pillars rising to round Cordoba-like horseshoe arcades. Above, between the murqanas - honey-combed stalactites of stucco- and the lime green tiles of the roof, there project exquisitely latticed balconies of Moroccan cedar wood. Madrasas have a somewhat sinister reputation today, but it is often forgotten that it was these institutions that kick-started the revival of mediaeval European learning through the wholesale transfusion of scholarship from the Islamic world. It was probably through Islamic Morocco and Spain that such basic facets of western civilisation as paper, ideas of courtly love, algebra and the abacus passed into Europe. If it surprises us today to think of the Islamic world as a major source of European learning, it should not. In the entire Quran there are only about 200 verses enjoining prayer and three times as many that number commanding the believers to reflect, to ponder and to analyse Gods magnificence in nature, plants, stars and the solar system. Scholars now believe that terms such as having fellows, holding a chair, or students reading a subject and obtaining degrees, as well as practices such mortar boards, tassles and academic robes, can all be traced back to the practices of medieval madrasas like those still extant in Fez. It was in cities bordering Islamic Morocco, Spain and Sicily- Paris, Salerno, and Montpellier- that first developed universities in Christendom, the idea spreading northwards from there. As late as the 14th century, European scholars would

travel to the Islamic world to pick up the advanced learning then on offer in the madrasas of Spain and Morocco. As the Mozarab Alvaro of Cordova wrote: My fellow Christians delight in the poems of the Arabs; they study the work of Muslim philosophers, not in order to refute them, but to acquire an elegant Arabic style. Where today can a layman be found who reads Latin commentaries on Holy scripture? At the mention of Christian books they protest that such works are unworthy of notice. The ecumenical open-mindedness of the immigrant Christian scholars was returned by the intellectuals of Fez resident in the citys beautiful madrasas. Ibn Arabi for one was clear that love was more important than religious affiliation. As he wrote in one of his most famous verses: My heart is capable of every form, A cloister for the monk, a temple for idols, A pasture for gazelles, the votarys Kaba, The tables of the Torah, and the Koran. Love is the creed I hold: wherever turn His camels, love is still my creed and faith. Ibn Arabis flame is still being carried in modern Fez, most notably by the urbane Sufi musical impresario Faouzi Skali, who over the last decade has seen his summer Fez festival turn into one of the worlds leading venues for sacred music. The festival is a distinctly Sufi response to political developments. It was prompted by the first Gulf War and the ensuing polarisation of the Arab World and the West. Muslims had a stereotypical view of the West and vice versa, Faouzi told me. I wanted to create a place where people could meet and discover the beauty of each religion and culture. In Fez people can see another image of Islam- a message which it can pass on to the world today. The idea of the Fez festival of Sacred Music is a simple one, to juxtapose religious music from all over the world from any creed or faith. Last year, audiences were regaled by music ranging from the Uzbek lute music of Central Asian through the Sephardic chants of Montserrat Figueras to the sacred raags of Hindustani music performed by Ravi and Anushka Shankar. The highlight the previous year was the astonishing Senegalese singer Youssou NDour and his Sufi-inspired album Egypt, who standout track, Tijaniya praises one of the great Sufi saints of Fez. Faouzi sees Sufism at the heart of this work. I believe that within Islam, Sufism has a major role to play today, he says. The world is not uniform. Theres a wealth of spiritual traditions that its important to know and preserve. Thats what we, and the next generation, need now or we will have a world without soul. Ibn Arabi would have agreed. Every day at the Fez festival there are performances staged beneath the shade of a giant holm oak in the courtyard garden of a 19th century palace, followed in the late evening by a grand concert at an open-air theatre. This is in a fabulous illuminated courtyard created by closing off one of the 13th-century gateways to the royal place. But it is not here so much as in the backstreets that some of the most exciting music is on offer, and it comes from the different Sufi groups which form the real heartbeat of Morocco. In particular, around midnight in the old garden of Tazi Pasha, the local Sufi brotherhoods play to a mixed crowd of street urchins, writers, artists and fellow musicians,

all sprawled over cushions beside an old fountain. It was listening to one such impromptu concert that I came to meet Abd Nebi Zizi. Zizi was one the citys leather workers who labour away in the foul-smelling tanneries that were founded in the 14th century and are still exporting leather internationally today. Zizi was also, I soon learned, a member of the Assaiwas, one of the most widespread Sufi brotherhoods in Morocco. Work in the tannery is very hard, Zizi explained to me. It smells very bad and it is physically very tough- especially in winter when the temperature falls to 10 degrees below freezing and you have to spend your day knee deep in freezing effluent. But I say to myself: the day is going to pass and tonight were having a ceremony. The Aissawas, I knew, were celebrated for their spectacular music, and by good fortune Zizi was about to hold a major Sufi musical ceremony at his house: Every year around the Prophets Birthday, said Zizi, we Aissawas do an alms ceremony. We wish goodbye to the past year with its good and bad events, and try to bring good luck on our house for the year ahead. Zizi was throwing a house-purification ceremony, in order to propitiate his familys resident djinns. Muslims, he explained, believe that when the world was new and God made mankind from clay, he made another race like us in all things, but fashioned from fire. The djinns, said Zizi, are invisible to the naked eye. They appear in the Koran and are respected all over the Islamic world, but it is in Morocco that djinns have received their most elaborate theological elaboration, partly through the transference of ideas from African spirit religions to the South. In Fez it is believed that the djinns are sensitive to colour, and that each colour has a different patron djinn: Hammu, for example, is a powerful male Arab djinn who loves red and who relished the sight of blood, while Aisha and Malika are female Berber djinni who both delight in the colour yellow, and wine, tobacco, orange blossom and the sensual pleasures. The following night, as arranged, I met Zizi at the tanneries and he led me through the dark and narrow winding streets to his family riad. There Zizis entire extended family were in the process of gathering and bustling around preparing the feast. Shortly after ten oclock the sound of trumpets could be heard outside the house and everyone poured out to greet the musicians. In the dark, eleven musicians were heading down the street, some with trumpets, others with drums and oboes, and as they walked, the entire neighbourhood appeared to escort them, the men walking four abreast in their long jellabas with arms linked, while others carried torches and burning splints. Women in headscarves peered down from balconies while children ran along in front of the musicians laughing and playing. By the time the musicians neared the house there must have been a procession of at least 150 people.

The musicians entered Zizis house and they settled themselves in the central covered courtyard where they ranged themselves around the divans, playing all the time so that the insistent hand drums echoed off the walls and ceilings, the volume rising to fill the enclosed space. Once everyone had gathered the ceremony proper began, with the rhythmic chanting of the 99 names of God. Koranic verses were recited, with the phrases passing from group to group. Then the music began with family members taking turns to accompany the musicians with tablas and cymbals. As the evening progressed, the tone grew increasing loud and exuberant. The music was driven by powerful rhythmic grooves, like a sort of spiritual jazz, the oboes on top improvising repeated musical phrases pushing up the intensity. As the volume grew, some of the women began to sway with a lost look on their faces, falling into the trance-like state that Moroccans believe to signal the presence and possession of the djinns. It certainly looked a little alarming, but was clearly a way of easing pent-up anxieties in a way thats acceptable in a deeply conservative society. It was a sort of safety valve something like a rave, but with better, less-monotonous music. By the time I left, towards five in the morning, with dawn breaking over the Atlas, I had no doubt that it was one of the most exciting musical evenings I have ever participated in. This is the way we get relief from our work, explained Zizi as he wished me goodbye. This is the way we end our family and spiritual problems. If people are sick it gives them help physically, mentally and psychologically. He put a hand on my shoulder: When they listen to this music, the djinns are satisfied and bless our house, but its not just the djinns. It is us too. For us this ceremony brings us together and relieves us. After this we feel at one with the world.

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