Photos by Zoubir Ali – except where noted. Videos by Marc Boudet.
The sense of absolute elated wonder I felt throughout the Fès Festival of Sufi Culture will remain with me for a long time. Dr. Faouzi Skali, producer of Morocco’s finest spiritual music festivals since 1994, delivered a superlative 16th edition Sufi festival for over 6000 attendees, April 20-27. Themed with the Socratic precept “Know Thyself”, Sidi Faouzi and artistic director Milan Otal, wove two key aspects into the program, producing resonant brilliance: a luminous portal for self-transformation through higher knowledge and inner realization of Sufism’s mystical dimensions of Islam.
First, the kingdom’s abiding Andalusian cultural heritage entwined with Sufi spiritual philosophy, developed over 14 centuries in Morocco. Its focus on mutually beneficial, intercultural, humanistic values imbued the festival with an intense transcendent beauty and grace.
And, relatively unknown to the outer world, Morocco’s musical ritual ceremony known as “sama” — the practice of “sacred listening or audition” in sung and chanted musical “remembrance” of Allah the Creator and the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). The praises and supplication to the divine guide the listener towards spiritual attunement and oneness in divine harmony. The sama tradition, widespread throughout North Africa’s turuq (plural of tariqa/Sufi order/path), has specific, subtly differing expressive forms throughout Moroccan regions, with allusions to founder saints. Most all carry elements of Andalusian melodic content and poetry.
Sama was the festival’s unifying force in sound, sight, and Sufi thought. Sama intent and meaning could not be separated from the totality.
Rituals & Concerts
The sama rituals and concerts produced states of entrancement known as “wajd” – a joyful ecstasy in the audiences, through deep communal union between the music and the listener. Morocco’s sama preserves some of the most beautiful centuries-old Arabic poetry, sometimes transfiguring earthly love to divine adoration. Often, the Al-Andalus therapeutic soul-healing nuba music was embedded in the sama songs. Cascades of polyphonic harmonies and high poetic rapture captivate, culminating in the crowds’ mass ululations, sung-along lyrics, and bobbing dance – symbolic of submission to the divine.
Although nothing could ever approximate the splendor and majesty of the live, blazing experiences during the festival’s sama nights and concerts, here are video links to the stunning evenings in the grand Bab El Makina. Watch and listen closely to the five elegant Moroccan tariqa sama nights.
Then too, three more splendid evenings: the opening concert with Morocco’s Yeyya “Maoulainine”, Senegal’s Senny Camara, Mauritania’s Fatou Mint Engdhey, Oujda’s Abdelkader Ghayt and Fatima Zahra Qortobi; Fès favorite sama son Marouane Hajji in concert with Tanzania’s Yahya Hussein Abdallah; and the closing sama finale with Syria’s Ensemble Taybah and the Whirling Dervishes of Damascus:
Ensemble Taybah et les derviches de Damas – Festival de Fès de la Culture Soufie, 27/04/2024 :
The lush paradise Jnan Sbil Gardens hosted smaller intimate concerts by Corsica’s tremendously moving polyphonic group I Muvrini, the uplifting spirit-harmonizing rhythms of the Maalmat of Meknès, Fatou Mint Engdhey with Yeyya “Maoulanine”.
The Dar Adiyel in the Medina, hosted Aurelien Pascal’s lovely afternoon concert of Bach’s Cello Suites. Later deep in the night the tranquil atmosphere in the Dar changed abruptly as the Tariqa Hamdouchia conducted a ritual Lila ceremony that slowly progressed to a euphoric, frenzied dance of possession. See clips (except the lila) here: https://www.youtube.com/@ibrahimmarcboudet
Art Exhibits, Theater, Film
Dr. Sylvie Cady (center), Curator of homage to Prof. Sami Ali: “Spaces of the Imaginary” – Photo Evangeline Kim
Rounding out the festival’s cultural profile were two coruscating art exhibits, a theater piece, and a film screening.
Dr. Sylvie Cady, director with the Centre International de Psychosomatique Relationnelle, curated and presented a beautiful “Spaces of the Imaginary” conference-exhibition homage to the late polymath Egyptian artist, poet, author, and psychoanalyst, Professor Sami Ali. His vibrant calligraphic paintings, collages, photographs, and artworks “sing” of his love for the great Sufi philosophers, Rumi, Ibn Arabi, Hallaj, and others.
Dr. Oumaya Belakbil, Psy.D., admirer of his work, writes, “When addressing the relationship between the body and the soul, two theses oppose each other: the materialist thesis maintaining that the mind is only the emergence of the body-brain and the spiritualist thesis giving priority to consciousness and the soul. Sami Ali’s Relational Psychosomatics introduced in France a new epistemology and methodology in psychoanalysis approaching the human being at a critical moment of his/her life, as a unity, transcending the distinction between soul and body.”
The renowned Fès duo, calligrapher Mohamed Charkaoui and photographer Benjamin Beni, who represent the dynamism of the Fes art world, created a collaborative exhibit along with a workshop. Their works explored Sufi thoughts with large scale portraits of their friends.Mohamed superimposed repetitive lacings of calligraphies on top of layers of Benjamin’s painted and mixed media, embellishing his photo images.The visual impact is astonishing, powerful.
Moroccan actress Amal Ayouch, accompanied by a qanun player, presented delightful skits portraying hilarious stories from Sidi Faouzi’s new book, “Sagesses et facéties de JOHA – 70 contes spirituels et leurs messages cachés”. The eccentric dervish, also known as “Nasreddin” throughout the Muslim world from India to Turkey, appeared in Arabic literature as early as the 9th century. Amal’s expressiveness, movement, and stagecraft brought to life, with charming aplomb, the elevated sense of humor in the anecdotes.
Morocco’s great filmmaker Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi screened his recent gorgeous biopic, “Fatema, La Sultane Inoubliable”. Partially based on Fès-born pioneering feminist Fatema Mernissi’s autobiographical “Dreams of Trespass” and her other writings, the film traces her story as an early activist for women’s rights in a patriarchal society; her struggles with Islamist extremists; her unrelenting drives for universal education and a democratic society. The soundtrack is filled with Driss El Maloumi’s rippling oud music and striking sequences of a trance-inducing “moussem” by the Aissaoua Sufi brotherhood. The film exists with English subtitles and must be shown in Anglophone countries. It’s a beauty.
Roundtables
Packed sessions in the Medersa Bouanania and the Fès Medina Prefecture featured Sufism’s world diversity of illustrious scholars from America, Pakistan, Australia, Niger, France, UK, and Morocco. They explored with Dr. Skali as lead moderator stimulating topics: “The Andalusian Heritage, Lessons for the Future”, “Ibn Arabi and Rumi, an Ongoing Dialogue”, “Creative Imagination and Self-Knowledge”, “Transhumanism, What Place for Spirituality?” and 12th c. Andalusian Ibn Toufayl’s fascinating tale dealing with human consciousness “Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan”.
There were musical interludes by Francoise Atlan, Morocco’s Sephardic star singer, Morocco’s great Munshid Abdelkader Ghayt, Albania’s Enris Qinami on his sharki lute, and Senegal’s exceptional kora artist Senny Camera. See Marc Boudet’s video links to the roundtable sessions (conducted mostly in French): https ://www.youtube.com/@ibrahimmarcboudet
Come to the Fès Festival of Sufi Culture every year if you are able. Be part of the enchantment.
Author: Evangeline Kim
