Notes

Inshad in the public hadra. Shaykh Yasin al-Tuhami, munshid, with takht accompaniment, including kamanja, ud, duff, riqq, and tabla (outdoors in the village of Izbat al-Mansi, Tanta, Egypt; around midnight, January, 17, 1994). A poignant moment in a public Sufi hadra performance by Egypt’s most famous Sufi munshid, illustrating the improvisatory interactions among performers. Shaykh Yasin begins the excerpt in maqam Nahawand, }darb Wahda Kabira. The poem, a classical qasida by the famous 19th century Aleppine Sufi, Shaykh Abu al-Huda al-Sayyadi (head of the Rifai order and religious advisor to the Ottoman Sultan, Abd al-Hamid), is an ecstatic and esoteric meditation on mystical union employing symbols and metaphors typical of Sufi poetry throughout the ages. In this excerpt, Shaykh Yasin sings the following two lines (hemistiches are separated by /; lines by //): taraktu li mahwi l-ghayri fi hani jamina / wa buhtu bi hali fi bisat hal-aliyyati; // tukhatibuni bi l-layli arif ramzaha / wa adri maaniha wa law bi l-isharati I left the others to obliteration in the tavern of our union / and revealed my state in the Holy Presence.// It addresses me by night - I know its signs / and understand its meanings, though by intimations