The ma'luf (literally, "familiar", or
"that which is customary") is the Tunisian
version of the so-called Andalusian musical tradition
believed to have originated in the Arabic speaking
communities of medieval Spain (3).
With the expulsion of the Muslims and Jews from Spain in
the wake of the Christian reconquest, their music was
transplanted into towns across North Africa where it
acquired distinctive local traits.
| When Tunisia was absorbed into
the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, the
ma'luf was adopted by the new Turkish rulers, or
beys; in the 18th century, Muhammad al-Rashid Bey
was allegedly responsible for arranging the main
body of the repertory into thirteen vocal cycles,
or nubat, and introducing instrumental pieces
into the canon. But the ma'luf was not confined
to the aristocracy; in Tunis and other towns,
Sufi musicians sang the traditional songs both
for recreation and as a deliberate act of
preservation in their meeting places, or zwaya (s.
zawiya), in cafes and in communal festivities,
where they were enjoyed by all social classes (4). In
the same communities, Jewish musicians adapted
the melodies to Hebrew texts, both traditional
and new; the Hebrew songs, called piyyutim, were
sung in the synagogue and at home, in worship and
in family celebrations (5).
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Sufi musicians
of Testour singing the ma'luf in a street
procession in a traditional wedding ritual
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The ma'luf is an oral tradition,
but the song texts, in the literary Arabic genres
of muwashshah and zajal, were recorded in special
collections called safa’in (literally,
vessels). With their archaic mix of literary
Arabic and dialect, their focus, resonant of Sufi
mystic poetry, on love unfulfilled or otherwise
unattainable, and their rarefied imagery
depicting human beauty, cultivated nature,
precious jewels and the intoxicating effects of
wine, the song texts reinforce the historic
associations of the ma'luf with an idealised and
irretrievable past. For Tunisians today, the
ma'luf is symbolic of 'old Tunisia,' and of
social groups, customs and venues that are now
obsolete or otherwise transformed: the culture of
the palaces, the Sufi brotherhoods with their
marabouts and pilgrimages, the cafes with their
hashish smokers, and the Jews, artisans and
barbers who were once its principal professional
exponents. |
Jacob Bsiri,
Jewish musician of Hara Kebira, Djerba,
singing piyyutim at the annual pilgrimage to the
Ghriba synagogue |
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