The Female Voice in Sufi Ritual: Devotional Practices of Pakistan and India

240 Pages·2003·3.625 MB·English

by  Shemeem B. Abbas

Shemeem Burney Abbas
Abbas
Foreword by elizabeth Warnock Fernea
Also of interest middle eastern studies; women’s studies; ethnomusicology Also of interest
T
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The female voice plays a more central role in Sufi ritual, especially in the singing of devotional
men and popular music in algeria e “a trade like any other”
poetry, than in almost any other area of Muslim culture. Female singers perform sufiana-

The Social Significance of Raï F Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt
kalam, or mystical poetry, at Sufi shrines and in concerts, folk festivals, and domestic life,
by marc schade-poulsen by karin van nieuwkerk
while male singers assume the female voice when singing the myths of heroines in qawwali
e
and sufiana-kalam. Yet, despite the centrality of the female voice in Sufi practice through-
Raï music is often called the voice of the m “Van Nieuwkerk’s book is unique because
out South Asia and the Middle East, it has received little scholarly attention and is largely
voiceless in Algeria, a society currently swept it transcends formulaic suppositions and
unknown in the West.
by tragic conflict. Raï is the voice of Algerian a provides intelligent analysis of a world which
This book presents the first in-depth study of the female voice in Sufi practice in the
men, young men caught between genera- l The has been overlooked for too long. She has
subcontinent of Pakistan and India. Shemeem Burney Abbas investigates the rituals at the e
tions and classes, in political strife, and in partaken in the life of humble entertainers
Sufi shrines and looks at women’s participation in them, as well as male performers’ use of
economic inequality. In a ground-breaking V and has tried to understand and explain what
the female voice. The strengths of the book are her use of interviews with both prominent
study, anthropologist Marc Schade-Poulsen emale oice their daily and professional lives are like, how
and grassroots female and male musicians and her transliteration of audio- and videotaped F V
uses this popular music genre as a lens they perceive their profession and themselves
performances. Through them, she draws vital connections between oral culture and the o
through which he views Algerian society, and how they are perceived by others. In do-
written Sufi poetry that the musicians sing for their audiences. This research clarifies why
i
particularly male society. He situates raï ing so she has written a highly readable and
the female voice is so important in Sufi practice and underscores the many contributions of c in
within Algerian family life, moral codes, and enjoyable ethnography.”
women to Sufism and its rituals. e
broader power relations. Shemeem Burney Abbas is Professor of English Language and Applied Linguistics at Al- —Middle Eastern Studies

Modern Middle East Series, published lama Iqbal Open University in Islamabad, Pakistan. She is currently teaching in the English in ufi itual isbn 0-292-78723-5, paperback
with the Center for Middle Eastern Stud- Department of the University of Texas at Austin. S R

S
ies, University of Texas at Austin printed in u.s.a.
Visit us online at www.utexas.edu/utpress, u
isbn 0-292-77740-x, paperback
or write for our Middle Eastern studies catalog.
fi Devotional Practices of
University of Texas Press

R Pakistan and India
po box 7819 austin tx 78713-7819
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L      
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Female Voice
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Sufi Ritual
 
   
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by Shemeem Burney Abbas
ForewordbyElizabethWarnockFernea
   


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Abbas,ShemeemBurney,–
ThefemalevoiceinSufiritual:devotionalpracticesofPakistanandIndia/
byShemeemBurneyAbbas;forewordbyElizabethWarnockFernea.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
---(cloth:alk.paper)
.Music—Religiousaspects—Sufism. .Sufimusic—Pakistan.
.Sufimusic—India. .Sufism—Rituals. .Muslimwomen—
Pakistan—Religiouslife. .Muslimwomen—India—Religiouslife.
I.Title.
..  
.''—dc 

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I Contents
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’:,,

ix

xiii
:’
xvii

xxix
.HistoryandEconomyofWomeninSufiRitual

.EthnographiesofCommunication

.FemaleMythsinSufism

.TheFemaleVoiceinSufiRitual

.ClosingtheCircleoftheMysticJourney










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A 
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UF FollowstransliterationsystemforUrduandPakistanilanguages
S
N ب ڑ ک
I
b ṛ k
E
IC پ ز گ
O p ze g
V
E ت ژ ل
L t zh l
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E ٹ س م
F ṭ s m
E
H ث ش ن
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s ś n
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ج ص
as j s Panjabiretroflexnasal ن
b n(cid:17)
Ab چ ض asinjān(cid:17)ā
c z
7 و
65 ح ط v
6 h t
ه
خ ظ h
kh z
د ع asinkhāe ۶
d (cid:16)
ےى
ڈ غ y
ḍ g
ذ ف
z f
ر ق
r q

a asinbas i asinbichānā
ā asinām ī asindīvānī
ã asinãgūr ĩ nasalized‘‘ī’’asinnahĩ
(cid:3) nasalizedversionofā ū vowelasinoo
asinkah(cid:3) (cid:8) nasalized‘‘u’’asinh(cid:8)
e asinhue o asinho
ε asinhε õ nasalized‘‘o’’asinhathõ
ẽ nasalized‘‘e’’asinmẽ
whichis‘‘I,’’andalso
theprepositionfor‘‘in’’

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I Author’s Note: Translations,
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I Transliterations, and Conversation
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Analysis Transcript Notation
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Allthetranslationsandtransliterations(seeoppositepage)aremineunless
otherwiseindicated.Thetranslationsarenotaliteralrenderingofthetext;
rather,theyaredonetoconveythemoodoftheSufipoemssothatthereader
canenjoytheemotionofthelyricsastheyaresung.
   
In order to represent some of the qawwālī and sufiāna-kalām contexts, I
1
have adapted the conversation analysis transcript system, which enables
readerstofollowthetransmissionoflivespeech.Ifurtheradaptthesystem
totranscribetheinterviewswiththemusicians.Insomeoftheqawwālīcon-
texts discussed in the earlier part of the study, I adapted the conversation
analysissystemtocapturetheturn-takingamongtheqawwāls.
LetterssuchasA,B,andCrepresentthedifferentqawwāls,andlinesare
numbered according to the pauses in the musicians’ narratives and where
semantically I find the end of the line. A Panjabi qawwālī sung by Ustad
NusratFatehAliKhanandhisensembleinEnglandinisrepresented
2
thus:
(cid:1)(cid:2) C Sirdevĩtevafānamangĩ-ehīpīrFarīddādase
(cid:1)(cid:1) A Palakpalakpardesī-(cid:22)kāran--merīakhī(cid:22)nesavāṇlāe
(cid:1)(cid:3) B Palakpalakpardesī-(cid:22)kāran--merīakhī(cid:22)nesavāṇlāe
(cid:1)(cid:4) A Allahjāne—
(cid:1)(cid:2) C Givethyhead,expectnoloyaltyinreturn—
O,thisisFarid,theSaint’swisdom

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