Word: sufis
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...musical performances, “Qawwali,” credited as a “Sufi classic,” was memorable for its good-spirited mood. The large group of singers and instrumentalists created an engaging atmosphere as they sang, played and clapped to the rhythm while they sat cross-legged onstage...
...played. But Egypt, winner in the Best Contemporary World Music category, is not the usual easy-listening exotica shrink-wrapped for the appetizer course. The melodies traipse from Cairo to Dakar; the lyrics are in Wolof; the liner notes offer translation and explain that the songs are about Sufi scholars, most of whom seem to practice a West African strain of Islamic Calvinism. Lest you fear learning something, N'Dour's voice sweeps and swells with a passion that makes listening to him even in complete ignorance a form of enlightenment...
...DIED. El-Hachemi Guerrouabi, 68, prolific musician who reinvigorated the traditional, lute-based chaabi music of Algeria's casbahs and cafés; in Algiers. Weaving themes from traditional love songs with mystical Sufi texts, Guerrouabi's shortened, jazzy renditions of classical chaabi tunes played to massive crowds in Europe and the Arab world. During Algeria's turbulent 1990s, he fled into exile in Paris, but homesickness and ill health drove him to return in 2004; weakened by diabetes, he played his final concert last summer in Algiers...
...Indonesian province of Central Java is charged with mysticism: animist spirits, Hindu gods, Sufi saints. One of the most sacred sites is a magnificent 3,000-m peak called Merapi, which literally means "fire mountain." For centuries villagers living on its slopes and base have pledged their fate to Merapi, not just because it's an active volcano but because it provides fertile soil for them to grow food and raise cattle, and sand and stone for them to build their homes. Every year they bring Merapi gifts of food, tobacco and clothing, both to appease it and to seek...
...Ramadan. On display are some of the oldest texts and instruments related to the study of the heavens. They were created to answer specific questions, but they also uncovered natural phenomena that helped explain celestial processes. In his Book of Fixed Stars, 10th century scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi provided exact coordinates for 1,018 stars and 48 constellations. A 14th century copy of his book imaginatively renders a constellation as two sword-wielding warriors holding the heads of recently dispatched enemies. An 11th century celestial globe from Muslim Spain also pinpoints the precise locations of the then known...