The burning of music stores in Gaza in the name of religion reminded me of the historical fact that some of the great musicians of Arabic music were religiously-trained sheikhs. I'm thinking here of Sheikh Salamah Hijazi, Sheikh Imam, Zakariya Ahmad and the ever popular Sheikh Sayyid Darwish.Those artists didn't see a conflict between their religious training and beliefs and their making music.
Sheikh Sayyed Makkawi, blind since childhood, is among them. Here's one of his songs. It's called "Balash Me3anda" (don't be stubborn)
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5 comments:
Guess what, in the family, we have one of these Shiekhs. He was sent to egypt (in the 1950's) to study Shariah, he came back with a degree in Music :)
And guess what, EVERYONE loves him so much!
Shiekh Dawood :)
unfortunately Egypt no longer produces such cool Sheikhs these days.
Lovely song. I bet we should show you blog to all these neo-sheikhs who put themselves (and us before them) on a collision course with the whole world.
One note though, I believe Sheikh Imam ( who is one of my favourites)did let down on the religious values as he became more and more involved with the left.
ned,
Sheikh Imam is one of my favorite singers too. I don't know if he gave up on religious values. The values he were singing about: social justice, equality, dignity of the human being agianst oppressors etc. do not conflict with religious values...So he's interesting because he was a sheikh, a singer, and a leftist as well. Apparently, it can be done.
I would be really grateful if anyone could tell me the name of the music publisher/record company for Sayyid Makkawi - if you have any CDs could you possibly post and let me know?
Many thanks
Lynn
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