Tafilalt Part III: the Sufi Zawiyya

Our last visit Saturday night was equally out of the ordinary. We drove to another qasr around dusk. It was off the "main road" and seemed nearly deserted from the outside, aside from a young girl tending her sheep. We walked through a narrow passage into the qasr and into a room beautifully painted and decorated -- the main room of the Sufi zawiyya Sidi al-Ghazi. Moustafa, the round and jolly son of the blind old sheikh who later joined us, greeted us in his white djellaba and cap. He has been friends with our professors for several years and particularly likes visitors (which is not necessarily common to all Sufi enclaves). Until the great flood last fall, about sixty-five students studied Qur'an and Sufi recitation at the zawiyya, but now they are struggling to raise enough money to repair the damage. Moustafa was joined by two sons, one in his early 20s and one a very small boy, a quiet man in his mid-30s, and a very friendly older gentleman with a handsome walrus mustache. We sat on the floor with cushions around the perimeter of the room. The walls were hung with genealogies: one showing the group's Sufi lineage, the other the family lineage. In the middle of the ceiling, which was painted with delicate florals, was a large hole (covered when it rains)... every so often, we caught a glimpse of the women, joining in the festivities from the roof, peering down at us. But if we acknowledged them, they suddenly disappeared.



While on our first round of tea, Moustafa asked us all to introduce ourselves, what we were studying, etc. in Arabic. Then, on the second round of tea, he invited questions about their group and their practices. Dr. Shoup told us later that the zawiyya would like to offer to small groups of "cultural tourists" the same kind of evening we had with them, but no one there speaks any language but Arabic, and they have not been able to keep up the website that an AUI student created for them because they must go to a cybercafe in Rissani (not within walking distance, and none have cars) in order to update it -- in addition to the language difficulty. Moustafa explained that students at the zawiyya memorize the Qur'an in as little as 3 or 4 years, and that they begin learning the particular style of recitation along with the alphabet, right from the beginning. (He said that their style differs from others in large part in the voweling, which changes the rhythm of the chanting to a certain extent.) The only question he was hesitant to answer was an inquiry into precisely what means they use to achieve "annihilation" or a kind of spiritual loss of consciousness... the man next to him, began to explain, but Moustafa actually cut him off, genially, and gave a more theoretical answer. (Our prof thought this was because the woman who asked the question is a veiled American convert, and her type of hijab is associated with conservative Islamists, who often frown upon Sufism.) The first course of food was then brought out, called "medfuna" (which means "buried") -- it is basically bread stuffed with nuts, onions, meats, and some other tasty things I couldn't identify. We broke off into conversation for awhile, but soon the men began reciting some Quranic verses and later some lulling poetry composed by the founder of the zawiyya.

Unfortunately, the evening was interrupted just as it was getting started by the news that a neighbor who had recently had an operation was faring poorly, and although it was against university rules, the Sufis begged our AUI driver, Aziz, to take the man to the hospital in Rissani. There is only one ambulance in Rissani and you have to go find it if you want it to come get someone. After the commotion, dinner was brought out, and the low tables were rolled to where we were sitting on the floor. Between the 12 of us we had four full roasted chickens, which we ate with the fork of Adam. In other words, you hold a piece of bread in three fingers of your right hand and grab hold of a piece of meat. Accompanying this were sauces of various kinds. The zawiyya had also gone to special effort to get sodas for us (which are so much more interesting in Morocco than in the U.S. -- two of my favorites are Schweppes Citron and POMS apple soda). Afterward, we had more heaps of watermelon.


And then the recitation began in earnest. The men took out drums and tambourines and began beating in soothing rhythm. Each recitation had a slow, definite beginning that worked its way up into a throbbing frenzy. The "music" isn't so much songs as repeated patterns with escalating intensity -- the words would repeat but the beat would grow and morph. Everyone, sprawled on the floor in stuffed contentment, was tapping their feet, nodding their heads, or murmuring along.

Several hours after we had arrived, sometime after midnight, we left the zawiyya. The air was dry and cool, and the alley dark except for the light from the lonely bulb above the squat toilet in the corner of an empty courtyard.






I didn't sleep that night. When we returned, a little after 1am, I went for a swim with two of my friends in the hotel pool. The sky was completely black, and floating on my back, I could make out every constellation.

to be continued...