Modern Muslims

by Steve Howard

  As the Brotherhood organized itself to present its message to the world, it could be said that the music, hymns composed by some of the brothers and odes from well-known Sufi teachers, constituted the transitional aspect of Republican communication. The hymns were an essential element of every Republican gathering, large and small, and in that most of the hymns had a chorus, everyone had an opportunity to participate in them, including me. I remember listening to tapes of Republican music, what they called inshad, while driving with Abdullahi An-Na’im, and he remarked how he could tell if the tape was made while Ustadh Mahmoud was part of the group or not. Ustadh did not sing during these sessions, but his presence inspired everyone to their strongest voice.

  Songs for Waiting

  The qaseeda (ode) was a key representation of Republican values and ideas, expressed in a beloved Sudanese cultural form. I was always impressed with the many ways that form could be interpreted. An ode written in the early 1980s, as the movement moved toward its major confrontation with the regime of President Jaafar Nimeiry, entitled a-Dinu Humu (“They Are Religion”) articulated the group’s beliefs in a popular way. A-Dinu Humu was a somber ode, sung initially by some of the best munshidiin in the organization; it featured strong lyrics and soaring vocals. Sometimes an evening jelsa would go so long as to prompt the leaders to provide asha, supper, for the brothers and sisters, rather than making them wait to reach home for this meal. On these occasions a team would be formed quickly in the midst of the meeting and excused to go out and purchase bread, foul, and salads, in order to make vegetarian sandwiches to feed the large crowd.

  My friends got me appointed to this team, knowing that I would probably enjoy making sandwiches more than snoozing at the meeting. The work required an assembly line at one of the nearby brothers’ houses for such a large order (sandwiches for 100–200 brothers and sisters in attendance). As the bread was sliced and foul spooned onto the sandwich at this particular assembly line, a brother of fine voice broke into an upbeat rendition of the qaseeda, to everyone’s delighted surprise. He introduced a new way of performing this ode—a tone and a beat from outside circles of Islam-inspired music—and thereby extended the life of the ode and its uses into more corners of the Republican experience. My friend’s interpretation of the ode, which had become a Republican favorite in a short period of time, would never be performed in the presence of Ustadh Mahmoud or senior leadership and was strictly reserved for entertaining the brothers or sisters while at work, cleaning house, or performing other chores. But the words and message remained the same despite the “cool” rendition. Everyone liked to follow Ustadh Mahmoud’s prescription of “inshid [sing] or listen to inshad all day long.”

  “A-rakaa fi yanjelee hazanee,” “When I see You my sadness goes away,” is the refrain of a popular Republican qaseeda. Written by Isam El Boushi, an academic and prominent member from Wad Medani, the poem refers of course to God, but I also heard this poetry on the level of personal relations among this tightly knit social group. I was proud of myself for figuring out the meaning of the poetry, and used the line when again hosted by the brothers and sisters to a farewell function after a short recent visit to Sudan. As I closed my remarks, with thank-you’s to the assembled group, I said that I would come back to Sudan because a-rakaa fi yanjelee hazanee (see translation above!), and all the sisters at the gathering collectively sighed, “awhhhhh.”

  For the members of the Republican Brotherhood, music was a distinctive part of both the movement’s character and its image in the wider society. Music moved across a continuum of social construction around the rituals associated with prayer and around public culture through the appreciation of song and strong voices. And music communicated the Brotherhood’s message of progressive change in Islam both through the mystical meanings of the lyrics, and in the person of the musicians themselves, particularly the women who courageously sang out in public. The picture of a Republican Sister leading a chorus of men and women in a public place endures for me as the strongest evidence that the philosophy embodied by this movement was liberatory for women.

  The music represented multiple dimensions of the movement, but its most important element was its relation to daily spiritual renewal. Republicans used music for recruitment, religious study, that is, prayer or ibada, community-binding ritual, attracting brothers and sisters to meetings, inspiration, and fruitful expenditure of time. Music has some degree of controversy in Islam; for example, the more conservative Islamic thinkers see it as noncanonical, that is, not prescribed in Muslim ibada or the routine of prayer. The call to prayer, adhan, is distinctly sung by the muezzin, and there are many forms of Qur’anic recitation that have a melodic quality. But nevertheless, in the Republican context as taught by Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, the singing of spiritual poetry contributed greatly to wider community appreciation of the Republican interpretation of Islam. Inshad was seen as a cultural product of the quest for the hidden, while the music remained subordinate to the spiritual text. Performance of Republican qasaid is a method to reveal that which is hidden, a binding ritual, which also demonstrates the Sudan-ness of Republican thought. Words by the Sufi philosopher An-Nablusi found in a Republican qaseeda, echo this point, “Music is the building that may reveal the hidden.”

  The Republican brothers and sisters would call for music at any of their gatherings, most particularly if there was a munshid present. The singing of inshad emerged from the group’s custom of having guests at their meetings who would perform medeh, traditional Sudanese Sufi odes to God and/or His Prophet, Mohammed. Meetings would be adjourned with these hymns, and eventually Republicans themselves began to use the poetry of historic Sufi figures, like Abdel Gadir al-Jailani, An-Nablusi, or Ibn Arabi, set to contemporary music written as a Republican Brothers contribution to the art form.

  Every type of singing ability was welcomed, encouraged, and supported. My Republican research assistant, Shams, told me the story of how he had come upon Ustadh Mahmoud repairing the seat of a plastic chair in his house. Ustadh Mahmoud’s followers were deeply committed to serving their teacher, so this young brother quickly proposed that he complete the chair repair for Ustadh Mahmoud. Shams told me that Ustadh Mahmoud said to him, “You work on becoming a good munshid (singer), and I will repair this chair.” Inshad was the largest cultural output of the Brotherhood and the most widely shared. One brother told me, “We get to know each other through singing—we know the strong voices, the funny voices (‘so and so is always off-key’ or ‘he has no rhythm’), and we comment on these voices—informally. We are united as a chorus; I have shared a favorite qaseeda with you, and now we have one more aspect of our lives together as brothers.” Such discussions or analysis were never officially sanctioned, that is, singers were not “rated,” because the emphasis was on everyone participating.

  I was talking with a young brother, Mahmoud Sharif, who had a beautiful voice and was a popular munshid. His popularity extended to singing gigs at non-Republican weddings all over the region. He told me that there were “basic” or even “official” munshidiin. I poked him a bit about this, and he showed embarrassment because of the apparent lack of modesty in his statement. But modesty may be hard to come by—a real burden—because the good singers were built up so as leaders of the organization, and they were representatives of, in part, the Republican approach to a public Islam. While there was great tolerance for all voices heard at a singing meeting, there was great excitement for the best voices because these voices were so important in representing the community to the wider world, an element of intense pride. Community commentary on the singing was generally limited to (1) the sources and meaning of the odes, or (2) the singers’ length of time in service and the development of their skills. The munshidiin were in great demand for events like weddings and important meetings, or even if a brother had invited a large group for breakfast or lunch to his house, he might make sure that a good munshid was on the guest list as well.

  Although participation
in the singing may be paramount, comprehension of the poetry and putting that meaning into practice comes next in importance. The odes held great meaning for the movement. They were a comprehensive, culturally based instrument of devotion, an aspect of prayer. The issue of prayer was central to Republican thinking, and inshad was an extension of the complete dedication to the act of prayer. Prayer in the Republican spiritual methodology was not simply the rote recitation of ancient texts but was the word of God intended for our comprehension. The objective was to move inside the meaning of prayer as one prayed. And inshad provided an important and social opportunity to interrogate the meaning of prayer—one could pose questions about the sense of a particular word or formulation in the poem. This was very different from the act of praying itself in that prayer was a solitary act that by custom went uninterrupted. The lyrics to an inshad piece are repeated by a chorus, a learning process for many in that they may be exposed to Islamic “technical terms” from the spiritual realm for the first time in a qaseeda. But the words are also repeated because we love to hear them; they are beautiful and deeply meaningful.

  At an early morning jelsa (meeting) that I attended at the home of Mahmoud Mohammed Taha in Omdurman, the brothers and sisters were singing a favorite hymn that contrasted the concepts of “being” and “becoming” (kun fayakuun, the difference was about stasis versus progress). Ustadh Mahmoud stopped the hymn in the middle of the piece and posed the question: “Who can tell me the difference between these two concepts?” he asked. Silence hung in the room until one of the brothers offered an answer. “La,” no, responded Ustadh Mahmoud. “Who else has an answer?” The interrogation continued for a minute or so until one brother provided an answer that satisfied Ustadh Mahmoud. He elaborated a bit, and then the brothers and sisters continued with the hymn. An important theological lesson had been taught, in the context of an activity that the students of Ustadh Mahmoud all enjoyed.

  These early morning meetings were a part of an intense program of activity that filled the days and nights of the members of the Republican Brotherhood. Song cast away ghafla (neglect of religious duty, thoughtlessness, or inattentiveness) and developed knowledge, deep knowledge—of the philosophical details of the Republican ideology and of the multiple dimensions of God, as revealed by the Sufi poets. A brother described for me a morning meeting at Ustadh Mahmoud’s home in 1977 in which a qaseeda was being sung that moved Taha deeply. He told the assembled brothers and sisters that he felt a strong spiritual presence had descended upon the group because of the intensity of their devotion through song. Mahmoud then told the brothers and sisters to come and get their share of this baraka. So everyone in the room filed out shaking Ustadh Mahmoud’s hand as they left, which was how they took their share of this blessing.

  Such a way to start the day! Inshad was what completed the movement. It was a vital component and an emblem. It was the articulation at the highest socially expressed level of Republican values and beliefs. It ordered the Republican day. The poetry required thoughtful effort; it had to be penetrated. But it represented nonarticulated gifts as well, such as that of the angel visiting a Republican meeting. Ustadh Mahmoud used inshad as part of his sense of the binding force of ritual as he sent his followers off that morning knowing that all had shared in his vision of spiritual faith.

  Improvisational skills and “style” characterize the work of the “official” munshidiin of the movement. The chorus is indulgent, going along wherever the lead singer will take them—usually. Sometimes the tune just does not jell with the chorus, perhaps a function of the singer not always ready to be called upon to sing by the leader of the meeting. And sometimes the chorus may run away with a song, taken in by the rhythmic chanting choruses that end most qasaid. A sort of tug-of-war may ensue where the lead singer, the munshid, is trying to wrap up the piece but the chorus is intent on participating to the fullest and enjoying the chanting. The leader almost always gives up in these cases and follows the chorus to whatever conclusion it wants.

  The singers were certainly recruited by Ustadh Mahmoud, as described above in the story of the young man who was encouraged by him to sing. But there were other means to becoming a singer as well. A thirty-one-year-old munshid told me that he had sung as a Republican Brother for ten years. He had a dream in which Ustadh Said, an important leader of the organization and head of the group in Wad Medani, told him to sing while touching his back saying “sing, sing, sing.” Many of the best singers came from family traditions of Sufi medeh and/or had even sung for other organizations or in popular Sudanese music, for example, for weddings. There is a still an opportunity for art—evidenced by the high praise for rich voices and the effort the strong munshid makes in improvisation and voice innovation. The training of the munshid may extend simply from listening to tapes of inshad over and over again, or through early exposure to medeh through association with a Sufi organization or khalwa at a young age. I have also seen singers in their spare time studying slips of paper with the lyrics written on them—perhaps scribbled by a brother who had already memorized the piece—because it is important that the words not be sung from a written text. With leading the chorus and paying attention to what the meeting’s leader may want to do, it would be difficult to read the lyrics while singing in any case.

  My friend Khalid Mohammed El Hassan told me that, while his family had been committed Republicans for some time, he essentially became a Republican singer in 1977. He stated that inshad “got me more involved with the movement, it was a successful means of dawa [Islamic mission].” Khalid has many stories of his experiences as a singer; his big voice was important in attracting people to meetings, particularly in public. He told me a story of a trip (wafd) to Kassala on the train with a delegation of thirty, including seven brothers who were leading singers of the group. While riding the train, the whole delegation had broken into such strong inshad that even the train conductor joined in the chorus. The singers of the organization had their own grouping within the brotherhood and where leadership was recognized based on knowledge of the group’s purpose. At one point Ustadh Mahmoud told him, “When you sing alone you are free to raise your voice as high as you want, but when you sing with Abdalla Fadlalla (another important Republican singer) you don’t have to raise your voice above him. He is your sheikh in inshad.” Then Ustadh Mahmoud went on to tell them the story of a sheikh from the major Sufi center of Abu Haraz. This sheikh was short, and one of his followers was extremely tall. Ustadh Mahmoud said, “Whenever they appeared together, the follower always bent over because he had never wanted to appear in the eyes of the people taller than his sheikh.”

  Inshad was also instrumental as an element of Republican preparation for its public speaking platforms, its book distribution campaigns, readiness for journeys or for conflicts of a political nature, and at Republican baby naming and marriage ceremonies. But inshad also provides a time for reflection, which one could see in the faces of the singers. And as I recall a Republican brother greeting me on the phone with the sung line of a favorite qaseeda, the music was foremost a form of joyful communication. The meaning of inshad to members of the organization was clear. As Khalid told me, “My mastery of inshad provides clear evidence of my self-improvement, my movement down the path of tariq Mohamed—first I see that I learn more of the odes, second, that I improve my singing, and third, that I have better coordination of the chorus.”

  The Republican Brotherhood was characterized by a highly intellectual ideology—and song was one of the more pleasant, accessible, and culturally-based means to absorb that ideology. A typical venue for singing would be the jelsa. I’ve reported scenes from many of them in this book. During the heartiest days of the movement, song would either be an introductory part of the meeting, or perhaps an informal meeting would be called specifically for the music. The meeting would be held at a leader’s house, sitting on beds in the courtyard if the weather was warm, or huddled inside the largest room of the house if during the rains or cooler m
onths.

  The leader of the meeting would be seated in a chair, and other chairs would be squeezed among the beds brought out to serve as benches for younger members of the group. Older brothers and sisters would be seated in the chairs, and usually the singers would be assigned chairs as well, both out of respect and with the knowledge that the breath flows better in that position (although I have seen younger singers actually performing from a crouching position on a mat on the ground, positioned there under crowded meeting circumstances).

  Children were included in these meetings. The smallest would be sleeping in mothers’ laps or laid between two women seated on the beds. Other children may be sleeping through the meeting as well, and older children may actually participate by learning the songs. Indeed, something I observed on a recent trip to Sudan was the encouragement of younger children—as young as eight—to sing. The few that I encountered were in fact children of well-known Republican singers.

  The chorus does not know which pieces will be chosen by the singers, and as the singer is designated by the meeting’s leader, we see him or her take on a downward look of deep concentration, seeking warid, or direct communication with God, as the song emerges from his or her repertoire. The chorus tries to keep up with the munshid, the success of which depends on the familiarity of the group with the piece he or she has chosen. In some cases the lead singer may stumble with the words and is quickly assisted by a knowledgeable member of the chorus. There was, however, a long series of organized meetings in which recordings of the favorite munshidiin were made, complete with introductory commentary by one of the leaders of the movement. In these cases, the chorus did know which qaseeda would be next on the program.