Q-News June 2005 Issue 363

Every issue of Q-News has a soundtrack - music we listen to as we prepare the magazine. A few months ago it was Youssou N’Dour’s latest album Egypt, a Grammy award winning collection of songs in praise of Senegal’s great Sufi shaykhs (in fact we listened to Youssou for two or three issues and most of us can now sing the entire album in almost perfect Wolof).
Then came Egyptian troubadour Mohamed Mounir, whose album Al Ard Al Salam - “Earth and Peace”, was introduced to me by a South African friend. Besides being an actor, musician, songwriter and talented studio producer, he is a lover of the Prophet Muhammad and Al Ard Al Salam was composed and written to honour the Messenger. “I swear by the keys of heavens”, he sings “that I remain engulfed in my love for the Messenger of God.” It is an inspired work which draws on the great mawlid traditions of Upper Egypt’s Nubian peoples.
As we struggled to prepare this memorial issue in honour of Shaykh Abu Bakr Siraj ad-Din, Dr Martin Lings, we turned to the music of the legendary Ali Farka Touré, arguably Mali’s greatest contemporary musician, the father of the African blues. A deeply devout and spiritual man, he quit touring several years and returned to his hometown of Niafunké on the Niger River to farm. Although he is now the town’s mayor, he took a short leave to record his latest album In the Heart of the Moon, a collaboration with kora maestro Toumane Diabaté. The result is heavenly music - a seamless blend of guitar and kora (a 21-string West African harp) that one reviewer called “supernatural”. As Toure often says his music is a product of his soul. At a recent concert appearance he began with a composition in praise of the Prophet.
What is common to all these musicians is they are Muslims from Africa. After all, Africa is practically a Muslim continent. In the lead up to the G8 summit at Gleneagles, there has been much talk of Africa. With the Make Poverty History campaign about to reach its musical crescendo with the massive Live 8 concerts planned for London’s Hyde Park, the world’s attention will be on Africa as it hasn’t been for a generation. It is unfortunate that it takes rock stars and celebrities, some well past their best before dates, to get people interested in one of the most important, resource rich and culturally diverse regions of the world. There were no benefit concerts when millions died in Rwanda. Few people knew about Africa’s growing AIDS crisis until Nelson Mandela launched his 46664 campaign with a concert in South Africa in 2003. This year’s Africa 05 festival is trying to introduce some of the continent’s leading artistic, literary and musical talent to new audiences. Even the BBC has launched a season of long overdue programming about Africa.
What’s been left out of the coverage is that Africa is a majority Muslim continent. Conservative estimates peg Africa’s Muslim population at around 586 million people, around 65% of the total population. Yet, very little mention is made of its Muslim cultures and civilisations.
Ignorance of our African Muslim heritage is as rampant amongst Muslims. It’s time we liberated ourselves from the narrow vision that the only Muslim identity is an Arab one. How many of us know of the great empires of Mali, of Mansa Musa and the famed universities of Timbukto? What about Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio’s Sokoto Caliphate and the great scholarship produced by both women and men during its history? What is the name of the Shaykh who led the first freedom struggle in Southern Africa? (It’s Shaykh Yusuf Macassar, if anyone is still wondering.)
Fewer still care to know about the contributions of African Muslims, past and present, to the development of thoelogy, science, architecture and urban planning. We have forgotten Africa and we are the poorer for it. A cultural reconnection to African Islam is needed - and there is no better time than now.
Uniting for the Prophet, the mawlid we were honoured to help organise on 2 May 2005 under the auspices of Mahabba Unlimited, was a starting point, featuring musical traditions from the Sudan and other parts of the Muslim world. Future programs must do more. By allowing ourselves to experience and engage the rich and diverse palette of Islamic cultures, we in turn encourage the development of a cultural agenda for Muslims in Britain and beyond.
As I recently wrote elsewhere, for years, literalists have downplayed the importance of music, art and literature (particularly in the West where debates over whether these things are permissible or not is a favourite pastime of the religious classes). Islamic civilisations gave birth to some of the most sophisticated cultural and artistic expressions. Celebrations like the mawlid are essential elements of the cultural calendar of most Muslim societies and were the catalysts for repeated cultural evolution and revival.
We need to revive those musical and artistic traditions that have begun to vanish. A people without a cultural agenda that particularises and localises religious expression, present no hope for their young people. Today, there is a Maghrebi Islam distinct from an Anatolian Islam. Neither loses its link to the universal Islamic principles, but both have a unique cultural expression. Q-News is committed to playing an important role in this great and necessary cultural project.
And Allah knows best.

Fareena Alam

Managing Editor