🎶ASWAT🎶
🪘🥁Daqqat al-zār: From Wood to Sacred Beat. The spiritual life of zār Egyptian frame drums🥁🪘
Presented by Kawkab Tawfik (Ifao-Cedej)
🗓️12th June 2025, 📍Ifao garden
Meeting with music instruments artisans (🕡6:30 pm)
Zar concert with the Abou al-Gheit Ensemble (🕢7:30 pm)
Organised in the framework of “Beyond the Tree” Exhibition and Study day
Description
This presentation investigates the sacred life of Egyptian frame drums, focusing on the material, symbolic, and spiritual dimensions of their use in zar rituals. Central to this exploration is the significance of wood: the wooden frame is not merely a structural base but a resonant body imbued with ancestral memory and ritual power. When animated by specific rhythmic performance, it becomes a sacred instrument, a paraphernalia object, capable of invoking spirits and facilitating healing.
The zar tradition, with its Eastern African roots, employs various types of frame drums, namely duff, mazhar, and hana —each associated with different regional styles and ritual functions. These drums are essential in articulating the specific rhythms that correspond to distinct zar spirits or families of spirits (asyād). Each spirit family, such as the Sudanese, Abyssinian, or Turkish spirits, is called forth through a unique rhythmic pattern, often accompanied by specific dance movements, incense, and chants. The drumbeat thus serves not only a musical function but acts as a coded language—a sacred map—through which the ritual navigates spiritual terrains.
Of particular interest is the incorporation of the hāna drum, traditionally employed in Sufi zikr ceremonies in the Egyptian Delta, into the zār practices of Cairo and the Delta region. This convergence reveals a layered syncretism in which African-derived spirit possession rituals intersect with Sufi devotional practices, including chants invoking the Prophet’s family and companions (ahl al-bayt and ṣaḥāba) as mediators between visible and invisible realms. The hybrid rhythmic forms that emerge reflect a shared cosmology between zār spirits (asyād) and Muslim saints (awliyāʾ), underscoring a deep-seated belief in the transcendent power of percussion.
Biography
Kawkab Tawfik is Membres scientifiques à titre étranger at the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire. She is currently the Diego Carpitella Fellow at Fondazione Cini in Venice, where she is producing a scientific documentary on Salila, the zār spirit of the water. She teaches History of Islam at Tuscia University of Viterbo (Italy) and she obtained her PhD in Cultural Heritage from "Tor Vergata University" of Rome in 2020, with research focusing on music, politics, and identity in Egypt.
Artists links:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100065223184956
https://www.instagram.com/zar_zikr/
Also check out other Concerts in Cairo, Meetups in Cairo.
