Sirat Bani Hilal
Al-Sirah al-Hilaliyyah (
Historical background
The event of Taghribat Bani Hilal has a basis in history, when
The epic has come to represent a foundational myth for Arab identity in North Africa and the spread of Islam across the Sahara effecting the cultural heritage of countries as far south as Sahel states such as Mali and Niger.
The epic, performed since the 14th century, has been sung in verses by master poets who provide their own musical accompaniment on a percussion instrument. It is a unique literary and musical form that reflects in it
This crude political act had two major effects, one cultural, and the other literary. As a result of
Epic
The epic was inspired by these historic events. The Hilali leader Abu Zayd al-Hilali, here simply "Abu Zayd", is given an epic-styled birth: his mother, barren for eleven years, prays at a magic spring and invokes a black bird in hopes that the might become pregnant, saying "Give me a boy like this bird, / Black like this bird". Her request is taken literally and so her son is born with black skin, and because of that he and his mother are cast out by his people. "In Arab epic [black skin is] a sure sign of service status", but since he is noble is a born warrior and outcast simultaneously. His fate is to unite all the Bedouin tribes so they can conquer the Maghreb; before he can do that he must overcome two enemies: Khatfa, a Jewish leader, and Handal, an evil Muslim king.[5]
Abu Zayd's rival is
Women who feature in the epic include Su'da, a Berber princess who betrays her people and falls in love with an Arab.[6]
Transmission
The Sira was initially carried
The Egyptian poet and writer Abdel Rahman el-Abnudi has made an exhaustive collection of the Sira, travelling from Egypt to Libya to Tunisia to document the variants of the epic.
The epic was narrated by storytellers in cafés well into the 20th century, much like the
The Hilali performance
The Hilali performers come from specific families for whom these performances were once used to be their sole source of income. The performers often begin their apprenticeships at the age of five and their training goes on for at least ten years. During the course of this demanding apprenticeship the poets perfect their memory, singing and instrument playing skills and learn the art of extemporaneous commentary to render traditional plots relevant to their contemporary audiences. Traditionally, the Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah has been performed at social and private events such as weddings, circumcision ceremonies and private gatherings and the performances often last between 50 and 100 hours.[4]
The Hilali performances have musical accompaniments mostly of wooden instruments. These include
Cultural relevance in Egypt
Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliya is a living tradition that symbolises the oral traditions of communities of Upper and Lower Egypt and it blends ancient and modern music with songs and dances of the present tribes of Egypt. The Hilali thus has a considerable influence in shaping these communities’ vision, their acceptance or rejection of ideas and innovations and it helps integrate changes associated with development, modernisation in these societies.[4]
Threats to survival
Today there are very few folk poets who know Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliya in its entirety and given the socio economic changes in Egypt and the onslaught of globalisation, the Hilali epic is faced with the prospect of extinction. Documentation, classification and archiving of the epic and its artistic nuances are underway and its listing on the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is expected to brighten its prospects of survival.[1] The Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah bears resemblance to the T'heydinn of Mauritania, another oral epic on the Intangible Cultural Heritage List, both as an oral history and in the source material of the exploits of the Beni Hilal tribe that both these epics derive from.
See also
- Arabic Epic Literature
- T'heyddin
References
- ^ a b "Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah epic". UNESCO.
- ^ "Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah Epic". Archived from the original on 28 April 2012. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
- ^ "Traditional Egyptian storytellers' heritage - Call for partnership".
- ^ a b c Kamil, Jill (9–15 September 2004). "The tale of a tale". Al Ahram Weekly. Issue No. 707. Archived from the original on 5 May 2014.
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- ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5, retrieved 2021-02-03
- ^ "Traditional Egyptian storytellers heritage and its instruments and tools".
Further reading
- Bencheikh, Omar; Galley, Micheline (2003). "À propos d'un manuscrit de la geste hilalienne conservé à la Bibliothèque Vaticane". Oriente Moderno. Nuova serie (in French). Anno 22 (83): 307–333. JSTOR 25817880.
- Reynolds, Dwight Fletcher (1995). Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arabic Oral Epic Tradition. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press. JSTOR 10.7591/j.ctt207g77s.