Love's Fusion

[From the French language press]:

L’ensemble marocain Ibn Arabi fait escale au Caire, animant deux concerts à l’occasion du Ramadan. Emanation soufie et spiritualisme en perspective.

Hebdo Al-Haram, Le Caire, Egypte - Semaine du 19 au 26 Septembre 2007, numéro 680 - par May Sélim

The Moroccan Ensemble Ibn Arabi will stop in Cairo and animate two concerts during the month of the Ramadan, within the framework of the Festival of Euphrate in Guadalquivir. Sufi emanation and spirituality are awaited.

The Festival of Euphrate is organized by the Funds for the Cultural Development, the Embassy of Spain and the CFCC and whose objective is to celebrate the holy month by arabo-Andalusian melodies.

With this intention, they invited the group Musica Antigua which draws from the Spanish medieval music (Islamic, Jewish and Christian), the Iraqi lutist Nassir Chamma who is inspired in some by his creations by the Andalusian culture and the Moroccan Ensemble Ibn Arabi.

Originating in Tangier (Morocco), the members of the ensemble attended as of their youth the sufi songs of samaa (hearing), specific to the rites of the Seddikiya Brotherhood of the Shaykh Abdel-Aziz Seddiq, and to which they are still affiliated.

Why thus the poet Ibn Arabi? Because the unit draws in fact in the texts and in the writings of this great Master of Sufism, the Shaykh Al-Akbar Moheïddine Ibn Arabi (1165 - 1240). They attempt to translate his mystical spirit in the music they play and they sing his verses.

Qur'an reciting is also part of the Ibn Arabi Ensemble's repertoire, as well as the songs of the praise of God and His Prophet, evoking the world of the dervishes and their rites in the zikr meetings.

Receptive now my heart is for each form;

for gazelles pasture, for monks a monastery,

temple for idols, Ka'bah to be rounded,

tables of Toah and script of Qur'an.

My religion is love's religion: where'er turn

her camels, that religion my religion is, my faith.

Ibn Arabi translated by Martin Lings
from:
SUFI POEMS a mediaeval anthology
compiled and translated by Martin Lings
arabic and english edition
The Islamic Texts Society 2004
ISBN 1903682 17 7
pp. 62-63

Concerts:
September 24th, 9.00 pm, at Palace Al-Ghouri, Old Cairo
and September 25th, 9.30 pm, at CFCC Mounira, with all the Festival's musicians.