In the context of the music of ancient tradition and heritage of al-Andalus, the present study of the ma'lūf in contemporary Libya, written in 2011, is the result of the important work carried out by Philip Ciantar, ethnomusicologist at Malta University.
Further to the study of the ma'lūf song repertoire by Abd Allah El-Sibaie, Turāth an-Nawba al-Andalusiyya fī Lībyā (The Andalusian Nawba Heritage in Libya), this book represents an important advance in the orally transmitted ma'lūf tradition in Libya. This work of ethnomusicology is the result of many interviews with music scholars, performers, ma'lūf aficionados and the best masters of this traditional music in that country.
The book is divided into five chapters, which include different musical examples and which each end with a conclusion by the author. By way of introduction the first chapter focuses on the background context of Libyan society, culture and music. The second can be considered one of the principal axes of the book: Ciantar writes about nawba in Maghrebi schools, as well as analysing the nawba of Libya, as traditional performers in the realm of Sufism and the ʿĪsāwiyya and Qādiriyya brotherhoods, considered as the zāwiyyas with the purest muwashahāt of Andalusi style and tradition. These poetical compositions (ṣanaʿāt), written in Classical Arabic, that were sung in the music of classical tradition beside the fragments of zajal, an Andalusi strophic genre written in colloquial language, and the fragments of Classical Arabic poems (qaṣā’id), belong to the strophic genres that were developed in the literature of al-Andalus by the poets of Hispano-Arabic and Hispano-Hebrew communities.
The importance of the evolution and modernization of the Libyan ma'lūf and the impact of these developments are treated in the third chapter, where Ciantar outlines the transformation process of the theory and practice of the traditional nawba made by the initiatives of the Great Maestro of the ma'lūf in Libya, Sheikh Hāssan ʿArebi. As Ciantar explains, the different aspects of change and continuity as presented in the Libyan ma'lūf treated in this chapter are the result of the co-existence of tradition and modernization, as a phenomenon that characterizes the social, political and cultural life of this country. A similar process can be observed in the music of the Andalusi classical tradition in the Maghreb area. The different aspects of the nawba that reflect the traditional ma'lūf in Libya, and their functions in the religious, social and cultural context, lead the author to ask questions in the conclusion such as: How do aficionados and performers mediate their involvement and artistry between “old” and “modern” sonorities and practice?
Chapter 4 analyses the compositional technique of melodic criss-crossing in the musical structure of ma'lūf songs in the traditional repertoires of the zāwiyya, especially on the Mawlid festivities. The author also presents different aspects of this performance in the context of interpretation, and illustrates this with some musical examples that interconnect the ma'lūf with the maqām rāst songs. Finally, Ciantar closes the chapter by making a rating about the identity of the musical structure of ma'lūf, as old legacy (turāth al-qadīm), in the realm of Libyan social and cultural life.
Chapter 5 continues with the author's evaluation of the ma'lūf within the framework of the aesthetic value of Arab music. In this context he explains the capacity of music to move the emotions, with an emphasis on the aesthetic potential of the nawba in the ceremonial Sufi ma'lūf in the zāwiyat, known as al-samāʿ. The author draws on theory from Greek philosophy and the Theory of Affects, the Arabic philosophers and music theorists such as al-Kindī, Ikhwān al-Safā’, Ibn Sīna, and the Andalusi Ibn Bāŷŷa and Ibn al-Jaṭīb, among others to explore the power of Arabic music on the emotions. He explains the relationship between the four strings of the lute, mood, temperament and musical modes. The chapter includes an interesting paragraph about the relationship in the nawba between the ṭarab (emotions) and sentimentality, two of the identifying elements that give character to this performer.
The book ends with an epilogue in which Philip Ciantar points out, among other things, that the ma'lūf in contemporary Libyan society exist between the tensions that have arisen inside of the zawīya brotherhoods and the Gadafi political administration. The ma'lūf in practice, in their opinion “is very much determined by the way the Libyans think and talk about it, with all this intrinsically moulded by factors that from the outside may appear as irrelevant to the tradition, though in real terms they are not so”. In the context of these findings, he finally adds that “the Libyan ma'lūf, both in zāwiya and outside, will continue evolving within a kaleidoscope of meanings and their re-evaluation, with all this being reshaped by new political scenarios at local, regional and global levels”.
The work is complemented by an extensive glossary of musical terms, an index, a detailed bibliography, as well as a collection of photographs of ma'lūf teachers, groups of musicians and traditional instruments.
