Topic: “Ṣubhan Allah,” Nass el Ghiwane, and Sufi Protest during the Years of Lead in Morocco.

Abstract: This talk examines the role of a complex idea of the sacred in “Ṣubḥan Allah,” a song by the Moroccan group Nass el Ghiwane. While much of the writing about the sacred dimension of Nass el Ghiwane has emphasized their connection to the Gnawa religious order, in what follows I attempt to re-connect the group’s experience within a larger cultural and political framework anchored in the Arabo-Islamic world. I examine how “Ṣubḥan Allah” reworks “Təkəllubat d-dəhr,” a poem from the malḥun repertory inspired by Moroccan Salafism, which confronts injustice and corruption during the French Protectorate (1912-56). I discuss the ways in which the malḥun, a genre which prioritizes language over music—especially a high register of vernacular Arabic that, while anchored in the local, also forges a link with the Arab world in the wake of an anticolonial struggle—mobilizes a religious dimension which was critical to the political development of the early nationalist movement in the Morocco of the 1930s and 1940s. I examine how Nass el Ghiwane strategically selected only eight verses out of the forty-five contained in the original poem written by Ibn al-Mwaqqit (1894-1949), adding five verses of their own in the final section of “Subḥan Allah.” As the verses engulf listeners in a poetic text conjuring a dystopic vision of the world, Nass el Ghiwane skillfully reorient the original meaning of “Təkəllubat d-dəhr” to a new public, turning “Subḥan Allah” into an effective tool of socio-political criticism during the Yeas of Lead (1960s-90s). The detournement of the text, accompanied by collective singing, a fast-paced rhythm, and repetition, endows the song with a cyclical quality that evokes the music of ceremonies performed by religious orders (ṭariqat) for the attainment of oneness with God, further complicating the sacred dimension I seek to examine.

Alessandra Ciucci's research interests include the music of Morocco, the Maghreb, the Mediterranean, gender and sexuality, sung poetry, popular music of the Arab world, and music and migration. Her first book, The Voice of the Rural: Music, Poetry, and Masculinity among Migrant Moroccan Men in Umbria (University of Chicago Press, 2022), explores the significance and the endurance of a specific notion of the rural (l-‘arubiya) among migrant Moroccan men in Italy.

She is currently at work on a new project tentatively titled, Nass el Ghiwane: Popular Music and the Sound of Protest in Morocco (1970s-1990s), in which she delves into Nass el Ghiwane, the most influential popular music group in Morocco during an era marked by political violence and oppression. Ciucci argues that the group was able to forge a new musicopoetic language utilizing traditional Moroccan culture as a method of decolonization that also provided a sense of contemporary authenticity. Ciucci is the recipient of a number of grants and prizes, among which the Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies (2018-19).

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