MOHAMMED
S.M. ANTAR
THE
MUWASHSHAHAAT OF IBN AL-‘ARABI
by Mohammed S.M. Antar [Cairo Group for Sufi Chanting and Zhikr]
ABSTRACT: Some of Egypt's musicians, including myself and my brother
Mustafa, are working on creating a neo-classicist musical movement through
which we create new musical works following the 19th century musical tradition,
where possible using the same instruments, but in a slightly more developed
melodic system and slightly more advanced compositional forms.
In this neo-classical musical movement, we have two main parts: the instrumental
work and the vocal work. The vocal work divides
into Classical and colloquial lyrics. Classical Arabic lyrics include normal
poetic verses, muwashshah compositions and other forms.
I shall show how this new movement has dealt with the muwashshahaat
of Ibn ‘Al-Arabi, as well as his other poetic compositions which are also
sometimes composed musically in a muwashshah form.
Musical examples will be introduced.