Among the Jasmine Trees. Jonathan Holt Shannon

of Adonis’s “Elegy for the Time at Hand” are reproduced courtesy of Northwestern University Press. Earlier versions of chapters 4 and 6 were previously published as “The Aesthetics of Spiritual Practice and the Creation of Moral and Musical Subjectivities in Aleppo, Syria,” Ethnology 43, no. 4 (2004): 381–391, and “Emotion, Performance, and Temporality in Arab Music: Reflections on Tarab.” Cultural Anthropology 18, no. 1 (2003): 72–98, respectively.

      It is with sadness that I note with the publication of the paperback version of this book the passing of two of my great friends and teachers in Syria. Mr. Ādil al-Zakī, one of the last of the great sammī’a and a connoisseur of all things related to tarab, died in August 2005, a year after we last shared together our love for Arab music in his famous shop, now closed. August 2006 marked the loss of Sabrī Moudallal, and with him one of the great voices of the twentieth century. His deep, hearty voice always reminded me of the purr of a gentle lion. Our world was made better by their modesty, humor, great spirits, and enduring humanity. May this book remain a small testament to the beauty and love they shared with so many. raḥimahuma Allah.

      Among the Jasmine Trees

      INTRODUCTION

      The Aesthetics of Musical Authenticity

      in Contemporary Syria

      The craft of singing is the last of the crafts attained to in civilization, because it constitutes (the last development toward) luxury with regard to no occupation in particular save that of leisure and gaiety. It also is the first to disappear from a given civilization when it disinte-grates and retrogresses.

      —Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddima

      Maṭla: The Muṭriba and the Restaurant

      Arriving in Damascus one cool November evening in 1996, I found Syria awash in banners celebrating the twenty-sixth anniversary of the “Great Corrective Movement,” a national holiday marking the coming to power of Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad on November 16, 1970.¹ Every plaza in the city center was strung with banners, every fountain was alight with colored lights, and at every major intersection nationalist jingles could be heard crackling from battered speakers dangling from light posts or the facades of buildings. No one seemed to be in a festive mood, however. When I asked my taxi driver what was going on, he turned down his radio, glanced at me in the rearview mirror, then turned the radio back up and continued driving to the hotel.

      Later in the evening, as I settled into bed, a young woman vocalist (called, somewhat grandiosely, a muṭriba²) began to sing from the roof-top garden of a nearby luxury hotel, filling the night air with the latest Arab pop hits. Her performance included a rendition of what was easily the most popular song in Syria that year: the Egyptian superstar Amru Diab’s “Ḥabībī yā nūr al-ayn” [Beloved, O light of my eye]—perhaps the most popular Arab song of the 1990s. Her throaty and to my ears melodramatic vocals were enhanced by their passage through an enormous PA system with heavy reverb—I was to learn throughout my stay in Syria that high volume is an important feature of the aesthetics of most live music, the implicit principle seemingly being, “If you can’t feel the sound reverberating through your body, then it isn’t loud enough.” The so-called muṭriba was accompanied by the sound of what has become the standard pan-Arab pop orchestra: the org or synthesizer; the ṭabla (goblet drum) beating out the fast and repetitive baladī beat (sometimes replaced by or even in conjunction with a drum machine)³; and there may have been an electric guitar and bass to round out the ensemble, as is common in hotel lounge bands in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. Such groups rarely include the oud (ūd, Arabian short-necked lute) or nāy (end-blown reed flute), instruments more often associated with the classical music traditions of the Arab East. I found the music grating and had a hard time falling asleep, despite my jet lag.

      Yusef al-Azmeh Square, Damascus, 1996.

      After a mostly sleepless night, I decided the following evening to avoid the well-microphoned muṭriba and head to the Old City of Damascus for some “authentic” Arab music. I also was keen to dine on the justly celebrated Syrian cuisine. My guide book to Syria described the Omayyad Palace restaurant as offering “delicious Syrian food in an authentic atmosphere,” adding that the restaurant featured a live band playing “traditional” music, so I decided to go. Located just steps from the seventh-century Umayyad Mosque, one of the glories of Islamic architecture, the Omayyad Palace takes its name from the Umayyad Dynasty that ruled the early Islamic empire (661–750 A.D.) from its seat of power in Damascus. The restaurant is said be located on the site of the grand palace of the first Umayyad prince, Muāwiyya Ibn Abī Sufyān. All that remains of the palace is its large cellar, occupied by the present restaurant.

      Descending the narrow staircase to the restaurant, I find it to be the very picture of authenticity. Stepping through a beaded curtain, I am greeted by a waiter dressed in a fancifully embroidered vest and billowy black pants reminiscent of the folksy shirwāl that peasants wear. As he leads me across the main room to a table, I take in the scene. The walls are constructed of thick black and white blocks of marble reminiscent of the local ablaq (“striped”) style. Various items of “authentic heritage” adorn the walls—large engraved brass saucers, Damascene swords in their bejeweled scabbards, small inlaid wooden frames and mirrors, black-and-white photographs of the Old City. A number of shelves and display cases also exhibit old-style coffee pots, nargīla-s (water pipes), and assorted items such as old glass perfume bottles, ancient oil lamps, miscellaneous old ceramic bowls, and odd trinkets. A sign in English and Arabic reads, “For Display Only”—suggesting that it is a “truly” authentic place, like someone’s home. You can’t buy the décor; in a sense it isn’t even décor.

      My table is a low wooden stand inlaid with mother of pearl supporting a brass saucer much like those hanging on the walls. The paper napkins stuffed in a faux inlaid box labeled in English “Damascus” seem to detract from the scene, but I am soon enough distracted from any thoughts of inauthenticity by the waiter’s invitation to go ahead and fill my plate at the expansive buffet. I rise to get my food and notice a dwarf-like man going from table to table with a pot of unsweetened coffee served in small ceramic cups, like that served on special occasions such as weddings and funerals. Returning to my table with a plate piled high with kibbeh (ground lamb and cracked wheat), tabbuleh salad, fatteh (a Damascene dish made of chickpeas and bread), a stack of olives, hummus, pita bread, and a bowl of lentil soup balanced precariously in my hands, I sit and contemplate this culinary paradise. Looking around me, I find a number of families and a small group of tourists who are also eating, their guide books jutting out of their jacket pockets (mine is hidden safely in my bag), and, like me, ogling the place. However, most of the clientele do not seem to me to be tourists, or at least not in the usual sense of foreign visitors. Some seem to be locals, and many in fact are carrying on in Arabic. Over the course of the evening, I learn that the patrons consist largely of Lebanese and elite Damascenes and their friends coming to eat good food and experience an “authentic” atmosphere—just as the guide book says.