Festival of the “Aissawa” music: A Sufi way in Constantine's Ramadan

The 8th annual festival of the Aissawa religious music « Kherjet Sidi Rached » will be launched here on Monday night in Constantine, east of Algeria.

• The cultural event will include Arab troops from Syria and Libya, which will participate for their first time, said organizers of the event on Sunday.
• The program of this event, organized each year in Constantine during the summer season, will gather many troops of the Aissawa music during the holy month of Ramadan.
• This 8th edition also has a special character in the sense that it will provide an opportunity for public to discover new musical practices from the Arab world.
• Constantine was considered for many decades the stronghold of this religious music, related to Sufism methods close to the Gnawa music coming from black Africa, as both genres share the same nature called “Diwan”.
• The “Aissawa” music faced extermination during the years of terror, until the last few years, as many circumstances brought it back to life in the Maghreb region before reaching all parts of Europe.
• The “Aissawa” music is based on Sufism like the “Tidjania” and “Kadiria”, although the origins of the “Gnawa” music are African and pagan, the “Aissawa” has Sufi Muslim origins that spread strongly in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Europe. Now it has an international festival aiming to spread it vigorously. But fans of this music fear official concern would be circumstantially political.
• The “Aissawa” music emerged many centuries ago and was threatened with collapse, but it returned strongly during the recent years in Algeria and other countries, now it has large fans in Europe and some other countries of the world. Fans wish it would develop and continue, free from any political and circumstantial agendas, because politics collapse but art endures.