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Tapping Into Spirits and Celebrating Women: Egyptian Zar

October 13, 2018

Throughout Egyptian musical history, Egyptian Zar music has historically been the only musical tradition in Egypt in which women hold the most important roles in the ensemble’s performance. Hajer El Hadidi, author of the book “Zar” (2016), defined the genre as a complex healing ritual that is practiced in areas around the Gulf and the Red Sea. At its core, the word ‘Zar’ can also be interpreted as any form of evil spirit or jinn that possesses an individual troubling them with diseases or problems; it could also reverse the effects of evil spirits into good. At its core, Zar originally included rituals which required the performer, who is referred to as sheikh or sheikha, to sacrifice an animal for the spirit of the possessed person. However, this idea has changed over the years as many zars now opt out of the animal sacrifice. “One of the main reasons that Zar is performed is because they [the general public] think the person has been possessed by a bad spirit. So, they perform the Zar [the ritual] to get out the bad spirits and to get the person back to normal,”…


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