gnawa stories
GNAWA STORIES: Mystical Musician Healers from Morocco

Religious issues

Cultural critics like Edward Said have been recently advancing the concept of the many “Islams” as opposed to a monolithic Islam. The idea stems from a practical and liberal analysis of the historical spread of Islam. This analysis claims that one of the reasons for the rapid spread of Islam was the ability to transform itself by incorporating many of the traditional customs of the local conquered populations. In 13th century Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, there were competing African kingdoms whose interpretation of Islam went from orthodox to accepting the worship of local spirits. In this sense the political and cultural reality of many “Islams” has been present since the early beginnings of Islam’s history.

At the same time, Islam theology has also grappled with the concept of transformation (taahwil). At its core the question is: “how does Islam respond to the changing times and to the changing needs of the people”. For many orthodox Muslims the answer is simple: all questions are answered in the Qu’ran, in the sayings of the prophets and its consequent interpretations by learned scholars.

All you have to do in order to be a Muslim, then, is to follow the five pillars of Islam: professing faith in the existence of only one God and that Muhammed is its Prophet, perform five daily prayers, fast during Ramadan, perform the zakat (purification) the giving away of money and performing a pilgrimage to Mecca. Added to that one also needs to submit to the sharia, a complex system of laws governing the functioning of a Muslim society.

These laws vary depending which cannon of interpretation they are based on. So that stoning is thelaw in Nigeria but not in Morocco. The wearing of a veil is obligatory in Saudi Arabia but not in Tunisia. The Taliban, the Saudis and the Imams in Iran are examples of an “orthodox” interpretation of what it means to be a Muslim.


A contrast to this position is the popular belief that all it takes to be a Muslim is to say is “la ilaha illa Llah - Muhammadun rasuluLlah” (there is only one God and Muhammed is its prophet) or to have been born one. This means that in Morocco, for example, everyone that I have met considers himself or herself a Muslim while very few of them actually practice the five pillars of Islam. The truth is that most people in Morocco do not pray and many drink alcohol. Do they consider themselves any less of a Muslim because of this? They don’t.


The Gnawa consider themselves devout Muslims. The fact that they trace their lineage to Bilal, the first Muezzin of Islam, reinforces this “dutiful” Muslim identity. As for doing their five daily prayers I only met three Gnawas who did them regularly. A joke about a Gnawa addresses this issue: the only way to get him on his knees to pray was if he slipped on a banana peel. Another joke I heard has to do with the “sign” on the forehead devout Muslims get from praying all day long. The joke was directed at this particular Gnawa, whose wife is extremely devout, and how he presses a coin against his forehead to create the sign. This apparently is an old trick used by rug sellers to impress their clients and elicit trust. These popular Moroccan jokes reflect the disconnect that exists between traditional Muslim rituals and everyday popular practices.

And yet, the Gnawa see themselves as being righteous. They take pride in being correct, in treating others right and in not working for “money”. And so the recurring narrative theme I heard in my conversations was a moral one: accordance with the moral teachings of Islam. To put it schematically I think it’s the difference between sharia
(the law) and tarika (the spritual way). The Gnawa, like some Sufis (especially Turkish) emphasize tarika above sharia. In some ways the Gnawa are no different than the majority of the Moroccan population who does not seem to follow the strict minimal rules of Islam. And so to be a Gnawa means to belong to a particular web of social relationships. What unifies this web is the coming together during the Lila with all the intricate preparations and expenses this ceremony entails.

I have talked to many Moroccans and Muslim scholars who categorize Gnawa practices as being haram (forbidden). Technically, they say, Muslims are not allowed to worship anyone other than Allah. The worship of saints, no matter how many times one invokes Allah and his Prophet, places you outside Islam.

The Gnawas respond to this critique by saying that they do not worship saints and spirits but rather ask them to intercede on their behalf; and that furthermore, all their rituals begin and end with the praises of Allah and his Prophet.

These extreme interpretations of what it means to be a Muslim are on the one hand geographical (think that Indonesia and Morocco are both Muslim countries) and on the other are the product of the absence of any centralized religious structure (like a “Pope”) that oversees and regulates dogma.

When faced with its initial rapid growth, many during Islam’s beginnings took a gamble: they bet that it was more important to reach as many people as possible by allowing them to incorporate their popular practices instead of alienating them by imposing the strict demands of a tradition born in the deserts of Arabia. This is an “historical” vision of Islam as opposed to an “eternal” vision of Islam, which predicates that the message of Islam is immutable and perfect.

Ironically, today the Gnawa are going through a rapid growth and are facing many of the issues Islam faced in its beginnings. There are “traditional” Gnawas who view their rituals as immutable and perfect, while others are open to change in order to accommodate this growth. This tension is aggravated by the fact that, just as in Islam, there is no regulating body that determines Gnawa dogma. The apparition of Aisha Kandisha in Gnawa rituals (as noted in the next essay) is a perfect example of this dilemma.