Singing community/remembering in common: Sufi liturgy and North African identity in southern France

In Morocco, the forms of Islam practiced are very influenced by Sufism, and there are many paths or tariqat, including the tariqa butshishiyya, a Sufi path in the Qadiri lineage whose living leader is Shaykh Hamza in northeastern Morocco (<ext-link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="http://www.tariqa.org/">http://www.tariqa.org/</ext-link>). In the last decade, branches of this school of Sufism have grown up in France, England, Spain and the United States, and the texts of the prayers, songs and poems have been transliterated for those not literate in Arabic. This study focuses on one group of female Sufi practitioners in the south of France, and the role of sung liturgy and sonic performance in creating a sense of religious and cultural community for North African Muslims who reside in a country where the ideology of secularism is as sacred as religion.