Guest
Sami Yusuf’s composition, ‘Mawlana’, is heard here in a new arrangement specifically written to be performed and recorded live at the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music. Intensely energetic and musically nuanced, there is an organic flow of melodic instrumental solos, exhilarating rhythms and a call and response between Sami Yusuf and the backing vocalists. The lyrics are from a famous Arabic poem by the 12th/13th century Egyptian poet Umar Ibn al-Farid calling for lovers of God to immerse themselves in His all-consuming divine presence. The poem is laden with Sufi metaphors in the tradition of Islamic mystical poetry: wine as a symbol of divine love and knowledge; drunkenness is immersion in the radiance of God; the moon and the stars symbolise the spiritual teacher and his or her students; the tavern is the place of remembering God. It is said that Ibn al-Farid wrote his poetry in a hal, an ecstatic spiritual state. From Sami Yusuf’s ‘Live at the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music’ album. CREDITS Composed, Arranged and Performed by Sami Yusuf Words by Ibn al-Farid Maqām: Bayātī Listen/Watch:
