Singing the Walī: Moulay Abdeslam, Resonant Reverence, and Poetics

ISM Fellow Hicham Chami will discuss the role of indigenous music in memorializing 13th-century Sufi saint Moulay Abdeslam in “Singing the Walī: Moulay Abdeslam, Resonant Reverence, and the Poetics of Devotion,” part of ISM’s Fellows Lunch series. Chami’s presentation examines the significance of Moulay Abdeslam’s shrine in the Jebala region of northwest Morocco as a spiritual and cultural touchstone: not only as a pilgrimage site, but as a locus of collective memory, wherein devotional music serves as a dynamic vehicle for preserving and reinterpreting the saint’s legacy across generations. Chami’s analysis of song lyrics, historical texts, and ethnographic observations reveal how this music encodes themes of sacrality, pilgrimage, unity, and affect which resonate with the marginalized Jebli population. Broadening the discussion, this study addresses how marginalized communities can mobilize indigenous music as a counter-narrative to cultural erasure—asserting their agency through sound and devotion. In doing so, they bridge the sacred and the secular, transforming music into a living and empowering legacy.

Host or Publisher Yale Institute of Sacred Music