Reference

Glossary.

Arabic terms used across the site — encountered scattered across the literature and field recordings, compiled here for quick reference. Search by term, transliteration, or definition.

Ritual14 terms

lilaليلة(derdeba): The all-night Gnawa ceremony — literally 'night'. Sum and other scholars use lila and derdeba interchangeably; Pâques distinguishes them, with derdeba as one of three parts of the lila. Begins after sundown, ends at or near dawn.
tagnawitتَݣْنَاوِيت(tagnaouite): Literally 'Gnawa-ness'. Used loosely for Gnawa identity, knowledge-as-practiced, or Gnawa epistemology. Kapchan glosses it as 'Gnawa authenticity'; Fuson as 'Gnawa ritual practice'. Maâlem Abdallah uses it regionally — tagnawit Souiri = the practice particular to Essaouira.
al-‘adaالعادة: The opening procession of the lila. Krakeb-led, sometimes acrobatic, before the guembri enters. ~30–60 min in a sacred lila; ~10 min on a festival stage.
koyoكويو: The pre-possession song-and-dance act of the lila. Pieces here are 'safe' to perform out of ritual context — most festival programmes are made from this repertoire.
nugshaنقشة: Pre-possession entertainment dances performed during the koyo act. Includes the qarqaba salutation on bended knee.
ftuh ar-rahbaفتوح الرحبة: Literally 'opening of the grain market'. The transitional piece that opens Act 3, the possession act. The marketplace is a metaphor for the world; a liminal place where spirits and humans intermingle.
frajaفرجة: Show or spectacle — the term Gnawa use for the staged version of the lila performed for foreign and tourist audiences. The fraja does not invoke the full pantheon, lasts only a few hours, and includes no public sacrifice.
moussemموسم: Annual pilgrimage festival around a saint's tomb or zaouia. Sum mentions the Sidna Bilal moussem in Essaouira (mastered by Maâlem Abdellah Guinea) and the Gnawa moussem during Sha'ban (the month before Ramadan), where the integral repertoire is sung.
barakaبركة: Spiritual power, blessing, or grace. A maâlem must have baraka to call the mluk effectively; the moqaddema's baraka authorises her to organise and officiate at a lila.
jadbaجذبة: Trance — the desired state in possession dance. Fuson calls the guembri 'the lynchpin of the music for achieving jadba'.
adorcism: Sum's framing for what the lila does — accommodating supernatural entities through possession of the human body, in contrast with exorcism (which expels them).
niyaنية: 'Intention of the heart' — the inner disposition shared by the participants in a lila that allows the spirits to manifest. In Baldassarre's hypertext frame the *niya* is the *set* / content-plane of the ritual, complementary to the *dispositif* (the staging: rhythm, colour, incense, paraphernalia).
mida(ritual paraphernalia table): Low table covered with the ritual paraphernalia of a lila — incense, candles, milk, flour, blood from the sacrifice. Brought into the ceremonial space and used by the moqqadema to invoke and serve the mlouk.
Derb Gnawaدرب گناوة('street of the Gnawa'): 'Street of the Gnawa' — the quarter inside the Casablanca medina (near the port, just outside the colonial centreville) where most of the city's Gnawa houses concentrated from the 1930s through the 1970s. Hassan Sansi (Casablanca master) recalls 20–50 houses by the early 1970s. Largely displaced by Casablanca's gentrification programme (Hassan II Mosque, Morocco Mall, Marina Shopping, Avenue Royale).

Spirits / pantheon5 terms

mlukملوك(melk (sg.)): The powerful, sometimes dangerous supernatural entities of the sub-Saharan tradition. Each melk has a colour, an incense, a musical motif, and named pieces. Often used loosely for the entire pantheon.
salihinصالحين: Saints — Islamic and Berber holy men whose deeds and miracles rendered them spiritual beings after death. Distinct from the mluk in origin but overlap in function; Mulay Abdelqader Jilali and Sidi Bilal are the most invoked.
mhallaمحلة(mhallat (pl.)): Cohort or family of supernatural entities, sharing a colour and a sensory profile. Sum documents eight ritual mhallat (Fig. 5.15) plus 'Aisha sequenced flexibly.
rijal Allahرجال الله: 'Men of God'. The collective designation for the saints once the West African genies and Arab/Berber genies merged under the aegis of Sidi Bilal in North Africa.
khlaالخلاء(kḫla): The 'third hidden world' in Gnawa cosmology — both the negative space of the dead earth (which holds the body) and the positive channel through which sky-water fertilises the earth and souls return to life. The lila communicates with the khla through the mlouk, the spirits that inhabit it. Gnawa popular idiom calls themselves 'la gente del khla' — 'people of the void'.

People & roles17 terms

m'allemمعلّم(maâlem, maâllem; m'allem-s (pl.)): Master musician — leader of the Gnawa music ensemble. Plays the guembri, sings the lead, sets and changes tempo, chooses repertoire. The honorific is earned, not inherited; consecration usually happens in the late teens.
moqaddemaمقدّمة(mqadma; mqadmat (pl.)): Female ritual leader — the moqaddema organises and officiates the lila, channels the spirits, and oversees the spiritual welfare of participants. Usually but not always women.
qarqabiyaقرقابية(qarqaba): Krakeb (qraqab) players — the rhythmic accompanists who carry the Q1 or Q2 ostinato through a piece. 'We have to play the same thing from start to finish. We cannot follow the m'allem's rhythm. There can only be one driver' (M. Outanine, in Sum 2009).
‘arifatعريفات: Assistants to the moqaddema during the lila — they support the initiates, bring out ritual accessories, and may engage in possession dance themselves.
adept: An initiate of the Gnawa pantheon — someone affiliated with one or more spirits, who dances when their spirit's piece is invoked.
sponsor: The person who commissions and pays for a particular lila. Has the right to ask the moqaddema to adapt the repertoire to suit their needs.
zaouiaزاوية(zawiya): Religious lodge or shrine. Sum's Gania-family fieldwork centres on the Zaouia of Sidna Bilal in Essaouira, where Moqaddema Zaida holds her annual Sha'ban lila and where Maâlem Abdellah Guinea was the master of the moussem.
bu' lilahبُو الليل(bulilah, 'people of the night'): 'People of the night' — popular Moroccan sobriquet for the Gnawa, after their nocturnal ceremonial practice. The brotherhood's elders also call themselves 'la gente del khla' (people of the void / hidden world), a reading with cosmological resonance.
‘Abid al-Bukhariعبيد البخاري(‘Abid Bukhari): The personal guard of Sultan Moulay Ismail (1672–1727), drawn exclusively from Black Sudanese slaves and named after the Hadith collection of al-Bukhari over which they swore allegiance. A foundational moment for the institutional entrenchment of the Black-African brotherhood in Morocco that became the Gnawa.
igri ignawen(Tamazight etymology of 'Gnawa'): Tamazight etymology for the term 'Gnawa' proposed by Viviana Pâques (1964): 'in the field of the cloudy sky' / 'turbulent wind'. The Gnawa describe themselves accordingly as 'people of turbulence'. Aidi 2023 contrasts this with Westermarck's (1899) Sus-region hypothesis and with Claude McKay's (1928) 'pure Negroes from West Africa' framing.
majdhubمجذوب(majdhùb (sing.); jdèb (collective)): The 'ecstatic' or trance-dancer in a Gnawa lila — the participant whose dance signals possession by an addressed *m'louk*. From the Arabic root *jdb* (attraction); Nicholson 1925 glossed the term as 'ecstatic'. Sum's preferred English term is 'trance dancer'.
agnaw(Tachelhait etymology of Gnawa): Possible Tachelhait (Berber) cognate of 'Gnawa', meaning 'someone who is mute or mumbles' — used by Berbers to describe enslaved sub-Saharan Africans whose native language was incomprehensible to them. One of several Berber-root etymologies (El Hamel's *gnawi* 'black' is the dominant alternative).
ganawa (Kanuri)(Kanuri etymology of Gnawa): In the Kanuri language of southeastern Niger and northeastern Nigeria — a region heavily involved in the trans-Saharan slave trade — *ganawa* means 'the little ones' / 'inferior ones' / a person of lower status, a slave of Arab traders. Becker 2011 flags this as a third possible source-language for 'Gnawa', alongside Berber (El Hamel) and the rejected medieval Ghana (Pâques).
Ismkhan(Ismghan): Tamazight (Berber) word for 'slaves'. Self-descriptor used by descendants of enslaved sub-Saharan people in southeastern Morocco (e.g. Khamlia, Aït Khabbash region) who, after emancipation, aligned with the local Amazigh population. The term signifies connection to sub-Saharan Africa, slavery, and healing power rather than current legal condition.
harratin(hartani (sing.)): Agricultural labourers from southern Morocco — also descendants of enslaved sub-Saharan Africans, but **distinct from the Gnawa**: they do not hold lila ceremonies and have no Bilal-genealogy claim. Once a common label for southern-Moroccan blacks; now considered pejorative.
Garde Noir(Black Guard, ‘Abid al-Bukhari corps): The French name for the descendants of Moulay Ismail's 'Abid al-Bukhari corps, who continued to support the Moroccan sultans after his death in 1727. Estimated at 150,000 men at peak. The corps's eventual dispersal seeded the urban Gnawa communities of Meknes, Marrakech, Fez, and Essaouira.
erqsu(the upright one (sacrificer)): 'The man standing erect' — the ritual specialist who slits the throat of the sacrificial animal in a lila. Per Al Ayachi (in Willemont 2012), 'the throat slitting represents deflowering'; the erqsu is structurally central — 'without the erqsu, the m'allem cannot work.'

Instrument14 terms

guembriݣمبري(sintir, hajhuj, gnibra, gombri): The three-stringed fretless plucked-bass lute of the Gnawa. Body of walnut covered in camel-throat skin; goat-intestine strings; the middle string is short and reaches only the middle of the neck. The lute 'speaks' (itkellmū) when the m'allem plays — the voice of the mluk.
zirزير(raghoul; dir (Vanelli)): The low bass string of the guembri — 'father' in the Gania family/string metaphor. Cipher pitch 1, with a single fretted position 1-A (cipher 2) and a rare extra fingering 1-B (cipher 3) used in 'Aisha pieces.
tahtiyaتحتية(lotra, dhar; tehtia (Vanelli)): The middle-pitch string of the guembri (positioned at the bottom from the player's view) — 'mother' in the Gania metaphor. Cipher pitch 4 open, with three fretted positions 2-A, 2-B, 2-C (ciphers 5, 6, 7).
ntoiنتوي(loustiya, n'tiwa; westia (Vanelli)): The high (octave) string of the guembri — 'child' in the Gania metaphor. The shorter of the three; reaches only the middle of the neck and is always played open. Cipher pitch 8.
qraqabقراقب(krakeb, qarqaba): Iron hand-held castanets played in pairs by the qarqabiya. Originally played with the bare hands during the koyo; in the lila proper, played with the metal pairs. Children begin with wooden crates from fish transport before the small metal qraqab are made for them.
tbelطبل: The Gnawa ceremonial drum. Played in the procession ('ada) before the guembri enters.
dìn-dnà(din-dna, hejhuj, santir): Sudanese-dialect onomatopoeic name for the guembri used by the brotherhood's elders, after the percussive *dn-dn* of the strings. Also called *hejhuj* (Moroccan dialect, 'doubled' — the m'allem's double) and *santir* in some communities. The Italian-language scholarship favours *gambri*; the French-language tradition uses *guembri* (our default).
bu' ganga(father of the drum): 'Father of the drum' — the larger of the two cylindrical double-headed t'bal drums used in the *hadah* and the al-‘ada opening procession. ~60 cm tall × 50 cm diameter; played by the m'allem with two unmatched sticks (*sahla* + *tarrash*). The second, smaller t'bal (~40–50 cm × 35–40 cm) is played by an apprentice.
sahla / tarrash(t'bal sticks): The two unmatched sticks the m'allem uses on the t'bal. The *sahla*, held in the right hand, is a heavy 40-cm baton curved 90° at its tip — strikes the membrane near the centre for a deep, grave tone. The *tarrash*, held in the left hand, is a flexible 50-cm whip — strikes the rim for a bright, dry timbre. The asymmetry produces the *crossed pulsation* that defines the Gnawa drum cycle.
serseraسرسرة(risha (feather), sarsala, lisān (tongue)): The detachable metallic rattle inserted at the top of the guembri's neck. Iron or aluminium loops or rings fixed around a flat metal sheet; named after the sound it makes (*srsrsr*). Spiritually, the m'allem-built tongue of the instrument that 'trembles when the spirits are there' (During); structurally, the West African plucked-lute aesthetic of buzzing-device timbre (Charry). Pâques 1991 holds the canonical number is 64, after the number of pieces a body can be 'broken into' during trance. Becoming musically obsolete — most contemporary maâlems keep one but don't attach it.
hajhuj(Moroccan-Arabic name for the guembri): Native Moroccan-dialect name for the guembri, etymologised by Sechehaye et al. as 'there are two' — confirming the instrument originally had two strings, not three. Also rendered *hejhuj*; in Sudanese-dialect Gnawa argot called *dìn-dnà* (Baldassarre). Among Italian-tradition writers the name is *gambri*; the French tradition we follow uses *guembri*.
makhzina(oval neck of the guembri): The oval wooden neck of the guembri, covered in camel throat skin. The three strings (awtār) are tied with leather bands around the makhzina, then tensioned by an iron tuning mechanism — though traditionally only the leather bands were used.
wajh(guembri body / face): Literally 'face'. The wooden body / soundbox of the guembri, hollowed from a single block; coated with skin (typically camel or goat). The face of the instrument; the body the *lisān* (sersera, the 'tongue') speaks for.
l-fumm(the mouth (guembri soundhole)): 'The mouth'. The soundhole of the guembri; the three strings (awtār) of goat intestine attach to three spikes (mastara) immediately next to this opening. The guembri body is anthropomorphised — face (*wajh*), mouth (*l-fumm*), tongue (*lisān* / sersera).

Music11 terms

msawiمساوي: (1) The tuning formula a m'allem plays to verify his guembri at the start of a performance — a prescribed sequence resembling an Indian alap. (2) Used more generally for 'key', 'scale', or 'mode'. Maâlem Abdallah names three msawi for his own three tunings — Abdellaoui (low), tal'a (high), 'alamiya (universal).
icon: Sum's term for the main motive of a piece — the one that corresponds to the supernatural entity being invoked and supports the choral refrain. Usually 8 pulses, occasionally 2- or 4-pulse, exceptionally 5-pulse ('Aisha Hamdushiya). Fuson calls this the 'statement'.
oumأم(mwima (Fuson)): Short ostinato motive (2 or 4 pulses) that supports the call-and-response phrases between m'allem and qarqabiya. Some pieces have multiple oums; some are variants of each other, others are entirely new ideas.
dance motive: Sum's term for a third motive introduced in the instrumental section for possession dance, distinct from the icon and the oum. In pieces where it doesn't exist, the icon or oum takes on the function.
lahsorلحصور: Durational accent on the final attack of a motive — characteristic of all Gnawa pieces. The lahsor falls on the upbeat and prolongs into the first pulse of the next motive. The ntoi (open string) is the lahsor in many pieces — 'the resting note often heard at the end of a motive' (A. Gania).
Q1: First krakeb pattern. Vocalised 'ta- ke ta ke-' — a hemiola, three-against-two. Right hand binary, left hand ternary; first beat of the left hand is empty. 'A galloping horse', per Maâlem Outanine.
Q2: Second krakeb pattern. Vocalised 'ta- ke ta ke- ta ke' — duple time. Pulsations alternate between right-hand 'ta' and left-hand 'ke'. 'A trotting horse', per Maâlem Outanine.
Q3: Third krakeb pattern, only used to support the borrowed 'Aisha Hamdushiya pieces. The Gania m'allems do not consider it part of tagnawit — when asked how many qraqab figures exist, they always answer 'two'.
tactus: The main pulse — Sum sets it equivalent to a quarter-note throughout the dissertation, dividing into binary and ternary subdivisions, even where a dotted-quarter would suit a piece's ternary character better.
cipher: Sum's notation system: digits 1–8 representing the eight Gnawa pitches independent of absolute tuning. Open zir = 1, open tahtiya = 4, open ntoi = 8; the fretted positions fill in the others. Used throughout the site to discuss pieces across maâlem-specific tunings.
extra pitch: A sixth tone above the prevailing pentatonic that arises in special situations — a passing or neighbour tone. In Lalla Mimuna, pitch 6 was observed five times out of 319 onsets in one rendition, twice out of 706 in another.