A group of people gather in a private courtyard. At the centre, a Kadiya, or priestess, is sitting on the floor singing amongst women who have come seeking her guidance. One has paralysing migraines; another feels nauseous every time her husband wants to sleep with her; a third has been suffering from depression for years. They are surrounded by musicians, male and female. The women have brought food offerings. Some are smoking cigarettes. Burning bakhur (incense) smoulders their long dresses and glides across the room. As the rhythms grow louder and speedier, the Kadiya’s voice rises; the first women start moving ecstatically to the beat of the drums. They are shaking, entranced, and losing awareness of their surroundings. Their bodies become one with the music, and their spirits are appeased. 

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Spirit possession

Stambali, Banga, Gnawa, Diwân, Zãr: African possession rituals are rooted in a long history of religious idiosyncrasy and the merging of local cultural practices. They come alive through dance and music. Zãr is practised across North and Sub-Saharan Africa, both as a communal celebration and an old, spiritual tradition that centres women’s healing. A coalescence of Sufi beliefs and pre-Islamic African rites, it makes space for creative expression by dissolving sexual and social boundaries. 

Zãr is a family of spirits, all called assyad (masters), who mainly attack women and make them ill. The jinn possessing the woman can only be appeased through the Zãr ceremony, a night of dance and offerings that put him to sleep but cannot make him disappear. The ritual reconciliation between spirit and host also requires the sacrifice of an animal, of which the Kadiya draws blood and smears it onto the forehead of the possessed. Originally from Ethiopia and Sudan, Zãr was brought to Egypt and across the Red Sea all the way to Iran via the Abyssinian slave trade. Its popularity has since declined in recent decades due to stigma shrouded in piety and classism; some Muslim leaders deem the practice as sacrilegious and its more generally viewed as a pastime of the uneducated lower class by society. Nonetheless, Zãrs are still held across the region, both as musical events and private healing ceremonies. 

Zãr as a music genre

Zãr is folk music specific to its respective cultural and geographic location. It is live history: singers do not change songs or create new ones — they sing the same music as their ancestors. Each country has traditional instruments that lead the ritual: in Sudan, the tambura, a six-stringed lyre often embellished with cowrie shells, is the main instrument. The Egyptian Zãr distinguishes itself through the use of the mangour, a leather belt adorned with goat hooves that produces sounds when the wearer shakes their hips. Drums and the kawala (reed flute) are essential to creating rhythms to stimulate the spirits.

The kadiya leads the ceremony, both spiritually and musically, through songs that have been passed down to her through generations. She initiates the ritual with a 20-minute chant; drums slowly make their way into the mesmerising tune, intermingling with the hypnotic vocals, immersing the audience in a euphoric atmosphere as the music calls upon the jinn to reveal themselves. The instruments and melodic singing create an environment where listeners can access a meditative state that allows them to connect with their spirit(uality). If a person starts shaking their body into an ecstatic trance, it means that the song corresponds with their spiritual entity. 

Zãr as healing 

Contrary to the widespread misconception of Zãr being a controversial exorcism ritual, it is, in fact, a practice intended to help people find harmony with their inner selves. Anthropologists often explain it as a form of therapy for the psychosomatic and psycho-pathological complaints that result from the stress experienced by women in their daily lives.

Egyptian anthropologist Heba El-Kholy writes, in her article “A Discourse of Resistance” from her 2004 book Health and Identity in Egypt, that the socio-historical context of Zãr offers a narrative of resistance in which spirit possession is the form of expression through which sexual and gendered issues are most vividly articulated in many lower-class communities. She calls this “Infrapolitics”, a type of resistance that dares not speak its own name. According to Kholy, women use spirit possession as a culturally sanctioned niche in which they can address taboo topics and exert defiance in the name of a male jinn. This jinn may demand from them to ride a bike, buy a dog, smoke cigarettes, or not have sex with their husband anymore - all of which are unacceptable in many communities across the region. Blaming this active dissent, which very likely has psychosomatic symptoms, on a foreign male possessor can be interpreted as individualised liberation from certain oppressions.

In practice, possessed women, usually referred to as melammesa (touched) or ma’zura (excused – because her jinn is responsible for her abnormal behaviour, not her), are required to appease their spirits regularly. These rituals are a musical refuge of expression and connection for women who might not otherwise get the space and freedom to dance uncontrollably, smoke cigarettes, and let go of themselves. The rhythms encourage them to, quite literally, shake it out. 

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Zãr as an archive of history and resistance

Zãr and its music represent a historical archive that documents women’s lives that’s embedded in their socio-cultural context. In Sudan, for example, the different types of spirits chronicle the experience of the Sudanese people. There are khawajat (European spirits) who may demand the possessed to smoke tobacco and dress in western clothes. There are Southern/tribal spirits that may request something related to the culture which the spirit stereotypically represents. Then there are the bashawat, which are Turkish or Egyptian, and both represent former colonial powers.

Whether we appreciate Zãr as an enchanting genre of African folk music, a female safe space for creative and sexual expression, or an everyday form of resistance, its magic, once experienced, is undeniable. It might be a dying art form in cities, but Zãr rituals are still performed across the countryside and in private homes. In Cairo's vibrant downtown, one Zãr ensemble by the name of Mazaher continues to uphold the tradition by performing the vigorous singing and dance, albeit in a performative context. Every Wednesday, the three lead singers, Om Sameh, Om Hassan, and Sabah, use their captivating voices to take visitors on a journey, seductively hinting at the fascinating world of Zãr. 

Catch Mazaher's show every Wednesday at the Egyptian Center for Culture and Arts.