Abu Zeid Al Hilali

[عبدالله الخليفي]

In the courtyard of a restored Mamluk
mansion in Cairo, an old man stirs his
audience with the epic poem of the Banu Hilal tribe, a legend of past Arab
bravery.


Wearing a brown jalabiya and white scarf, Sayyid al-Dawi, spectacles on his
wrinkled face, is among the last practitioners of a centuries-old oral
tradition.

With his troupe intensifying drumbeats during great battle scenes, Dawi
tells of Abu Zeid al-Hilali and his tribe who voyaged from Yemen to North
Africa.

The Banu Hilal saga "is the Iliad of the Arab people", according to Egyptian
poet Abd al-Rahman al-Abnudi who has spent 35 years recording and publishing
the oral tradition in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Arabia.

Al-Abnudi interrupts the storyteller at times to explain the old verses in
contemporary Arabic for a group of young Egyptians and a few Europeans who
gathered there one night last week.

Oral tradition

The event, sponsored by the ministry of culture, was part of efforts to save
the oral tradition.

"The Banu Hilal epic represents the entire Arab nation," al-Abnudi said.
"Abu Zeid al-Hilali personifies the Arab leader whom the nation looks up to
and is looking for to unite it during crises and periods of danger."

The legendary Abu Zeid fought historic battles in Iraq, which strike a chord
with Arabs who oppose the US-led coalition now occupying Iraq, he added.

"The 'Sira' (epic) is not just entertainment, it plays a role in periods of
crisis, which explains why it spread through Egypt at the time of the
Crusades," al-Abnudi said.

He added that "storytellers are in fact poets who improvise while reciting".

Dying breed

The epic is composed of hundreds of thousands of verses, and the 69-year-old
al-Dawi is among the last people who can recite them by heart. Decades ago,
before television, they were a focal point of village life.

However, this tradition is being lost today and "whole parts of the Hilali
story are being forgotten," mainly because of the death of the storytellers,
according to a member of the Al-Warsha (Workshop) troupe.

The troupe, composed of young people who are trying to revive the Sira,
"seeks to research popular tradition", said Husayn Yunis, an assistant
producer for Al-Warsha.

The troupe writes down poems from the bards themselves or from recordings
made before the old storytellers died.

Indeed, it was a group of young Egyptians dressed in jeans who told the
Banu Hillal saga in contemporary Arabic during a show at the French Centre
for Culture and Cooperation in Cairo.

Great fighter

The story is about the powerful Banu Hilal tribe, who left home in Yemen for
the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia and took part in the great battles of the early
Islamic period.

In the 11th century, the tribe moved to Egypt where, according to
historians, the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir urged them to reconquer Tunisia,
which had just split from his empire.

The story centres around the mythic hero Abu Zeid al-Hilali, a black baby
born to white parents, something which prompted his father to disown his
mother.

During one battle, Abu Zeid, a great fighter, was on the verge of killing
his father, whom he did not recognise, but fortune intervened and their arms
froze at the crucial moment.

He then learned of his origins and returned to his tribe.