One woman leads this prayer, again from the handwritten prayers gathered in the notebook. The handwriting is quite clear in these frames. The prayer goes, “In this era, there is no other beauty…”
One woman leads this prayer, again from the handwritten prayers gathered in the notebook. The women sit quite closely to one another as they sing and play the tapl and daff. The prayer goes, “Oh, God’s Prophet, I sacrifice myself for your eyes.”
The prayer continues around the Sheikha, whose beads can be seen dangling into the frame of the clip. The notebook is passed from singer to singer, but many know the prayers by heart and add their voices. The prayer goes, “If you wonder whether I have come for a picnic, I am ill and hopeless. I have come to the door of God’s Prophet, the door of forgiveness.”
While all the other women sit on the ground, the Sheikha is seated. Though to western eyes, this is only a plastic lawn chair, the elevation is metaphorical as well as physical and shows the power and honor the community gives her, that her position confers.
The women leading prayers sit gathered around the Sheikha. A woman playing the daff speaks with another woman beside her, also keeping time with the daff. A woman greets another who has entered the room outside the frame of the video by putting her hand to her head in a silent motion that means, “I put you above my eyes” or, even more respectfully, “I put you above my head.” As well, the notebook that the women gather the prayers in features prominently in this clip. One woman is clearly reading from the pages that she holds in her hands. She sings, “I moan for you, I sacrifice myself for you, God’s Prophet, I love anyone who loves you…”
The notebook of handwritten prayers helps one woman lead the song while others around her, having it by heart, sing along. The percussive aspects of the prayer, the daff and tapl, continue as the backbone.
