Shheikh Ahmad Muhammad Barrayn is from Deir, which is located near the town of Esnah. His village sits on the east bank of the Nile, adjacent to the central road that connects all of the towns from Luxor to Esnah. The homes on the outskirts of Deir (convent in Arabic) disappear into the dust of the desert. Blind since the age of eight, he was trained as a religious singer keeping with a tradition of both the Muslim and Christian worlds. Today he has become the most important maddâh in Upper-Egypt (Sa·îd).

Born into a peasant family, it was his mother who decided that he should study the art of Koranic verse after the onset of his illness. Durinf twelve years he studied this vocal technique in the village of Magaliyah under the supervision of Suliman Hussein, a master of the art in his 70's. Given that his quest for artistic maturity took place where murmurs mix with the earth and the silt of the Nile, where the braying and snorting of donkeys and camels blend with the squeaking water whells irrigating the canals, one cannot help but think of Oum Kalsoum, who was named by her father, another religious imam, Ibahim El Beltagui of the Nile Delta, after one of the daughters of the Prophet. As a little peasant child, she too was trained at a kouttab, in her case at the Koranic school of sheikh Abdel Aziz. As a young man Sheikh Barrayn would liten to the voice of Oum Kalsoum on old records or the radio.

The madîh or madh, one of the most ancient vocal styles of Arabic poetry, as fundamentally dedicated to the praise of the Prophet or a few saints of the tradition cult, but may also be secular and addressed to a group of celebrating guests. In the great tradition of eternal ambivalence that characterises Sufi-inspired Arabic poetry, Sheikh Barrayn is capable of singing a ghazâl or a zaby, a love poem, to a woman at the same that in the Sufi language the words symbolise the ecstasy provoked by the perception of and closeness the Divine. With a subtle shiver of emotion, the motreb, literally the one who makes the tarab happen (the term for the emotion elicted by the music) sings the ghazâls in a completely secular manner, arousing waves of pleasure such as those well described by Naguib Mahfouz when he writes of Abd alGawwab in The Palace of Desire.

Because Ahmad Barrayn refers to the ancient tradition, the qadîm, he is considered an authentic artist, as opposed to those who practice the simplified tatwîr, which has evolved in a more western spirit.

Maddahâhîn Egyptians are particularly fascinating in that their religiousness is based in popular inspiration. Even if some of them has a complete religious education such as Ahmad Barrayn, who studied three years at the Islamic University of Al Azhar in Cairo (where he received a diploma for his composition based on the qasîdah Moussa), the poetic songs that they compose in a semi-classic language (often eluding to an ancient madîh with which they are familiar) are closer to legends as traditional moral tales that they are to the Koran of the Hadiths (transcribed witness accounts of the life of the Prophet). The repertory of the maddâh is thus made up of several qasîdah - a rhythmic and measured poetic genre the most valued by the fervently religious-.

Imbued with a fanciful reminiscence of the ancient chant of the pre-islamic desert, the qasîdah, by its very narrative nature is the cornerstone by which a moralist discourse, rich in metaphor, is transmitted. The way in which it functions resembles a parable. Its metric construction, which in turn have their roots in the ancient Bedouin tradition.

The qasîdah is generally introduced by a mawâl (pl. mawàwîl): this poetic style whose origins date back to the 8th Century follows certain rules based on ancient genre, basît, 4 hemstitches with similar rhymes. Having become more and more popular in Egypt as the centuries have passed, it can either be sung in the popular or semi-classic language.
During the mawwâl, this rhythmically free poetic introduction, the broken and husky voice of Ahmad Barrayn which matches his physical presence takes over with its subtle use of several modes, contrasting dramatically with the ghârb, a long reed flute reserved for this style of singing. At first the singing is tense and constrained, buy slowly it blossoms into all-out fullnedd. Holding the tambourine (riqq) close to his face, his fingers slap and slide across its skin, and the cymbalettes of the little tambourine are in constant dialogue with the naqrazân (or naqayrat), the copper timpani, whose stretched skin is beat against with drumsticks made of palm branches. This percussion instrument remains the foundation of the religious vocal universe of Upper-Egypt.

When Ahmad Barrayn raises his face to the sky one thinks od Delacroix's orientalist paintings, it is as if he is standing in the square of an Upper-Egyptian village singing to the stars he can only imagine. In one of his mawwâl he says that "everyone cries for his night".

Extremely cultivated, he can sing two types of madîh, both the classic Arabic version, most often composed by an ancient master and Sufi poet, as well as the more popular madîh, sung with the cultural and linguistic specificity's, sa·îdi, of Upper-Egypt.

Girona and Al-Andalus at a time of difficult co-existence Dolors Bramon, professora Universitat de Barcelona

It is established that Girona was under Moslem rule for some 60 years, a period beginning at a date at some point between 713 and 716 A.D., when the city recognised Andalusian authority, and continuing until the year 785 when of its own accord it transferred allegiance to Charlemagne. On both occasions the population accepted the ruling power of the moment without question.

The heroic sieges of Girona were to come soon after, as the city and its surrounding territory became the target of attacks by vanguard troops of the Andalusian army. The city held out against the first recorded attack, that of the summer of 793, and the enemy moved on to Narbonne, although it is established that war machines were used to breach the walls and inflict damage on the towers. Buildings outside the walls were burnt down, and farms in the surrounding area sacked and destroyed. The booty in men and goods taken to Cordoba was enormous.

The city walls must have been restored or rebuilt, as another siege, now dated from 31 May to 29 June, 827, was also successfully resisted. The dates of this siege appear in an Arabic chronicle of the 11th. century, lost during the 1950s but recently rediscovered.

This chronicle contains two place names which have previously been erroneously interpreted as Narbonne and the Cerdanya; correct reading of the names disproves the theory of a later attack on Girona, or at least on that part of the city's territory through which the army would have had to pass during its advance on Narbonne. The place names in question should be read as Ausona (the present town of Vic) and Taradell, both of which were attacked between 22 August and 20 September, 841.

After a third attack by vanguard troops, about which we know so little as to be unsure even of its exact date (851 or the following year?), the city suffered no more aggression from the Andalusian army, and the people enjoyed a period of peace for more than 133 years. However, we have recently discovered that a campaign which some scholars had situated at Marseille, Nice or other parts of the Gulf of Lions in fact took place in the Girona region. Once again a correctly identified place name has allowed us to establish the correct sequence of events. A caliphal squadron of 40 ships armed with Greek fire and other systems of attack sailed from Almer¡a and called at Majorca to take on supplies. On 1 July, 935, the squadron left Majorca and sailed to the Catalan coast where it attacked Salses and Empúries. A flotilla of 15 lighter vessels then sailed up the River Ter under cover of night and reached the area now known as Costa Roja. The Pla de Campdor… was laid waste, and on the return voyage the crews sacked Mas Massanet, close by Torroella de Montgr¡, together with Mont-Ras and Pals. The flotilla then joined the rest of the squadron and all the ships moved south. On 16 July they reached the Llobregat Plain, where they fought with a Christian detachment which suffered serious losses.

This new reading of the place names, which are seriously disfigured in the only Arabic chronicle which relates this episode, implies that the ships sailed far enough upstream to reach a point close to Girona. To myself and R. Lluch En anglès seria més normal escriure el nom sencer. this does not seem too unlikely a proposition, as certain arms of the Ter were fully navigable, as is proved by the sacking of the Augustinian monastery at Ullà in 1178 by a flotilla of Andalusian ships which had also set out from Majorca. Is it too risky to suggest navigation so far upstream? Colleagues in the disciplines of geography, history and Arab studies have accepted our hypothesis, and now we are lucky enough to have further evidence in its favour.

Archaeological excavations carried out by Josep Maria Nolla and his team at Camp del Congost have discovered granaries from the lower republican period which were used to store grain that was later taken down the Ter to the port at Empúries, and then on to Rome. These granaries, which were located close to the river, but high enough above water level to keep their contents in good condition, must have had a connection with the oppidum on the mountain at Sant Julià Later there was a fortress which continued in use under the Visigoths and until the occupation of Girona by the Franks. While this fortress obviously served to keep watch over the Via Augusta, we can now give it the added function of safeguarding the river traffic for which we have proof in the discovery of the Iberian granaries and the chronicle of Andalusian attacks.

The last recorded asseifa was led by the redoubtable Andalusian warrior, al-Mansur, who attacked Girona after rasing the castle of Mont Far at Llinars del Vallès. On his return he destroyed Odena Castle, situated in the hollow of the same name (982 A.D.).