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KHALWA, an evening of Sufi poetry, film and music, will take place at 7pm on Wednesday 10 March at the American University in Cairo's Falaki Theatre. Featuring tanboor and oud music by Ahmed Sami and a dramatisation of Rumi poetry by Cherine El-Ansary, the evening will also involve Sufi poetry readings by Abdallah Schleifer, Shems and Nuri Friedlander.
It is arguably the screening of Shems Friedlander's documentary, Al-Mahya, Come to Life, that constitutes the evening's highlight, however. Focussing on the activities of the Demerdache Khalwati Sufi order in Cairo, the film is the first visual record of the ritual of khalwa, the spiritual retreat during which, in the middle of the month of Shaaban, mureeds of the order have for at least 500 years isolated themselves in small cells to fast and pray and invoke the sacred name.
