The Art of Al Shobani

Also one of the sailors' arts, combining work and entertainment, which they practise wherever they land in a port. The drum sounds in a quick, lively triple rhythm, and the sailors move to its phrases in a light, swaying, exquisite movement as they carry some of what they have unloaded from the ship — goods, or logs of rare wood, or the ship's mast if that station is the end of the return voyage. The singing in "Al Shobani" is solo for the leader (aqid), and the body of sailors respond to him, along with those receiving them who carry in their hands flowering tree branches, joining the sailors in a procession that circles the celebration place several times before departing in a joyful, joy-giving singing, dancing march. The art of "Al Shobani" is performed — currently — in the form of a singing procession in which the three traditional drums are beaten: the kasir, the rahmani and the masandu, and a "naghar" type of pipe may be blown, the participants walking in short, parallel, transverse rows carrying flowering tree branches as they chant the songs of greeting and congratulation on a religious or national occasion, raising the flags until they reach the celebration place.