The Art of Al Tashah Shah

One of the women's arts performed on happy occasions — such as betrothals, weddings, the celebration of a child's birth and other joyful social occasions — and usually performed by (professional troupes) invited by the hosts of the occasion and rewarded by the guests through the money they throw into a metal vessel that the troupe places at a central spot among the guests. In this art the solo singing is — for the most part — by the troupe's leader (aqida), though in some troupes one of the young men performs it. The singing is — essentially — in praise of the person being celebrated and the extolling of his good lineage, and may be in chaste love poetry, in verse usually of the "mathlooth" type, and may be of the "mukhammas", "masdoos" or "musabba" type. The singing is accompanied by clapping from the group of responding women, and a drum either from the singing aqida or from two men who beat the kasir and the rahmani. The origin of this genre goes back to the arts of the desert (badia), where they used to take up the singing of memories, which gave it a sorrowful character and a slow rhythm. It then moved — afterwards — to the "hadar" (settled folk), where the purposes of the solo singing changed to being for a man and not a woman, especially if he was the creative poet of the singing group.