On Monday, June 27th, I encountered my first experience with Arabic music. It was Fairuz’s حبیتک بالصیف (I loved you in the summer) and it blew me away.
For a new student of Arabic who was already spending 4-5 hours everyday outside of class in learning the language, this was a song simple enough for me to understand (with some struggle!) and to fall in love with. Since then, I’ve listened to Fairuz’s beautiful voice everyday when I wake up, at work after class, and before I fall asleep. My listening skills have come to appreciate her words and every time I listen to her I recognize just a bit more of what I have already studied. Of course, after the initial euphoria that her music brought me, I have returned to the original purpose which led me to pursue the study of Arabic- that of early and medieval Arabic poetry.
I was lucky enough to stumble across a beautiful Sudanese rendition of the Ibn Al-Farid’s قصیدۃ الخمریة (The Wine-Song). My searches on YouTube for the same did not lead anywhere, so I sat down and transcribed the verses that appear in this rendition and uploaded them on to YouTube. I recommend using the Matheson Trust website (linked in the sentence prior to the last one) to access the English translation. I am grateful that they had this online, and I hope that through my upload on YouTube more people will have the chance to appreciate the beautiful poetry of Ibn Al-Farid.
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