Mawsim

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Arabic. (January 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Arabic article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Arabic Wikipedia article at [[:ar:وعدة]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ar|وعدة}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Part of a series on Islam Sufism
Tomb of Abdul Qadir Gilani, Baghdad, Iraq
Ideas Abdal Al-Insān al-Kāmil Baqaa Dervish Dhawq Fakir Fana Hal Haqiqa Ihsan Irfan Ishq Karamat Kashf Lataif Manzil Ma'rifa Maqam Murid Murshid Nafs Nūr Qalandar Qutb Silsila Sufi cosmology Sufi metaphysics Sufi philosophy Sufi poetry Sufi psychology Salik Tazkiah Wali Yaqeen
Practices Anasheed Dhikr Haḍra Muraqabah Qawwali Sama Whirling Ziyarat
Sufi orders Alians Ba 'Alawi Bektashi Qadiri Chishti Naqshbandi Shadhili Suhrawardi Rifa`i Khalwati Rahmani Badawi Desuqi Tijani Darqawi Idrisi Senusi Bayrami Jelveti Maizbhandari Malamati Mouridi Sülaymaniyya Salihiyya Azeemia Kubrawi Mevlevi Shattari Uwaisi Hurufi Ni'matullāhī Nuqtavi Qalandari Safavi Zahabiya Akbari Galibi Haqqani Anjuman Inayati Issawiyya Jerrahi Madari Mahdavi Noorbakshi Zahedi Zikri
List of sufis Notable early Notable modern Singers
Topics in Sufism Tawhid Sharia Tariqa Haqiqa Ma'rifa Art History Sufi music Persecution Ziyarat
Islam portal
v t e

Mawsim or moussem (Arabic: موسم), waada, or raqb, is the term used in the Maghreb to designate an annual regional festival in which worshippers usually combine the religious celebration of local Marabouts or Sufi Tariqas, with various festivities and commercial activities. These are very popular events, often attended by people from very distant places.^[1][2]

Mawsim is an Arabic word whose first meaning is 'season'.^{[citation needed]}

The origin of the name waada comes from the word waad meaning "meeting" and "gathering".^[3]

The name raqb indicates^[how?] the pedestrian and equestrian procession of the murids (novices) from all sides towards the place of the customary or ritual festival.^[3]

The mawsim festivities are for the most part cultural events linked to the harvest, to Muslim saints or to nature, so these local festivals are mainly religious but also secular.^[4] The Palestinian mawsim at Nabi Musa took place in spring, a season used for popular holidays since pagan antiquity.^[5]

The mawsim is an originally religiously motivated festival pilgrimage in the Maghreb in honor of a saint (sheikh, sidi or Moulay.^[6]

In the Berber areas of the Maghreb, almost every village had^{[clarification needed]} its saint or marabout and a small domed tomb or mausoleum (qubba) of the same name.^[7] This feast or ritual of the marabout is celebrated once a year and worshipers come to it from places far away.^[8] Some marabout buildings are still being maintained and whitewashed with white paint every few years.^[9]

Many do not really have a link to a saint or founder, but are annual regional meetings designated for a social or economic purpose.^[10]

The religious practices relating to the mawsim are based on the tilawa (ritual recitation) of the complete and integral sixty hizbs of the Quran, the Sufi salka.^[11]

A collective recitation of the al-Burda poem adorns the festivities to praise Prophet Muhammad before the start of the Mawlid (Prophet's birthday) celebration and before visiting his tomb in the Prophet's Mosque in Medina.^[12]

Collective catering around large couscous dishes is a central quality of these festivities in order to socialize people attending the mawsim around traditional culinary foods in addition to the recitation of the Quran, Dhikr and Qasidas.^[13]

The annual gathering of the descendants of the marabout in this festivity is an opportunity to strengthen family and tribal ties between these cousins, and also to establish family alliances with other siblings and tribes.^[14]

These religious, sociological and gastronomic aspects make it possible to weld the cultural and existential breaches of patriarchal societies and to preserve the intangible heritage of populations, especially rural ones.^[15]

Group salah (prayer), collective tarteel, team tasting of dishes and couscous, choral singing of Al-Burda, appreciation of the artistic performances of fantasia, humming of poems and qasidas, as well as other activities, make mawsim a proven factor of social cohesion and individual appeasement.^[16]

The religiously related festivals are often based on the Islamic calendar and thus take place in different hijri months each year changing.^[17]

The mawsim is sometimes accompanied by the equestrian games called fantasias and other cultural peculiarities.^[18] Mawsims or fantasias include equestrian games as a tradition of regional pilgrimages linked to one another in Islamic times.^[19]

Many of the Algerian fantasia troupes perform horse exhibition shown several times a year in different cultural events or mawsims, such as the Celebration of Sidi Ahmed al-Majzoob in Naâma, the Horse celebration in Tiaret, or the Celebration of Sidi Yahia Bensafia in Tlemcen.^[20]

The most important Algerian moussem of the territory is that of the oasis of Béni Abbès in the region of Bechar.^[21]

Tan-Tan Moussem is a traditional annual gathering of Berber^[22] tribes from southern Morocco and the wider Northwest Africa in the southwest Moroccan town of Tan-Tan.^[23] In culture, a moussem is "a type of annual fair with economic, cultural and social functions."^[23]

Look up موسم, moussem, or mevsim in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Hajj, annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca
• Islamic saint or wali
• Sebiba, Ashura Festival event and dance of the Algerian Tuaregs with black African roots
• Tweeza, Algerian Sufi term for voluntary cooperation in doing a good deed for individuals or communities
• Wezeea, Algerian term for a rural Sufi cultural custom
• Zawiyas in Algeria, Sufi religious buildings honouring the memory of patron saints
• Ziyarat, pilgrimage to venerated Islamic sites