In the cultures of the Horn of Africa and adjacent regions of the Middle East,"found in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Arabia, south and south-west Iran, Egypt and Sudan." Zār (, ) is the term for a spirit assumed to possess individuals, mostly women, and to cause discomfort or illness. The so-called zār ritual or zār cult is the practice of reconciling the possessing spirit and the possessed individual. Zār possession is often considered lifelong and the rituals associated with it are a form of adorcism, though some have falsely attributed it as an exorcism rite because it involves possession. It is similar to the Maghreb's Hamadsha, Hausa Animism, and various African Traditional religions, such as Voodou.
Zār is also a form of predominantly (not solely) women's entertainment that has become popular in the contemporary urban culture of Cairo and other major cities of the Islamic world. Participants have compared it to how those not involved in zār go to the discotheque. Zār gatherings involve food and musical performances and they culminate in ecstatic dancing, lasting between three and seven nights.
The tanbūra, a six-string bowl lyre,Makris 2000, p. 52 is often used in the gathering. Other instruments include the manjur, a leather belt sewn with many goat hooves, and various percussion instruments.
The term zār may be used to mean various different things in the places the belief is found: it may refer to the hierarchy of zār spirits, an individual spirit of this type, the ceremonies concerning these spirits, the possessed person, or the troubles caused by these spirits.
History
Scholarship in the early 20th century attributed Horn of African origin to the custom, although there were also proposals suggesting Persian or other origins. Thus, Frobenius suggested that zār and bori, a comparable cult in Hausa culture, were ultimately derived from a Persian source. Modarressi (1986) suggests a Persian etymology for the term.Taghi Modarressi, "The Zar Cult in South Iran," in R. Prince, ed., Trance and Possession States, Montreal, 1986, pp. 149-55. The first known instance of the word zār used in Ethiopia to refer to a possessing spirit is from a 16th-century Ge'ez manuscript. However, it is unknown if zār rituals were being practiced in 16th century Ethiopia (Abyssinia), and if so, what form they took. The first record of zār ceremonies is from the 1800s in Ethiopia, however by this time the ceremonies were already elaborate and being practiced in a large area, indicating these ceremonies had been practiced for sone time before recording.
Some also strongly feel the practice originated in West Africa among native religious curing practices there.
The origin of the word is unclear; Walker (1935) suggested the name of the city of Zara in northern Iran, or alternatively the Arabic root z-w-r "to visit" (for the possessing spirit "visiting" the victim). The Encyclopedia of Islam of 1934 favoured an Ethiopian origin of the word.cited after Fakhouri (1968), p. 49. Hager El Hadidi suggested a possible Hebrew origin from zwr (in Hebrew meaning to "turn aside, deviate, go away") or zr ("one who distances or removes himself"), owed to Jewish craftsmen in the Red Sea area. Another theory is that it derives from the name of the supreme deity of the pagan Kushites.
The practice allegedly originated in Harar, Ethiopia via Sheikh Abadir, and was introduced by Harari and Somali women to Aden in Yemen.
According to Messing (1958) the zar cult existed "in the old Muslim suburb (Addis Alam) at the bottom of the hill, now a slum even by local standards...inhabited largely by poor Amhara, half-Sudanese Muslims, and ex-slaves, who constitute most of the members of the zar cult." A late 19th-century traveler describes the Abyssinian "Sár" cultists sacrificing a hen or goat and mixing the blood with grease and butter, in the hopes of eliminating someone's sickness. The concoction was then hidden in an alley, in the belief that all who passed through the alley would take away the patient's ailment.William Cornwallis Harris, The Highlands of Aethiopia, volume 2, p. 291
Mirzai Asl (2002) suggests that the introduction to Iran likewise took place in the 19th century (Qajar period) by Africans brought to Iran via the Indian ocean slave trade.Behnaz A. Mirzai Asl, "African Presence in Iran: Identity and its Reconstruction in the 19th and 20th Centuries," Revue française d'histoire d'Outre Mer 89, 2002, pp. 229-46. Natvig (1988) reports that the zār cult "served as a refuge for women and effeminate men" in the Sahel (Sudan) region under Islamic rule. It is thought to have reached Egypt because of the trafficking of Ethiopian slaves in the 19th century, particularly Oromo women. They were taken for the purpose of bearing more children for Egyptian men, and would be set free upon getting pregnant. The children would be considered legitimate inheritors.
In certain locations, individual zār leaders may be well known, respected, and influential for generations after death. One such example is that of Sennar zār and Zainab. She was a prominent woman in Sennar zār bori and effectively its founder. She was born in Omdurman around 1880, likely to Buggi, a likely enslaved or formerly enslaved man in the military. It is also possible she was Buggi's own slave. Neither of her parents are remembered as being involved in zār. She traveled to Egypt at a young age alongside retreating Ottoman troops, and became attached to the household of Osman Murab, an Ababda agha, as a slave. Because of this Zainab was sometimes called al-Murabiyya (the Murab woman). She had a daughter while still in Egypt. In Egypt she came into contact with zār, and bori is generally understood as having come from Egypt by those in Sennar. One woman posits zār was originally Baggara, and was brought to Egypt by them and then to Sudan. Her first husband was Ababda. She later met an Egyptian soldier of Sudanese origin, and the two left Egypt. Zainab and Mursal were sent to Makwar (renamed Sennar in 1931) in the early 20th century. This was one of the colonies created to reduce the size of the army, where soldiers of enslaved and de-tribalized background were given land with suitable water sources, to farm. The women did a great deal of the farming as the men were still expected to take part in various government matters, and were only allowed to bring one wife with them, leaving their other wives scattered, necessitating travel to visit them. Zainab and Mursal had twins, but soon separated. After Mursal's death, Zainab married a man named Marajan, a nomad well known for practicing zār nugara. They had three sons together. Marajan could reportedly drink boiling water and eat burning coals because of the power he had from nugara. Zainab fell ill with zār, and upon finding it was not the kind he knew, Marajan took her to a bori practitioner. She did an apprenticeship of seven years before being inducted as bori leader, then moved in with her son Mohammed, who did nugara. Each of them learned from each other, despite practicing different zār forms. Mohammed died young after challenging a corrupt sorcerer who worked with evil spirits, and no one took up nugara after him. Zainab seems to have particularly innovated zār as an avenue for remembering and history. She also used zār to treat people, network them together, and offer entertainment and respite. Zainab died in 1960, and eventually had five successors, who in turn have produced five successors.
Varieties There are three varieties of zar in Ethiopia, though this distinction is not necessarily named by Ethiopians themselves, simply viewing the version they know as zār and not necessarily knowing of the others. "Conversion" zār is the most common, involving women and trance. It is termed as such after the "conversion hysterical reaction", not after religious conversion. Ceremonies often occur in conjunction with holidays. Seer zār is less common, and emphasizes fortune telling. Unlike the other two, it is predominantly male. Its events occur regularly throughout the year. Group therapy zār is least common, and has a leader, a zār doctor or bala Zar, helping a group of others who are possessed. It occurs regularly, but may also have special holiday events. Different regions tend to generally favor one variety over another, but in plenty of cases a region's zār will have elements from more than one type.
Somali saar has many sub-varieties, including mingis, boorane, sharax, wadaaddoo, and numbi.
In Sudan, a distinction is made (and emphasized by practitioners) between the zār bori ( or burei, or boré), practiced widely in Northern Sudan by free born women, and the comparatively more obscure zār tumbura, practiced by the descendants of slaves from South and Western Sudan and the Nuba hills, in Khartoum, poor neighborhoods, and shanty towns. Originally, tumbura had a military association. In recent times, some tumbura practitioners from the Nuba hills have selectively borrowed from bori practices, as the social circumstances for tumbura practices have changed. The practices are similar in that they use drums, Islamic praise chants for religious figures such as Muhammad, and the way possession is acted out in trance is similar.
In tumbura, it is viewed as an indigenous practice used by Non-Arab Sudanis of slave descent. The many zār groups fall under the central authority of a high male officiant, and there are male and female hierarchical lines (though recently it has become a female dominant practice due to Arabization and Islamization). The therapeutic practices occur before any public rites, and once performed the spirit becomes fully benevolent. There is only one spirit that takes many forms, and it is associated with the Self. Tumbura may refer to the spirit or the practices.
Tumbura adherents claim zār was created by Muhammad or Bilal (with the latter curing the former's grandsons and inverting the master-slave power dynamic, as tumbura adherents view Bilal as a Sudani), or both (with the former hearing the latter play his tanbūra and finding the sound so pleasing that he thought it should be used to cure the sick). Some claim the tumbura came from Arabia as a result through certain cities, and others say it came from the Red Sea area. Simultaneously to one of these origins, or another, some claim tumbura originated in the "99 peaks" of the Nuba hills.
By contrast in bori, it is seen as coming from Egypt or elsewhere and is practiced mostly by Arab Sudanis (though those of slave descent also practice it). Zār groups are independent of each other and largely female (with smaller numbers of homosexual and marginalized men among practitioners as well). The public rites are the therapeutic practice, and must be done periodically to keep peace with the spirits. There are many spirits, with different groups reporting different numbers, associated with Otherness (i.e. stereotypes and impressions of that which is not Sudanese Arab). Bori only refers to the practices, not the spirits (which are called zār).
The zār in Sudan likely has never been homogeneous, and El Hadidi emphasizes the flexible nature of zār across Africa in her own writing.
Among extant varieties of Sudanese zār cults that receive little attention are zār Sawāknī or zār Sawākiniyya (the zār from the area of Suakin, also called Dalūka), practiced mostly by the Beja. There is also the zār Nyamānyam (the zār of the Azande)Makris 2000, p. 12-13 which practitioners view as related to both the zār bori and zār tumbura. Rather than the tanbūra, they use the nugāra (a drum). Different origins are claimed for their zār; some say it developed after the Azande were brought north as slaves, and others say it was originally introduced by a man from the Dega tribe, who was originally from Wau. Zār Nyamānyam may sometimes be called zār nugāra.