Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah, also known as Sirat Bani Hilal or Taghribat Bani Hilal (Arab script: سيرة بني هلال, translit. Sīrat Banī Hilāl), is an oral poem, also known as the Hilali epic, recounts the saga of the Bani Hilal Bedouin tribe and its migration from the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa in the tenth century. The longest notable version contains 1,000,000 lines; the poet could sing this version for about 100 hours. The tribe held sway over a vast territory in central North Africa for more than a century before being annihilated by Moroccan rivals. As one of the major epic poems that developed within the Arabic folk tradition, the Hilali is the only epic still performed in its integral musical form. The story, once widespread throughout the Middle East, has disappeared from everywhere, except Egypt.
The Story
The epic was inspired by historic events. The Hilali leader, Abu Zayd al-Hilali, simply mentioned as "Abu Zayd", is given an epic-styled birth: his mother, barren for eleven years, prays at a magic spring and invokes a black bird in hopes that the might become pregnant, saying "Give me a boy like this bird, / Black like this bird". Her request is taken literally and so her son is born with black skin, and because of that he and his mother are cast out by his people. In the Arab epic, black skin is a sure sign of service status, but since he is noble is a born warrior and outcast simultaneously. His fate is to unite all the Bedouin tribes so they can conquer the Maghreb; before he can do that he must overcome two enemies: Khatfa, a Jewish leader, and Handal, an evil Muslim king.
Performance
Since the fourteenth century, the Hilali epic has been performed by poets who sing the verses while playing a percussion instrument or a two-string spike fiddle (rabab). Performances take place at weddings, circumcision ceremonies and private gatherings, and may last for days. In the past, practitioners were trained within family circles and performed the epic as their only means of income. These professional poets began their ten-year apprenticeships at the age of five. To this day, students undergo special training to develop memory skills and to master their instruments. Nowadays, they must also learn to inject improvisational commentary in order to render plots more relevant to contemporary audiences. The number of performers of the Hilali Epic is dwindling due to competition from contemporary media and to the decreasing number of young people able to commit to the rigorous training process. Pressured by the lucrative Egyptian tourist industry, poets tend to forsake the full Hilali repertory in favor of brief passages performed as part of folklore shows.