Presentation

Presentation

Hassaniya culture constitutes a multifaceted cultural formation in which language, social organization, symbolic systems, and spiritual practices intersect. This complexity makes it one of the most vibrant expressions of intangible cultural heritage in the Saharan-African world. Emerging from long-standing historical interactions among Bidhan communities across Mauritania, Algeria, Western Sahara, and parts of northern Mali and Niger, Hassaniya culture has developed through shared linguistic practices, religious traditions, poetry, music, and artistic expression. These elements have shaped a collective identity that is both cohesive and internally diverse.

Today, Hassaniya heritage extends well beyond its original geographical framework and has become a key focus of scholarly inquiry and cultural policy initiatives concerned with heritage preservation, identity politics, and the construction of collective memory. In a region marked by overlapping questions of belonging, authority, and symbolic power, Hassaniya culture offers a privileged lens through which to examine broader processes of social continuity and change in Saharan societies.

The significance of Hassaniya heritage lies not in its consideration as a static or isolated local tradition, but rather as a living cultural resource embedded within Maghrebi-African historical dynamics. It provides a space for rethinking cultural development, social inclusion, and modes of symbolic production in desert environments. As a central component of intangible cultural heritage, Hassaniya culture reflects the historical depth and cultural resilience of Bidhan society. At its core stands the Hassaniya dialect, which functions as the primary medium of cultural transmission. Drawing on Classical Arabic, Sanhaja Berber linguistic substrates, and a range of African lexical influences, Hassaniya embodies a long history of intercultural contact and exchange. This linguistic richness is expressed through oral genres such as poetry, proverbs, folktales, and narrative storytelling.

Scholarly engagement with Hassaniya society and culture has been shaped by the contributions of several key researchers. Pierre Bonte’s work on social organization and tribal structures remains foundational, while Abdel Wadoud Ould Cheikh has offered critical insights into religion, authority, and social change. Sophie Caratini has examined political and social transformations within Bidhan communities, Corinne Fortier has explored questions of gender, the body, and Islamic legal discourse, and Philippe Marchesin has focused on symbolism and social conflict. Earlier colonial-era writings by Paul Marty constitute some of the first documentary sources on Hassaniya society, though contemporary scholarship approaches them with necessary methodological caution.

This thematic issue of Turath adopts a multidisciplinary approach to Hassaniya culture, bringing together perspectives from linguistics, social and cultural anthropology, ethnography, and history. Our aim is to explore how identity is articulated and negotiated in a social space shaped by oral memory, tribal affiliations, and forms of popular religiosity, and how cultural practices are continually reconfigured in response to shifting environmental and socio-political conditions.

The issue opens with an article by Fatima Mohamed Mahmoud Abdel Wahab (Mauritania), entitled “Azawān between Seduction and Moral Guidance : Reflections on Artistic Discourse in Hassaniya Culture”. The author examines the interplay between aesthetics and ideology in Hassaniya cultural expression, focusing on how tensions surrounding music are articulated through the discourses of religious and artistic elites. The study traces changing attitudes toward musical practices-oscillating between prohibition and acceptance, moral suspicion and aesthetic appreciation-ultimately highlighting forms of negotiation and coexistence shaped by everyday social realities and spiritual needs. Music thus appears as a site of ongoing dialogue between the transcendent and the lived experience.

From a linguistic perspective, Zber Ghali and Nani Abdallahi (Western Sahara) contribute an article entitled “An Introduction to the Hassaniya Dialect”. They analyze Hassaniya as the outcome of historical interaction between Arabic-speaking groups (notably the Maʿqil and Bani Hassan tribes), Sanhaja Berber linguistic traditions, and diverse African influences. Emphasizing its role as a vehicle of oral culture in a largely non-literate context, the authors show how Hassaniya preserves poetry, folktales, proverbs, riddles, and metaphorical expressions, thereby sustaining a shared cultural identity across a wide transregional space.

Mebarka Bellahcen (Algeria) examines Bidhan music, commonly known as Azawān, as a central cultural practice in Saharan societies. Through “a socio-anthropological reading of Michel Guignard’s Azawān : Music, Prestige, and Pleasure among the Bidhan”, she highlights music’s role in mediating human relationships with a desert environment characterized by spatial vastness, distinctive temporal rhythms, and symbolic interactions between people and nature. Her analysis positions Azawān as a key entry point for understanding the aesthetic and social logics of Hassaniya culture.

In the domain of oral literature, Zber Ghali (Western Sahara) focuses on folk narratives as a core component of the collective memory of Hassaniya-speaking communities. Transmitted orally across generations, these stories convey systems of values, beliefs, and social norms that articulate Sahrawi cultural identity. In his article “Folk Tales in Western Sahara”, the author classifies major narrative genres, discusses their pedagogical and recreational functions, and draws attention to their stylistic features. He also warns of the risk of cultural erosion in the face of contemporary transformations, calling for systematic documentation and preservation efforts.

The issue concludes with a contribution by Amina Abdullah Salem (Egypt), entitled “Palm Tree Symbolism and the Hermeneutics of Meaning in Popular Proverbs”. Through an analysis of palm imagery in Egyptian proverbial discourse, the author explores how everyday language encodes collective values related to life, labor, and social ideals. The article illustrates how popular expressions function as repositories of shared experience and as tools for communication, moral reflection, and cultural socialization.

Overall, this issue goes beyond the presentation of specialized studies on Hassaniya culture. It invites readers into a broader conversation with the memory of the desert and the lived realities of its people. By engaging with language, music, storytelling, and artistic expression, the contributions collectively illuminate a cultural world rich in symbolic meaning and aesthetic creativity-one that continues to adapt and endure despite social and environmental change. Therefore, this scientific effort is an invitation to reflect on this heritage as a living asset of Arab and African Saharan identity, worthy of research, listening, and preservation, and also worthy of being reintroduced to future generations with a contemporary eye and an awareness that values the roots and keeps pace with the future.

Mebarka Bellahcen