El Mutakallimûn

At a time when a handful of extremists are committing unspeakable atrocities in a perverted jihadist interpretation of Islam, Souad Massi has created a heartfelt tribute to the profound traditions of tolerance, learning, humanity and intellect that historically lie at the core of the Muslim region. The mutakallimûn of the title were the enlightened poets, philosophers, scientists and thinkers of Andalucía that made Muslim civilisation a beacon of European culture and scholarship more than a millennium ago. Setting 1,000-year-old texts to music and adding 20th-century poems from Tunisia, Iraq and Lebanon that maintain the tradition of Islam as the religion of love, Massi delivers a much-needed counterweight to the violent images we see nightly on TV.

Although she sings throughout in Arabic, fittingly she has set out to make the record sound global. ‘Bima’ and ‘Hadani’ are exquisitely sung acoustic-troubadour guitar ballads; ‘Lestou Adri’ bubbles to a Caribbean reggae-lite beat; ‘Saimtou’ is a string-laden slice of Europop; and ‘El Houriya’ is Californian folk-rock with an Algerian accent. It is only the oud-laden ‘El Khaylou Wa el Laylou’ and ‘Saaiche’ that evoke the souks and casbahs of the Maghreb. Musically there are so many ideas that almost inevitably they don’t all work. But the vision is bold, the ambition is heroic and arguably Massi has never sounded in better voice.