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The Problem of the Etymology of "Rebetis" and "Rebetika"
by Ed Emery
[4,888
words]
The
etymology of the words "rebetika" and "rebetis" has been a
puzzle for half a century, and remains so.
In the course of work on a separate project (related to Arabic
influences in and around Dante's Vita Nuova) I believe that I have found
some possibilities of an answer.
Namely a derivation from the Arabic "ribaat".
This potential derivation seems not to have been examined in the
available Greek literature on rebetika. This would seem to reflect the
historically engendered and wilful ignorance of Greeks as regards Islamic,
Ottoman and Arabic culture.
OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPOSED DERIVATIONS
Stathis Gauntlett, in his thesis (1978), went looking for a possible
Turkish/Arabic derivation of "rebetis". He wrote: "The only
instance of 'rebet' that I have found is in the 14th century Cypriot 'Assizes',
where to judge by the context it appears to denote a type of imported liquor
thus DuCange glosses the term: 'Vox Arabica, potus species'. I have not,
however, found another attestation of 'rebet' as such in Arabic."
In
my "Songs of the Greek Underworld" I list various other potential
derivations that people have suggested over the years. [Note 1]
These
include:
"Rembet",
an old Turkish word meaning "of the gutter"; "rebenٍk" (pl. rebia'ta),
a Serb word meaning "rebel"; "rab" (also reb,
ruba'a, arba'a) Arabic and Persian words meaning variously
"four", "quatrain", "God", "Lord";
"rab", a Hebrew word, from which derives "rabbi";
"remvastiko", a Greek word meaning
"meditative", deriving from "remvo" or "remvazo",
meaning "I wander". [Note 2]
There
is also the well-known, sporadically occuring and habitually unsourced
attribution to "rebet asker" ("an irregular
soldier"), to which I shall return at the end of this paper.
PICKING UP THE SUFI CONNECTION
The
rebetes habitually referred to themselves as "dervishes"
and their
hashish dens as the "tekke". Both of these are terms from the
Sufi/Dervish tradition. It is worth examining whether the term
"rebetis" might derive from that same cultural area. [Note 3]
This
requires us to go back and look at history.
In
the Dervish orders, the master was a revered sheikh. The pupil lived with him,
shared his religious practices and was instructed by him. In times of war
against the infidel, the pupil might accompany him to the threatened frontier
and fight under his eye.
The
term for this student who combined the religious life with the military was
"murabit" ("one who pickets his horse on a hostile
frontier"), derived from the root r-b-t. The Arabic "ribat"
means "a frontier fort". By association with the militant
religious orders, it then comes to mean a "monastery". [In post-Arabic
Spanish this becomes "rapita", a term which still exists today
in Spanish place-names.]
"Ribats were an Islamic creation small forts
in frontier areas occupied solely by warriors who had dedicated themselves for
a year or two to the defence of the faith." [The Different Aspects of
Islamic Culture, UNESCO,
Paris, vol. iv, pt. 2 forthcoming]
The
usage was already well established in the 11th Century, when Ibn Arabi of
Murcia speaks, in his "Risalat al-quds" (para 23) of a young
man who left his mother to join a "rapita" in Jerumenha
(Portugal). In fact the dynasty of ascetic emirs from North-West Africa who
ruled Spain in the period 1061-1146 was known as the Murabtis (Almoravids, from
the same r-b-t root), from the fact of their strict religious observance.
[In
North Africa the term "murabit" lives on today as
"marabout", the figure of the holy man, latterly become
wandering musician-cum-philosopher.]
In
Greek culture the qualities of the "rebetis" include poverty, basic
human decency, a philosophical self-view, and a willingness to resort to armed
action. These are the qualities that might have been found in the "murabit".
In
more recent history the root r-b-t takes on further connotations. The
Wehr-Cowan dictionary tells us that the Arabic word "ribaat"
means inn for travellers, caravanserai, hospice (for Sufis or the poor).
I
can provide no direct etymological link, bringing this word into the Greek, but
it seems to me that there is a very interesting case for deriving
"rebetis" from "ribaat" and "murabit".
Namely that the "ribaat" existed as a social structure within
the Ottoman Empire, and Anatolia in general. As such it would have been
familiar to Greeks in Asia Minor. And the musical culture prevailing in such a
cultural space might have been, grosso modo, "ribaatiko".
A TANTALISING POSSIBILITY
There
is a tantalising possibility here. For a while when I began this research I
thought that the terms "ribaat", "murabit" were
more characteristic of Western Islam (Spain, North Africa etc). I had not come
across them with this Sufi/dervish meaning in Turkey/Asia Minor.
Therefore
I hypothesised that it might have been brought across the Mediterranean by the
Sephardi Jews, who were expelled from Spain in the 15th Century and ended up
living under the Ottoman empire. We know (a point made by Gail Holst-Warhaft)
that Jews and Greeks often played together in bands in the Ottoman period
Salonika, Smyrna, Sarajevo and Istanbul were major cross-over places for
Sephardic, Muslim, Orthodox culture. [Note 4] However on the Jewish connection,
unfortunately, the trail soon went cold. [Note 5]
It
is clear that the "ribat" is a historically and culturally
specific institution. It is Arabo-Islamic in its origins. Therefore one
would expect it to go into other languages and other cultures as a loan word,
rather than being translated into local equivalents. [Note 6]
THEN THINGS BEGAN TO MOVE ON
Then
I hit on a refinement which began to look promising.
As
a testimony of the cultural durability of words deriving from the root r-b-t
we have a further development of usages that were apparently widespread in the
Ottoman Empire (and therefore available to Greeks whose habitat that was).
Reckoning
that a Turkish dictionary of the Ottoman period might produce a result for
"rebetis", I consulted "Redhouse's Turkish Dictionary"
(J.W. Redhouse, pub. Bernard Quaritch, London 1880).
Redhouse
gives the meanings with which we are already familiar, from the Arabic:
"Raabita":
A band of union; system; regularity.
"Ribaat":
A strong and secure place, formerly always fortified, where travellers,
caravans, or military expeditions can take up their quarters on their journey,
or on an enemy's frontier.
"Murabit":
One who devotes himself entirely to the service of the faith, either as a
warrior to guard the frontiers against external foes, or as a man of piety to
pray for the welfare of the church and combat internal enemies."
However
what is extremely interesting is the entry for the words "rabıtalı"
and "rabıtasız" (given in Arabic script, which I
cannot reproduce here).
The
first, "rabıtalı", is given as meaning "Good.
Capital. Excellent."
The
second, "rabıtasız", is given as meaning "Bad. Not
as it should be."
[The
Turkish languages places "li" (or "lu" etc) after a word,
to signify "with" something. So, if "sos" means
"sauce", then "soslu" means "with sauce". Placing
"siz" after a words signifies "without" something.]
Therefore
"rabıta-lı" means "with rabita" or
"having rabita". In formal terms (see above translation of
"rabıta") this would mean "having union" or
"having system" or "having regularity".
However
I think, from the general context, that here we may be dealing with a widespread
usage in Ottoman Turkish a phrase meaning "OK, fine, all in order,
rock-steady" etc.
Redhouse
does not set out to give rare usages in his dictionary (no Sufi, no dervish, no
tekke etc). His words are middle-of-the-road common usages, chosen in his capacity
as a fellow of the Ottoman Imperial Academy of Sciences. If we find a word in
Redhouse it is fair to assume that it has currency throughout the Ottoman
Empire (ie throughout Greece, the Balkans and Asia Minor, insofar as Turkish is
spoken there).
And
by that token, it is reasonable to assume that "rabita" has a
very everyday quality. It has "the quality of OK-ness... the quality of
rock-steadiness... the quality of being regular".
The
word "rabita" evidently has a fairly indefinable quality. If
"rabıta-sız" (ie not-having-"rabita")
means "bad, not as it should be", then this implies that "rabıta"
also has a sense of "as it should be"... "comme il faut".
And once again, if applied to persons it could reasonably mean "a proper
person".
[My
Langenscheidt Turkish dictionary obligingly provides "rabıtalı"
as meaning orderly, well-conducted, level-headed person, coherent, consistent.]
Thus
at this point, setting aside for a moment the possible Sufi, philosophical,
dervish etc connotations examined above, it became tempting to think of "rebetis"
as a Greek-derived word from an Ottoman Turkish usage in turn derived from the
Arabic original of "ribaat". It could thus mean a person who
has "rabıta". A "regular", "proper",
"comme il faut" sort of person.
There
is of course the problem of the implied vowel changes (a, i, e etc). How could
"ribaat" transmute into "rebet"? In fact I
think this presents no great problem. For instance the "ı" in
"rabıta", the undotted Turkish "i", is pronounced as
an indefinable "uh" and could very easily become an "e".
The "a" (formerly a long "a") is another problem, which
would have to be looked at. Certainly it is a relatively closed "a".
The
adding of the "-is" to the end of the word is common Greek practice
with Turkish words. For instance "tembel" (Turkish for
"lazy") becomes "tembelis" (Greek slang for a lazy
person).
[In
passing, it would be tempting to think of "rebet" as one of
those words which is massively present in popular culture, but almost entirely
lacking from dictionaries and language-courses. Such as the Arabic kuwayyis,
meaning nice, good, fine, pretty etc spoken on every street corner, but
missing from the "official" language.]
I
now turn to the additional associations of r-b-t with Sufi hostelry,
dervish, inn, caravanserai etc, as noted above.
RIBAT AS INN, STAGING POST, HAN, CARAVANSERAI
Call
in at the bookseller's. He has dusty tomes of Arabic and Persian primers on a
top shelf. At risk of my life I climb his little ladder and pull down a 100-year-old
Persian dictionary. This attests that in 18-th century Persian "rebat"
means an "inn, caravanserai, station for horses". [Note 7]
This
is rather important. Several things have happened here.
First:
We already know that the word Arabic-derived word "ribaat" has
at least a 500-year-long currency from the Western-most to the Eastern-most
shores of the Mediterranean... extending into Ottoman Asia Minor... With this
Persian usage attested, it now extends as far as Persia. For all that time and
in all those domains it has meant (in addition to its other meanings) an inn,
caravanserai, hostelry, staging post for travellers.
Second:
As regards the word's pronunciation, we seem to have moved from the "ribaat"
of the Arabic to the "rebat" of the Persian. A vowel change
has taken place, which brings us tantalisingly close to the "rebet"
of "rebetis".
Third:
"Ribaat" is accented on the second syllable, between the
"b" and the "t". "Rebetis" is also
accented between the "b" and the "t". It feels as if this
fact ought to be significant. I shall examine it further at another time.
Fourth:
We might surmise that the "ribaat-rebat" was one of the key
social institutions of the Asia Minor world. We might surmise that Greeks had
familiar with, and contact with, this social institution. And we might surmise
that (for once) the Greeks do not have their own word for it. In other words,
"ribat" is so culturally specific that it enters Asia Minor
Greek as a loan word rather than being translated into Greek. In the same way
that the culturally-specific American "bar" also comes into Greek as
a loan word rather than in translation as "μπαρ".
The
ribat as "inn, caravanserai, staging post for horses" must
surely have been one of the main places of public socialising available to
local people. It was the place where travellers came and went and merchants
displayed their goods...
We
need historical accounts from the 18th-19th centuries, to be able to fill out
the picture. I imagine that it was largely a male world. I wonder whether there
was an association with prostitution. I wonder whether there was an association
with hashish. I wonder whether people may have smoked and drunk. I wonder
whether stories were told. I wonder whether people may have danced and sung. I
do not have sources to confirm any of this. However, it might provide precisely
the place and the ethos of the "rebetis" and "rebetika".
The
best source for this would probably be the host of painters and drawers who
thronged to the Near East in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, drawing
and painting whatever they found for the Orientalising tastes of Western
Europe. However, for the moment I have no such sources.
[Incidentally,
we would also need to establish the relationship of the word Arabo-Persian word
"ribaat" with the Turkish word "han", which also
means "inn and caravanserai".
Langenscheidt does not give "ribaat" as a Turkish word for
inn, giving instead "han". But Redhouse is perfectly clear
that "ribaat" meant inn, caravanserai etc under the Ottomans.]
Surely
the word "ribaat" as "inn, caravanserai, staging post for
horses" must have been entirely familiar to Asia Minor Greeks. And this
opens a simple possibility:
"Rebetis" could be, purely and simply, a person who
hangs out in a "ribaat".
[I
should point out that there is an irritating and provocative research wrinkle here, as regards a possible
derivation of "rebetis" from the Arabic "kharaba [Note 8].]
A DESCRIPTION OF A RIBAT FROM THE TENTH CENTURY AD
By
way of a diversion. My particular area
of research is "Arabic influences in and around Dante". So there I
am, in the library, quietly minding my own business, browsing through a book on
"Gli Arabi in Italia" (Gabrieli and Scerrato). In a close-printed and
densely-worded Appendix there is a text dating from AD 973 a description of
the island of Sicily by the Iraqi traveller Ibn Hawqal. Translated into Italian
by the wonderful Michele Amari.
Suddenly
my eye lights on the word "ribat". And there, in a description
from a thousand-and-something years ago, we have a definition of the reality
behind the word.
I
quote:
"Giaccion
su la spiaggia del mare molti ribat pieni di sgherri, uomini di mal affare,
gente di sedizione, vecchi e giovani, ribaldi di tante favelle, i quali si son
fatta in fronte la callosita delle prosternazioni per piantarsi li a chiappare
la limosina e sparlar delle donne oneste. La piu parte son mezzani di lordure o
rotti a vizio infame. Riparan costoro nei ribat, come uomini da nulla che sono,
gente senza tetto, [vera] canaglia."
A
rough translation: "Along the shore of the sea, there are many ribats full
of blackguards, low-life characters, people of a seditious nature, young men
and old alike, full of fancy talk. They've got callouses on their foreheads
from prostrating themselves, so that they can put themselves there and demand
charity, and talk badly about honest women. Most of them are pimps for vile
habits, or given to vices. They hang out in the ribats, like the people of no
account that they are... people with no roof over their heads... a real
rabble..." [Note 9]
So
here, wonder of wonders, we have a detailed account of the kind of low-life
characters who might hang out in a "ribat".
Leaving
aside the calloused foreheads [Note 10], it comes pretty close to the
ambivalent characterisation of the "rebetis". And that is in AD 973!
So,
now we have the word "ribat" present as an
"inn-cum-staging-post" in the central Mediterranean in Sicily as
well as being extensively present in the eastern and western Mediterranean.
[Note 11] We have also proven that the term has longevity (its history is now
at least 900-years-long). [Note 12] And we have it as a socialising space for
poor people, sociopaths, homeless people, sexual reprobates, abusers of women
and layabouts. Add song, dance, drinks and smokes and you have a close
approximation to the "rebetes".
TO CONCLUDE
Having
arrived at this point, I say once again that I have no direct
etymological evidence for the transition of "ribat" into the
Greek language as a potential origin of the term "rebetis".
However the circumstantial evidence seems substantial. And certainly deserving
of further analysis.
At
this point I would return to the question of "rebet asker".
Commenting
on an earlier version of this paper Kostas Vlisidis pointed me to an article
[Note 13] in which the author, Kostas Karapotosoglou, argues (as I do) the
derivation of "rebetis" from "ribat". This is
encouraging.
However
Karapotosoglou makes an odd assertion when, at the start of his article, he
specifically negates any possible derivation from "rebet asker".
To my knowledge, "rebet asker" is simply a Turkified
equivalent of the Arabic "ribat askarii", meaning "a
soldier of the ribat". In other words, the "rebet"
which Karapotosoglou rejects is the same word as the "ribat"
which he accepts. Would that we all knew Turkish and Arabic better than we do
!
This
paper is not intended to be conclusive. It is intended to open up terrain. If
anyone has opinions on its contents, I would be very happy to hear from them.
ed.emery@cwcom.net
NOTES
Note
1: Songs of the Greek Underworld, trans. / ed. Ed Emery, Saqi Books,
London 2000.
I
should add that there is also great disagreement over WHEN the term "rebetis-rebetiko"
first enters the Greek language.
In my book I cited the late Ole Smith (a stickler for precision in
research) to the effect that "it can be shown beyond doubt" that the
generic term rebetiko "made its first public appearance as a
musical term among the Greeks in the US". However, as in so many other
"beyond doubt" statements about rebetika, this turns out not to be
the case. Hugo Strotbaum points out two
instances, one on the FAVORITE record label (German, founded 1904) and the other on ORFEON (Turkish, founded
1911), which are definitely pre-World War I. [Personal
communication regarding the Rebetika Conference at Rethymnon.]
Note
2: Sources, variously, Stathis Gauntlett, Costas Ferris and Gail Holst.
An
obvious difficulty in deriving "rebetis" from "ribaat"
would be if we accept the spelling "REMBetis" rather than
"REBetis". However it is clear that when Greeks take a foreign word
which has a "b" sound, it is rendered as "mb" (everything
from "beer" to "bouzouki"). If the derivation is from
"ribaat", it would certainly have come into written Greek as
"remb
", "ρεμπ
".
Note
3: Stathis Gauntlett [personal communication] suggests that the
"dervish" and "Sufi" aspect cultivated in Rebetika may be
ironical. That may be so. However the title of the very well-known song
"Oli rebetes tou dounia" suggests, rather, an immersion in an area
that has Sufism etc as one of its coordinates. "Dunya" is,
apparently, a Koranic word, meaning not merely "people, mankind,
world" [Oxford Dictionary of Modern Greek, 1965], but the base,
mortal, earthly state of humanity prior to enlightenment. [Ibn 'Arabi, Felicitΰ
Red Edizioni, Como 1996, Note 12, p. 84]
Note
4: Personal communication. And if one happened to have a taste for adjunct
meanings, the similarly-rooted phrase "ribaatat al-ja'sh" means a person who is composed
self-controlled, calm and intrepid. And "raabita" means link,
bond, union (as in "raabita al-sadaaqa", bond of friendship).
Note
5: In response to a query, I received an e-mail from a Sephardi organisation in
Israel. The author, a Ladino-speaker from Izmir in Turkey, tells me that he
knows of no occurrence of "ribat", "rebet" etc in the
Sephardi language.
Note
6: In the 12th century, the Italians found that they had no suitable word for
the institution of the caravanserai-style inn, so they adopted the Arabic
"funduq" (derived initially from the Greek "pandocheion")
and turned it into the "fondaco" that one finds in Venice and
Tuscany. They similarly derived their "arsenale" (a
shipbuilding institution which they did not previously have) from the Arabic dar
sina'a. Not to mention "tarifa", "dogana"
("tariff", "customs duty") etc. It is possible that the same mechanism
applies, in bringing "ribaat" into Modern Greek being a
foreign institution, for which no native word existed in the Greek.
Incidentally:
In translating the "Ars Rhetorica" of Aristotle into Arabic,
the Arab translators used "ribaat" to translate "syndesmos",
meaning conjunction. "Syndesmos" also means the bonds of union
that keep, for instance, a city together. It also means sodomy. These
derivations appear to be of no particular use to us.
Note 7: An Iranian friend confirms that the usage
"robat" as old-fashioned Persian, meaning
caravanserai, staging post
particularly during the
Safavid era (1502-1736).
Note
8: In Ottoman Turkish (cf Langenscheidt) "harabat" means (i)
ruins; (ii) wineshops, taverns. Gauntlett (in "Rebetiko Tragoudi as a
Generic Term") cites the Redhouse dictionary (1921 edition
hence Ottoman usages) for "harabati" meaning "dissolute
vagabond, especially a confirmed drunkard". It would be very tempting to
tie all this up with "ribaat".
However
(pending further dictionary work) it appears that all these meanings of "harabat"
derive from the Arabic kh-r-b root ("kharaba" to
destroy, wreck), and therefore NOT from the "r-b-t" of
"ribaat". There would be no reason for Greek usage to drop the
initial "h-a", since it derives from the "kh-a", a letter
which would be available in Greek, as "chi-alpha" "χα" .]
A
further interesting "harabat" connection was brought to my
attention by Hugo Strotbaum (personal communication). He cites Mark Slobin's Music in the culture of Northern
Afghanistan (Univ. of Arizona Press):
"He
[Sher Ali Khan] settled them and their families in a district of Kabul that was
later termed
the xarabat (from "xarab: ruined, debauched, indecent";
Steingass 1970: 451). The xarabat became the center both of lower-class
musicians' dwellings and of Sufi (mystic) gathering places, a situation that
prevails today..."
The "musician" and "Sufi" connections are
tantalising here.
Note
9: Ibn Hawqal also makes reference to the "raabita del sovrano"
(from the same r-b-t root) , which is glossed as "the sovereign's
bodyguard". An interesting connotation of an elite of armed men.
Note
10: Muslims when prostrating themselves in prayer touch the ground with their
foreheads. Doing this to excess produces callouses on the forehead which the
beggars show as a sign of their religious devotion.
Note
11: We need a way of assessing how common the "ribat" was, as
an institution, as a staging-post for horses. A.W. Kinglake provides useful
information in "Eothen" (1834):
"The
distances between our relays of horses varied greatly: some were not more than
fifteen or twenty miles; but twice, I think, we performed a whole day's journey
of more than sixty miles with the same beasts." (p. 20)
This
would suggest that on any given cross-country route there would be numbers of
"ribats" strung out along the way possibly every 15-20
miles.
[Incidentally,
this passage occurs in his description of crossing Turkey; when crossing the
desert, on the other hand, pack animals are hired all at once, for the full
duration of the journey.]
In
a useful passage Kinglake also
describes the caravanserai:
"A
caravanserai is not ill adapted to the purposes for which it is meant. It forms
the four sides of a large quadrangular court: the ground floor is used for
warehouses, the first floor for guests, and the open court for the temporary
reception of camels, as well as for the loading and unloading of their burthens
and the transaction of mercantile business generally. The apartments used for
the guests are small cells opening into a kind of corridor which runs through
the inner sides of the court." (In Gaza p. 162)
Note
12: Another Arab traveller, Ibn Jubayr [travelling in 1184-85], describes a ribat
in the city of Ra's al-'Ayn: "The right-hand stream passes through a
convent, also called al-ribat, built for Sufis and for foreigners, next
to the spring." (Viaggio in Spagna, Sicilia..., p. 233)
In
a later passage, etymologically interesting, he describes a ribat near
Damascus: "As for the ribat (hospices), which they call hanawiq,
they are many in number and are used for the Sufis. They consist of vast
decorated edifices, all supplied with running water, which in itself is the
finest sight that could ever be seen". [He continues, with observations on
running water, and on the life of the Sufis, with its good order, song and
dance.] [Ibid.]
It
is important that he says "they are many in number". This was a
widespread social institution.
Note
13: The article appeared in the Lexigrafikon Deltion Akadimies Athinon,
Vol. 16, 1986, under the title: "Synkritikes dierevniseis sta Nea Ellinka:
rebetis". It confirms that "ribat" existed in Asia Minor,
in the Arabian military settlements. Thus Karapotosoglou's proposal predates my
own by 15 years. See also P. Karolidhis, "Simioseis Kritikai, istorikai
and topografikai", Epistimoniki
Epetiris tou Ethnikou Panepistimiou 1905-1906, p. 191. This material
awaits further research.
APPENDIX:
In
the interest of widening the debate on my proposed derivation from
"ribaat", I include below other illustrative materials relating to
that term
1.
"Ribat" has long had a sense of steadfastness and military duty in
the service of religion. The present-day Order of the Murabitoun ("Order
of the Ribat") in the USA provide a quote from the Qur'an:
"Be
steadfast, hold each other to steadfastness, help each other to be firm (lit.
make ribat) and have Towqah of Allah in order that you may be
successful." [Qur'an 3:200]
2.
In that light, the site at http://www.ummah.net/sos/caravan.htm contains the
following reference:
"This
is Ibn al-Mubarak, who used to perform the ribat for two months or more
every year leaving aside his trade and the lessons of hadith, and
going out for ribat, bewailing the fact that he has not performed ribat
all his life, and that he has occupied himself with learning instead
"
3.
The present-day Palestinian National Authority is preparing studies of the ribats
to be found in Jerusalem. There is a fine picture of the Ribat al-Mansuri
located on the Internet at
http://planning.pna.net/jerusalem/57.jpg
The
description reads: "The sultan Qalawun al-Mansuri ordered the construction
of his pilgrim hospice for poor [Muslim] pilgrims to Jerusalem. In Ottoman
times this ribat housed the African Guards of the Haram."
4.
For a major treatment of the ribat at Susa, Tunisia, see the site at:
http://www.thais.it/architettura/islamica/indici/..\schede\sc_00038_UK.htm
5.
Similar photographic websites are also available for the ribat at
Monastir, Tunisia, giving an idea of the scale and layout of these buildings.
6.
The doctor Ibn al-Jazzaar (d. AD 980) lived and worked in Qayrawan (Kairouan),
Tunisia. Each summer he travelled to al-Munastir on the Mediterranean coast,
where he would stay in a famous Sufi cell. This "famous Sufi cell" was
presumably the ribat of Monastir.
7.
Kirsti Thorsen, lately engaged on post-graduate studies at King's College
London, deals comprehensively with the possible relation between the rebetes
and the world of Sufi in her dissertation "Mangas tha pei dervisis"
(unpubl. 1999). I suspect that it is in this arena that the proof of my thesis
will (or will not) be found.
8.
Regarding Greek attitudes to Turkey, the following charming entry in D.N.
Stavropoulos's Oxford Greek-English Learner's Dictionary (Oxford University
Press 1989) is perhaps actionable under the Race Relations Act (as happened in
the case of the the Babiniotis dictionary, which had to be withdrawn after its
publication in Greece because of a racist reference to Bulgars):
"λάδωμα [
]
bribe[ry], kickback, pay-off, graft: το λάδωμα δίνει και παίρνει στην Τουρκία, bribery /
graft is rife in Turkey."
8.
STOP PRESS: The Encyclopedia of Islam has a magnificent section devoted
to the phenomenon of the "ribaat". This includes a note to the
effect that, at a certain point and in some places, "ribaat"
is co-terminous with "tekke". We are all aware of the rebetiko
songs which cite the "tekke" as the focal point of rebetiko culture. Was "ribaat"
co-terminous with "tekke" in the Greek communities of Ottoman
Asia Minor? If so, that would bring me
closer to proving my case...
9.
DITTO: It is suggested that the elusive
term "rebet asker" has a derogatory aspect. It may be worth
noting the following comment in relation to the 1952 revolution in Egypt,
"He then directly attacked the Revolution, describing its leaders as 'askar'
(a derogatory term for officers)". Reem Saad, Egyptian Politics and the
Tenancy Law, in Bush, R., ed., Counter-Revolution in Egypt's Countryside,
Ze Books, London, 2001.
10.
The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) which provided the framework for the transfer of
populations between Greece and Anatolia is careful to make provision for
preserving the integrity of Anatolian social institutions. Including the
"tekke". This moment deserves further research.
11.
Kree Arvanitas points me to the social institutions of the Barbary pirates
(multi-racial, with Greeks among them), which include reference to the "ribaat".
I shall pursue that reference further.
Jana
Gough points me to the highly significant point raised in the Encyclopedia
of Islam entry on "ribat": "It can be stated with
confidence that to define it as a 'Muslim military monastery' is evidence of
extrapolation and misinterpretation. It cannot be denied that the urban
residences [my emphasis] of Sufis were subsequently known as ribat."
As
regards the possibility of transition from "i" to "e" (ribat
to rebet), Leonidas Drisis points out that "there is another very similar (and
well known case). It is the word 'sekleti' (worry, frustration), which is also
known as 'sikleti', and it appears with both forms in several songs (which I
cannot recall at the moment)".
[Paper
presented at the Hydra Rebetiko
Conference October 2001]