Hamza of MacBeth “Dosta Mi Je Allah Moj”
Musical Chef has the same ilahija done by Aziz Alili. This one is by Hamza of MacBeth (a pop group – I’ll post one of their videos later):
and my very bad translation:
He woke in a hole, solitary confinement he saw
Beautiful Jusuf drew a breath “My Allah is enough for me”
The carters bring thirst, an empty water can they bring
Over the hole they hang: “My Allah is enough for me”
Until Aziz comes down, hard years pass
Unto her hardship: “My Allah is enough for me”
Here comes the happy day and my sad dad
And a happy return from sadness to serenity: “My Allah is enough for me”
Every night gives birth to day, in every nuisance Allah intervenes
To everything there is an end: “My Allah is enough for me”
The sick person seeks a cure, asker her sultan
The adorning seeks their adorned: “My Allah is enough for me”
Samaha 
Beautiful! Although I think I like Aziz’s version a bit better, this is good too. I’ll have to search for some more of their videos. Thanks for the translation, too; I was wondering what the song was saying. I’m expecting my “I have no cannons that roar” CD in a couple weeks and am hoping the liner notes have translations of the songs.
I agree with your previous post, too. I’m sick of how Muslim men are always blaming either “their” women or the West for everything. What the heck are they contributing to the world?!? Let me know how they’re making the world a better place then maybe I’d listen.
Aziz Alili’s utilizes the traditional recitational method of ilahije – note the nasally sounding recitation. I have in the past been quite succesful at doing the traditional ilahija because I know the technique to blocking the air from entering my nasal cavity but I can not sing for ****.
Partly because I love music and can not sing and partly because I’m used to hearing Aziz Alili CD’s at my mom’s or in her car I like the Hamza version – it’s a nice change for me. However, because there are instruments in the background of both versions – neither is technically an ilahija in the traditional sense.
As for “I have no cannons that roar” – most of the music seems to be in English. Aziz Alili’s Where are Mecca and Medina seem to be a translation of this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEofWTZW0YY Even though from what I can tell the music and voice sounds different – he starts by asking where are mecca and medina while Bosnian blood is spilling and that is the substance of the above link. Oh – and Dino Merlin is on that CD – somewhere on my blog I have a Krazy Bosnians feat which adds some rap to one of his old songs before the war. He’s always been a favorite of mine and I’ve been to two of his concerts in Chicago. Although I’ve heard that he finished gazi husrefbeg’s medresa (and can’t confirm) – he doesn’t do ilahijas but on his site he states that his musical talent must come from his mother and father’s sufi heritage.
HaHa, I can sympathize! I took voice lessons but evidently they don’t work miracles!
Samaha,
Regarding the songs, have you been searching with “the Internet country code top-level domain” for Bosnia? It is “.ba”
I did a quick search for ” Bosanske ilahije” on http://www.google.ba and found some interesting stuff, well, I found it interesting at least. Even though I don’t have the slightest idea what was being said most of the time.
😛
As for this song, I would like it better if it didn’t have the sing along part. When it sounds like a group of children are chiming in when he gets to the “dosta mi je Allah moj” part, it sounds sort of artificial to me. But I like the melody and the guitar work.
Voice lessons would have been awesome but after my dad paid an unrefundable $75 for a violin rental and then be told by my music teacher that I wasn’t cut out for music(after 2 group lessons – i’m not kidding you) – that just wasn’t going to happen.
Konservo – I never thought to do that and lol – yeah – I know about .ba – I have a bosnian blog on blogger.ba but never thought to do a google search that way. You know – I’m going to start wondering pretty soon if you are secretly Bosnian or perhaps Croatian – hehe.
I can see what you’re saying about the sing along part although I kind of like it too – maybe a little less frequent would have been better.
Very nice.
Is that Bosnian he’s singing in? I’d initially assumed it was Arabic (due to the style), but it’s clearly an Indo-European language, and besides, it doesn’t sound nearly painful enough to be Arabic.
Sergei – yes, it is Bosnian. I have a few more on the blog, somewhere – this one is amazing: https://samaha.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/srebrenica-by-alma-ferovic/ although it is a different style.
I think in my categories I should have “ilahija” and “sevdalinka” that should bring up a few more.
Ilahije are spiritual recitations although I tend to put spiritual music in the same category and sevdalinke are love songs.
Samaha,
Do you know when this style of music first came about?
I’m talking about the type that the video above features. Since there are so many different versions of this song with the same basic melody, I suppose that it’s old… or people are just ripping each other off 😛
I think instruments being used with “ilahije” is something pretty recent – I don’t that I heard this style (with instruments) back in 1984 when I lived in Bosnia.
Just to clarify – Ilahije are technically poems which get recited. Their are poets who write them and then you will typically hear various versions. I think that the one you have on your blog is by Aziz Alili and I’m pretty sure you could have found it without ak-47’s. I think musical chef’s link is a good one.
I think what we have here is a combination of sevdalinka and ilahija. Let me give you two links:
oh – one more:
I may be opening a can of worms here, but what is your take on the Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian/Serbo-Croatian situation? I’m working on a project to genealogically map the Indo-European language family, and the South Slavic languages are giving me a bit of a headache.
The first one you link to, Ilahija Nemoj zalit suzama, is one that I’ve had in my head all day.
As for the Aziz Alili and the Hamza of MacBeth versions, it’s not just the lyrics, it’s the music too, it’s the same… there’s also another version I found of that song, only it’s in English. I’ll try to find it.
Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gfWcr5UDT4
FYI, I don’t like this English version very much. The guy is singing like a modern R&B artist. blah.. 😛
Sergei – yup – you’re opening a can of worms especially since we Bosnians are argumentative.
Okay, so I think we’re all saying that we speak Bosnian – at least I say that I speak “Bosnian which is Srbo-Croatian” because everyone recognizes Srbo-Croatian as a language however, I like to distinguish from the get-go that I’m Bosnian.
The language has 3 different dialects – ekavski, ikavski and ijekavski. Examples – Milk = mleko (ekavski) mljeko (ijekavski) and mliko (ikavski).
Ekavski is mostly spoken in Serbia. Ikavski in Croatia and ijekavski is mostly in Bosnia. However, ekavski and ikavski would be found spoken or mixed into ijekavski in pre-war Bosnia in parts closer to the respecive borders. Today, however, Serbs within Bosnia are going back to Ekavski. Bosnians are trying to remain ijekavski and – you know I might be off on ikavski – i learned all this stuff back in 1984 when I lived out there.
Further, Bosnians have some words that are exclusive to them and I think that many of those words stem from Turkish. Croatians also have many words that are exclusive – for example the months of the year are completely different from the Serbian months of the year.
Very complex.
Konservo – I have to get back to you.
Okay – I did a little bit of searching on google.ba and I came upon a bit of a skirmish in regards to one of the orchestra/choirs that does these ilahije and kaside in regards to one of the kasids on the cd.
Apparently – like I said before, these are poems and finding out who actually wrote the poem (and sometimes composed a rythmic beat – sometimes those beats are even from other countries) is very difficult as often the poet would be anonymous or wrote under an alias. Sometimes the poems are translations of other poets .. it seems kind of complicated .. I think even if managed to do all of the research to answer your questions – I’d have to write a book about it – hmmm
Thanks. The situation (as I understand it) has changed a great deal since 1984, with Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and possibly Montenegrin increasingly being viewed as separate languages. A lot of this is politically motivated, of course, but those political motivations are themselves changing the language(s), as you mentioned with ijekavski in Bosnia.
My current (extremely tentative) analysis is that what was one language in currently in the process of splitting up into three or four separate ones. Does that seem plausible to you?
Also, what’s the story with Štokavian, Kajkavian, and Čakavian?
Well, no – I don’t think that you can say that it was one language that is now being split up into three different languages – all of these words that are different have always been there and have always been used however, there are certain words that you won’t find in the Srbo-Croatian dictionary like alahimanet or merhaba .. so on and so forth. I think that there are certain Croatian words that were even exempt from this language – like the months of the year. The dialects have always been there – it is just that as you pointed out now for political reasons these dialects are being adapted exclusively by ethnicities and it also has to do with reclaiming one’s heritage that was denied by Socialist Yugoslavia.
Does it seem plausible to divide them up into three languages (I don’t think you meant to ask this but I’m going to include it)?
On one hand it does. Let me use Musical Chef here as an example – somewhere on another thread she has stated that she is trying to learn Bosnian – well, she’s not really going to learn the Bosnian dialect or pick up many Bosnian words because those words are not going to be in the dictionary and while Bosnians are going to understand her – she will most likely have difficulties of understanding them.
On the other hand, I have also studied French, German, and Arabic and I am fully aware that I can go to France and that there will be different dialects and Germany and there will be different dialects and even Arab speaking countries where there will be different dialects and that those dialect can be so far off from one another and also have words that I may not have learned so that I wouldn’t be able to understand them.
However, in the case of this language, as you stated for political reasons they want to be separate from each other which poses quite a problem as there will be quite an argument over what words constitute Serbo-Croatian (which the name alone gives prejudice towards including Bosnian words that have turkish or arabic roots) and since there has always, always, always been an argument over even calling it Serbo-Croatian or Croatian-Serbian (this argument existed even in 84 – Croatia used the term Hrvatsko-Srpski while Serbia used Srpsko-Hrvatski and Bosnia got whatever they were handed) this serves as a background of nationalistic pride which will always try to deny the other. Personally, I think changing the name alltogether – without showing prevelance to any one ethnicity- would be beneficial and that way all of the words could be included and could show the roots of where each word stems from as well as not denying any culture.
I mean basically, the dialects are very easy to figure out – there are specific rules – so knowing the language you quickly pick up on the dialects through simple rules.
Did I make that confusing?
“Also, what’s the story with Štokavian, Kajkavian, and Čakavian?”
ughhh – I have no idea 🙂 I’ve never heard of those.
Oh – and one more thing – while I have studied all those languages – I can barely speak English anymore – let alone Arabic, German and French – so no comments in foreign languages.
Sergei – also – this post had an argument going on in regards to “those are Serbian words” – lol – https://samaha.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/you-know-youre-bosnian-when/
I think they may also be in my language but there’s a bit of it in english.
“I’ve never heard of those.”
This is Štokavian: “Oče naš, koji jesi na nebesima, sveti se ime tvoje, dođi kraljevstvo tvoje, budi volja tvoja kako na nebu tako i na zemlji. Kruh naš svagdanji daj nam danas i oprosti nam grijehe naše, kako i mi opraštamo dužnicima našim. Ne dovedi nas u napast, nego oslobodi nas od sveg zla. Na sve vijeke vjekova, Amen.”
This is Čakavian: “Elatjaće kyeš vaneh nebah, senay elamy urudba tvoja, nay ariva una carmada tvoja tar naybi utemba tvoja koti va nebah osce vaneh tlah. Sey noas pohlib seydni naydas nami danaske tarnay laškas nami une darzi nase koti mye laškamo darznikon nasin, osce nayne pejas noas vane uocani, lehnay bukšas noas ud seyh hudobih. Vasye vykoj vykov, Amen.”
This is Kajkavian: “Japa naš kteri si f ‘nebesih nek sesvete ime Tvoje, nek prihaja cesarstvo Tvoje, nek bu volya Tvoja kakti na nebe tak pa na zemle. Kruhek naš sakdajni nam daj denes ter odpuščaj nam dugi naše, kakti mi odpuščamo dužnikom našim ter naj nas fpelati vu skušnje, nek nas zbavi od sekih hudobah. F’se veke vekof, Amen.”
Interesting.
I did a quick little search on wiki and I thought it odd that one of these dialects is supposed to be spoken in Zagreb (but I was in Zagreb a couple years back and didn’t notice it) and the other on the Dalmatian Coast – and I was there a couple of years back as well and didn’t notice it. Of course I’m not saying that they don’t exist as many of these dialects are apparent in remote villages and not within cities. I’m also sure that many of the words that I am speaking about (that are omited from srbo-croatian dictionaries) stem from these dialects and are incorporated into the generally spoken language.
Very interesting.
I don’t quite have the time to really get into finding out more about these languages (although now I’m really interested).
How well can you understand them?
Sergei, look in wikipedia under ‘shtokavian’ and all about the Serbocroatian language will be clea to you. Today it’s one language with 3 variants. Greetings.
Also, Shtokavian is spoken by Serbs, most of the Croats (85%) and Bosnians. By Serbs I understand also Montenegrins. Chakavian is spoken only on the northern Adriatic islands and Istria, by about 8% of Croats, and Kajkavian is spoken north of Zagreb by about 7% of Croats. A good web site, which gives you a good explanation about the Serbocroatian or Croatoserbian language is http://www.govori.tripod.com