The Gnawa population is generally believed to originate from the Sahelian region of West and Central Africa, which had long and extensive trading and political ties with the Maghreb and Algeria specifically, including gold and slave trades.Popular history particularly credits the Moroccan Sultan Ahmed Al Mansour [/c]Ad-Dahbi's conquest in 1591 of part of the Songhai Empire, in particular Timbuktu, with bringing large numbers of captives and slaves back across the Sahara to form the Gnawa. However, the slave and gold trade with sub-Saharan African states had existed for centuries prior to al-Mansur's conquest, and it is unlikely the Gnawa community was in fact formed from one invasion but rather over centuries.While adopting Islam, Gnawa continued to celebrate ritual possession during rituals where they are devoted to the practice of the dances of possession and fright. This rite of possession is called Derdba (Arabic: دردبة), and proceeds the night (lila, Arabic: ليلة) that is animated jointly by a master musician (maâlem, Arabic: معلم) accompanied by his troupe. Gnawa music mixes classical Islamic Sufism with pre-Islamic African traditions, whether local or sub-Saharan.Many modern Western scholars see parallels between African American music such as the blues, that is rooted in Black American slave songs,and Gnawa music as well as Sufi tariqa.This influence also resonates from other spiritual sub-Saharan black groups such as the Bori in Nigeria, the Stambouli in Tunisia, the Sambani in Libya,the Bilali in Algeria and those outside Africa such as the Voodoo religion or the Candomble in Brazil. These similarities in the artistic and scriptural representations are seen by such scholars as reflecting a shared experience of many African diasporic groups.
