ABSTRACT
Amongst the Uyghurs certain types of musicians are called ashiq or mäjnun. An ashiq means, generically, a lover, or in a more specific application of the term, a mendicant who has devoted his life to music-making for God. A mäjnun is both an ashiq and a fool, a sarang. Abdulla Mäjnun (his adopted name) is a muqam-ist and muqam expert from the southern oasis town of Khotän. Respected, feared and despised in equal measure by his fellow musicians, Abdulla Mäjnun is one of the most colourful, even notorious figures in a world which bristles with larger-than-life characters, but also indubitably one of the most skilled and knowledgeable musicians of his generation. Drawing on interviews with Abdulla Mäjnun, this chapter explores the status and roles of musicians in contemporary Uyghur society, looking at the impact of professionalisation, the prominence of the state-sponsored song-and-dance troupes, and the more recent rise of the popular recording singers. The chapter traces Mäjnun’s journey from his roots in the local musical world of Khotän in the 1960s and 1970s, when paradoxically the Cultural Revolution gave him the opportunity to immerse himself in rural musical traditions, to his present position in the Xinjiang Muqam Ensemble at the centre of the professional and highly politicised Uyghur music world, where he collaborates on the prestigious project to rework the Twelve Muqam.
