Jasim al-Asmer is a singer without a stage. As he serves customers in his café, his dreamy manner hints at his musical calling. He moves slowly and speaks softly, seemingly to spare his voice.

In Nasiriya, a town renowned for its musicians, Mr Asmer, 60, is one of the best. He is the composer of countless lyrics and melodies, many of them popularised by singers more famous than he.

The teashop where he works has become a meeting place for singers intimidated by hardline militias who regard their art as shamefully irreligious.

“We still have the same spirit that we started with,” says musician Qassim Areydhah. “When one of us is working on a new lyric, he stays up all night, as if with a new bride. We feel like kings then. Such moments are our life, not this café.”

Ahmed al-Ameer, another musician, recalls Mr Asmer singing at ecstatic gatherings tinged with such “madness and splendour” that it sets the palm trees swinging.

“His parties started with beautiful melodies and left us with reddened chests the next day,” he says, referring to the custom among Shia men to rhythmically beat their chests in a

ceremonial lament.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Shia militias advocating a stern form of Islam grew powerful in Nasiriya. Their clerics spoke scornfully of musicians who strayed from religious themes, and whose performances were associated with the consumption of alcohol. Stores selling records were burnt down and several singers were attacked and beaten.

Threats from the militiamen forced Mr Asmer and his friends underground. Those bold enough to sing do so only occasionally and invariably in secret -- “Can you imagine singing on a stage where you can’t tell how many of your audience have guns, or how many are considering killing you?” asks Mr Asmer.

Nasiriya was once an outpost of secularism in the devoutly Shia south of Iraq. A former stronghold of the communists and the now-outlawed Ba’ath party, headed by Saddam Hussein, it had a colourful cultural scene and a relatively relaxed approach to alcohol.

Mr Asmer describes it as a city steeped in song: “No-one knows how many singers we have because everyone from the young to the elderly sings and hums.”

When he was growing up, Mr Asmer says, a good voice was in constant demand -- even housewarmings were celebrated with songs or a recital from the Koran. “In either case, the person had to have a beautiful voice,” he says.

Politicians in the past tried to harness Nasiriya’s music. Nowadays, militiamen harass its musicians.

“The Ba’ath regime wanted us to glorify Saddam Hussein. We do not know what the current authorities want from us. We are terrified if we sing.”

Mr Asmer also says that he is confused by edicts, issued by a variety of clerics, against the use of certain musical instruments. He says it is hard to gauge the severity of the ban because several supposedly proscribed instruments are used in religious recitals. “Did the religion change? Why is everything forbidden or potentially forbidden?”

However, Shia clerics in Nasiriya have conflicting views of the musicians.

Sheikh Hakim al-Salihi, an ally of the anti-American Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, says singing “is the devil’s pipe and ruins the soul of prayer”. He adds: “Every sinner should be punished and every pious person rewarded.”

Tahsin al-Baqaa, a Shia cleric not affiliated to any of the major parties, said singing was regarded as haram, or sinful, by most scholars but “did not necessitate killing”.

“Those who harm singers are extremists that have abandoned the core message of Islam,” he says, adding that “persuasion and guidance” must be used to convert any singers who continued to defy religious doctrine.

Yet Ahmed al-Fartoissi, another cleric, maintains that there had not been any new fatwas, or edicts, against singing or musical instruments.

He says “ignorant extremists” had targeted singers to make a political point. “The clerics are not responsible for the persecution of singers and lyricists,” he says.

Although public performances are out of the question, some singers occasionally perform at private homes where their hosts can guarantee their safety. Very occasionally, they may attend all-night singing soirees in remote locations outside town.

Some musicians have offered their voices to commerce or faith -- Mr Asmer’s friend, Ahmed, sings at Shia ceremonies lamenting the martyrdom of the revered Imam Ali and his sons, Hassan and Hussein.

The bright lights of Arab satellite TV, with its burgeoning appetite for music videos, have attracted talent from Nasiriya. Another former singer, Qassim, says his best lyrics have been plagiarised by commercial artists, but says he dare not make a fuss because he still fears the militiamen.

“If they find out, they will beat me and force me to compose a poem for their chief, just like they did the last time,” he says.

The musicians want Nasiriya’s government to protect them so that they can perform in public. The local artists’ union, affiliated to the government, was disbanded several years ago. Its former head, Ali Abd Eid, says it could not have offered protection “from anonymous criminals who use a range of methods to threaten isolated artists”.

Khadum al-Obaidy, head of Nasiriya’s journalists’ syndicate, a government-backed body, says the singers were the victims of broader unrest.

“We cannot talk of protecting artists or journalists through a security apparatus that was unable to impose the rule of law in the first place,” he says.

The musicians who once held Nasiriya in thrall now pique the curiosity of passing strangers. A young visitor to the market says he recently heard a man at a Nasiriya café with a distinctly mournful voice, singing to himself.

“It reminded me of the songs our mothers sang in the fields,” he says.

 

Jasim al-Asmer’s real name and those of other singers quoted have been changed to protect their identities.

This article is published courtesy of the Institute for War and Peace reporting