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Towards a New Approach to Palestinian Performance History: Revisiting Mawsim al-Nabi Rubin
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2025
Abstract
Focusing on the Sufi festival (mawsim) of Nabi Rubin, which used to take place near Jaffa in Palestine, this article explores the indigenous performance traditions that were an important part of Palestinian cultural life prior to the mass displacement of Palestinians by Zionist forces in the Nakba of 1948. Using the extinct festival of Nabi Rubin as a specific example, the article sheds light on a significant and neglected part of Palestinian theatre and performance history: indigenous Palestinian performance practices which have been omitted from the literature on Palestinian theatre. Thus the article advocates for a more inclusive approach to the study of performance that gives value to indigenous performance practices, which form a fundamental part of Palestine’s rich cultural history. It also examines the sociocultural changes that accompanied the Arab Nahda (‘renaissance’) and the manner in which it influenced cultural life in Jaffa and the festival of Nabi Rubin.
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1 For example, Gabriel Varghese, Palestinian Theatre in the West Bank: Our Human Faces (London: Palgrave, 2020); Erin B. Mee, ‘The Cultural Intifada: Palestinian Theatre in the West Bank’, Drama Review, 56, 3 (2012), pp. 167–77; Reuven Snir, Palestinian Theatre (Berlin: Reichert Verlag Wiesbaden, 2005)
2 For example, Snir, Palestinian Theatre, p. 1. Also see Avaes Mohammad, ‘Theatre of the Occupied’, Wasafiri, 29, 4 (2014), pp. 24–9, here p. 24.
3 There has been a tendency to examine theatre in the Arab World in this way, particularly in English-language scholarship. For example, see Muhammad Badawi, The Development of Early Arabic Drama (London: Longman, 1984); and Jacob Landau, Studies in Arabic Theatre and Cinema (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958). Also see Snir, Palestinian Theatre, p. 1 and Mohammad, ‘Theatre of the Occupied’, p. 1.
4 See Salim Tamari, Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture (London: University of California Press, 2009); Wasif Jawhariyyeh, The Storyteller of Jerusalem: The Life and Times of Wasif Jawhariyyeh, 1904–1948, ed. Salim Tamari and Issam Nassar, trans. Nada Elzeer (Northampton: Olive Branch Press, 2014); Omar Saleh al-Barghouti, Al-Marahil (The Stages) (Beirut: al-Mu’asasa al-‘Arabiya, 2001); and al-‘Asali, Mawsim al-Nabi Musa fi Falastin: Tarikh al-Mawsim wa al-Maqam (The Festival of Nabi Musa in Palestine: The History of the Festival and the Shrine) (Amman: Manshurat al-Jami‘a al-Urduniya, 1990).
5 Khalid Amine, ‘Theatre in the Arab World: A Difficult Birth’, Theatre Research International, 31, 2 (2006), pp. 145–63.
6 Ibid.; also see Khalid Amine and Marvin Carlson, Theatres of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia: Performance Traditions of the Maghreb (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); and Amine and Carlson, ‘Al-Halqa in Arabic Theatre: An Emerging Site of Hybridity’, Theatre Journal, 60, 1 (2008), pp. 71–85.
7 Amine and Carlson, Theatres of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; Amine and Carlson, ‘Al-Halqa in Arabic Theatre’; also see ‘Umar Muhammad Al-Talib, Malamih al-Masrahiya al-Arabiya al-Islamiya (Aspects of the Arab Islamic Play) (Casablanca: Dar al-’Afaq al-Jadida, 1987).
8 Wasif Jawhariyyeh mentions that renowned actors George Abyad and Shaykh Salama Hijazi visited Jerusalem in 1908, The Storyteller of Jerusalem, pp. 72–3. Also see Ali Hasan al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila (The Encyclopaedia of Beautiful Jaffa), Vol. II (Amman: Ward Books, 2016), pp. 1147–8.
9 Intisar al-Shanti, ‘Thakirat al-Masrah al-Falastini Qabl 1948’ (The Memory of Palestinian Theatre before 1948), Samid al-Iqtisadi, 26, 136 (2004), pp. 166–78.
10 Amine,‘Theatre in the Arab World’.
11 Marvin Carlson, ‘Negotiating Theatrical Modernism in the Arab World’, Theatre Journal, 65, 4 (2013), pp. 523–35.
12 Fatma Barjkani, Nash’at al-Masrah fi al-Mashriq: al-Hadatha fi Turkiya, Iran, wa Bilad al-Sham (The Development of Theatre in the East: Modernity in Turkey, Iran, and Bilad al-Sham), Vol. II (Beirut: Birsan, 2011), pp. 78–82.
13 M. M. Badawi, ‘The Father of the Modern Egyptian Theatre: Ya‘qub Sannu‘’, Journal of Arabic Literature, 16 (1985), pp. 132–45.
14 Fatma Barjkani, Nash’at al-Masrah fi al-Mashriq, pp. 78–82. Also see Maleh Ghassan, ‘The Birth of Modern Arab Theatre’, Unesco Courier, 50, 11 (1997), pp. 28–32.
15 Amine and Carlson, Theatres of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, pp. 70–89. Also see Carmen Gitre, ‘The Dramatic Middle East: Performance as History in Egypt and Beyond’, History Compass, 13, 10 (2015), pp. 521–32.
16 Amine and Carlson, Theatres of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, pp. 70–89; Gitre, ‘The Dramatic Middle East’, pp. 521–32.
17 For example, see Mohammad Al-Khozai, The Development of Early Arabic Drama (1847–1900) (London: Longman, 1984).
18 Ibid.
19 Carlson, ‘Negotiating Theatrical Modernism’, pp. 523–35.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 Nasri al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini (1918–1948) (The History of Palestinian Theatre (1918–1948) (Ramallah: Dar al-Ard lal-Nashir, 2011), p. 10. Also see Barjkani, Nash’at al-Masrah fi al-Mashfiq, pp. 55–61.
23 Mahir Sharif, al-Muthaqaf al-Falastini wa Rahanat al-Hadatha (The Palestinian Intellectual and the Stakes of Modernity) (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2020), p. 3.
24 Al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 10–15.
25 Jawhariyyeh, The Storyteller of Jerusalem, pp. 72–3. See also Snir, Palestinian Theatre, pp. 30–1.
26 Snir, Palestinian Theatre, pp. 30–1.
27 Ibid.; also see al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 16–18.
28 Al-Shanti, ‘Thakirat al-Masrah al-Falastini Qabl 1948’, pp. 156–7. British colonialists even formed an amateur British troupe in Jerusalem. However, these performances were not generally attended by Palestinians. Hagit Krik and Eitan Bar-Yosef, ‘Shipwrecked in Jerusalem: British Amateur Theatre and Colonial Culture in Mandatory Palestine’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 50, 1 (2021), pp. 1–32.
29 Al-Shanti, ‘Thakirat al-Masrah al-Falastini Qabl 1948’; also see Wasif Jamal Abu al-Shabab, ‘al-Qisa wa al-Riwaya wa al-Masrahiya al-Falastiniya’ (The Story and the Novel and the Palestinian Play), in al-Mawsu‘a al-Falastiniya (The Palestinian Encyclopaedia), Vol. IV (Beirut: Dirasat Hadara, 1990), pp. 127–63.
30 Al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 18–29, also see Snir, Palestinian Theatre, pp. 33–6.
31 Sharif, al-Muthaqaf al-Falastini wa Rahanat al-Hadatha, pp. 30–50. Also see Adnan Abu-Ghazaleh, ‘Arab Cultural Nationalism in Palestine during the British Mandate’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 1, 3 (1972), pp. 37–63.
32 Sharif, al-Muthaqaf al-Falastini wa Rahanat al-Hadatha, p. 19.
33 Al-Shanti, ‘Thakirat al-Masrah al-Falastini Qabl 1948’, p. 157. Also see Carlson, ‘Negotiating Theatrical Modernism’, pp. 525–35.
34 These nationalist plays began to be performed as early as 1918. Al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, p. 14.
35 Ibid., pp. 14–41. Also see al-Shanti, ‘Thakirat al-Masrah al-Falastini Qabl 1948’, pp. 157–68.
36 Al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, p. 14; al-Shanti, ‘Thakirat al-Masrah al-Falastini Qabl 1948’, pp. 157–68.
37 For example, see the plays of Nasri al-Jawzi, Asma Toubi and Najwa Qa‘war. Al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 51–143.
38 Carlson, ‘Negotiating Theatrical Modernism’, pp. 525–535.
39 Also see Sharif, al-Muthaqaf al-Falastini wa Rahanat al-Hadatha, pp. 21–71.
40 Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 150–75.
41 Al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 18–19. Also see al-Shanti, ‘Thakirat al-Masrah al-Falastini Qabl 1948’, p. 162; and Snir, Palestinian Theatre, pp. 33–9.
42 Al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 18–19. Also see al-Shabab, ‘al-Qisa wa al-Riwaya wa al-Masrahiya fi Falastin’, p. 159.
43 Sharif, al-Muthaqaf al-Falastini wa Rahanat al-Hadatha, pp. 20–74.
44 Newspapers that used to discuss the performances of the Jawzi troupe included al-Difa‘ and Mir’at al-Sharq. Newspapers also reported on some of the musical and theatrical performances taking place in Egypt. See al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 153–73; and al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, p. 1208. For examples of advertisements for theatre performances see Falastin, 26 August 1933 and 29 August 1933.
45 Sharif, al-Muthaqaf al-Falastini wa Rahanat al-Hadatha, pp. 21–71.
46 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1126–97. Also see Ahmad Dajani, Madinatuna Yafa wa Thawrat 1936 (Our City Yafa and the Revolt of 1936) (Amman: s.n., 1989), pp. 116–29; and Imtiyaz Diyab and Hisham Sharabi, eds., Yafa ‘Utr al-Madina (Jaffa the Perfume of a City) (Beirut: Dar al-Fan al-Arabi, 1991).
47 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1142–9. Also see Don Rubin, ed., The World Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Theatre: The Arab World, Vol. IV (New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 188. Also see Snir, Palestinian Theatre, pp. 22–6.
48 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1142–9. Also see Khayri Abu-Jbin, Kitab Hikayat ‘An Yafa (The Book of Stories about Jaffa) (Amman: Dar al-Shuruq, 2008), pp. 103–5.
49 Umm Kulthum performed in Jaffa in 1929 and 1923. Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, p. 1208. Also see Abu-Jbin, Kitab Hikayat ‘An Yafa, pp. 107–8.
50 The plays performed by the Ramsis troupe included Awlad al-Fuqara (Children of the Poor), Rasputin and Majnun Layla (The One Mad for Layla). Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamil, pp. 1148–208. Also see al-Shabab, ‘al-Qisa wa al-Riwaya wa al-Masrahiya al-Falastiniya’, p. 157; and Intisar al-Shanti, ‘Thakirat al-Masrah al-Falastini Qabl 1948’, p. 160.
51 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1148–208. Also see al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 22–5.
52 Examples of these radio plays include the works of Palestinian playwright Najwa Qa‘war, Jamil al-Jawzi’s adaptations of European plays, and the performances of the Firqat Ansar al-Tamthil al-Arabiya. Al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 139–69. Also see Fahmi Shama’s testimony in Diyab and Sharabi, Yafa ‘Utr al-Madina, pp. 141–2.
53 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1200–317. Also see Abu-Jbin, Kitab Hikayat ‘An Yafa, pp. 105–8; and Dajani, Madinatuna Yafa wa Thawrat 1936, pp. 125–6.
54 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1200–317. Also see al-Shabab, ‘al-Qisa wa al-Riwaya wa al-Masrahiya al-Falastiniya’, p. 156.
55 See the testimony of Layla Nsibeh in Diyab and Sharabi, Yafa ‘Utr al-Madina, pp. 163–4; and Abu-Jbin, Kitab Hikayat ‘An Yafa, p. 107. For an example of the kinds of stories performed with the karagoz see al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1448–9.
56 According to al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1448–9, shadow theatre is originally from India and China and was introduced to Palestine with the spread of the Ottoman Empire.
57 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1407–9. Also see Snir, Palestinian Theatre, pp. 25–6.
58 Jawhariyyeh, The Storyteller of Jerusalem, pp. 59–64; and al-‘Asali, Mawsim al-Nabi Musa fi Falastin, p. 115. Also see Cristiana Baldazzi, ‘Time Off: Entertainment, Games and Past Times in Palestine between the End of the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate’, Oriente Moderno, 95, 1–2 (2015), pp. 173–92.
59 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1294–417.
60 Ibid.; also see Tamari, Mountain against the Sea.
61 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1415–17.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid., pp. 1383–405.
64 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1383–405. Also see Sa‘d Yusuf Dajani, Kay La Nasa Yafa (So That We Do Not Forget Jaffa) (Amman: s.n., 1991), pp. 131–3; and Dajani, Madinatuna Yafa wa Thawrat 1936, pp. 115–18.
65 Ibid.
66 Dajani, Madinatuna Yafa wa Thawrat 1936, pp. 119–20.
67 They were performed on Thursday, Sunday and Friday. For examples of the songs that were sung at the hadra see l-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1396–7.
68 Ibid.; also see Abu-Jbin, Kitab Hikayat ‘An Yafa, p. 75.
69 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1396–7. Also see Tewfik Canaan, Mohammadan Saint and Sanctuaries in Palestine (Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing, 1927), p. 216; and Elias al-Rantisi, ‘Maswim Rubin’, in Diyab and Sharabi, Yafa ‘Utr al-Madina, pp. 71–5.
70 Mahmoud Yazbak, ‘The Muslim Festival of Nabi Rubin in Palestine: From Religious Festival to Summer Resort’, Holy Land Studies, 10, 2 (2011), pp. 169–98. Also see Tamari, Mountain against the Sea, p. 27.
71 Al-Rantisi, ‘Mawsim Rubin’. Also see Abu-Jbin, Kitab Hikayat ‘An Yafa, pp. 78–83.
72 Al-Rantisi, ‘Maswim Rubin’. Also see Abu-Jbin, Kitab Hikayat ‘An Yafa, pp. 78–83.
73 Yazbak, ‘The Muslim Festival of Nabi Rubin in Palestine’, pp. 190–4.
74 The focus here is on Jaffa but it is also worth mentioning that zaffat al-thawb was also celebrated in Lydd and Ramla. Yazbak, ‘The Muslim Festival of Nabi Rubin in Palestine’, pp. 185–9. Also al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, p. 1295; and Dajani, Kay La Nasa Yafa, pp. 129–30.
75 Yazbak, ‘The Muslim Festival of Nabi Rubin in Palestine’, pp. 185–9. Also see al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1290–9.
76 For an example of these songs see al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, p. 1293.
77 For examples of these anti-Zionist chants and slogans see al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, p. 1291.
78 Jamil Kamil Al-‘Asali, Mawsim al-Nabi Musa fi Falastin, p. 100.
79 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, Vol. 2, p. 1400.
80 Ibid.
81 Yazbak, ‘The Muslim Festival of Nabi Rubin in Palestine’, p. 182.
82 Al-Bawab, Mawsu’at Yafa al-Jamila, Vol. 2, p. 1400.
83 According to Rantisi, ‘Mawsim Rubin’, dhikr rituals were performed every night. ‘Mawim Rubin’ in Imtiyaz Diyab and Hisham Sharabi, eds., Yafa ‘Utr al-Madina.
84 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, p. 1297.
85 Ibid., p. 1304. Also see Yazbak, ‘The Muslim Festival of Nabi Rubin in Palestine’, pp. 18–19; and al-‘Asali, Mawsim al-Nabi Musa fi Falastin, p. 116. Also see Canaan, Mohammadan Saint and Sanctuaries in Palestine.
86 Ali Hasan al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1402–5.
87 Ibid., p. 1296.
88 Ibid., p. 1171. Also see Abu-Jbin, Kitab Hikayat ‘An Yafa, p. 80.
89 Al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, Vol. 2, p. 1298.
90 Ibid., pp. 1317–448.
91 Al-‘Asali, Mawsim al-Nabi Musa fi Falastin, pp. 133–4. Also see Jawhariyyeh, The Storyteller of Jerusalem, pp. 59–64.
92 See Falastin, 27 August 1933, 29 August 1933, 1 September 1933.
93 Falastin, 27 August 1933, 29 August 1933, 1 September 1933.
94 Separate performances were held for men and women. Falastin, 1 September 1933.
95 See the testimonies of Ahmad ‘Abd al-Rahim and Abu Darwish al-Falaha in Diyab and Sharabi, eds., Yafa ‘Utr al-Madina, pp. 133–55. Also see Tamari, Mountain against the Sea, p. 30; and Dajani, Madinatuna Yafa wa Thawrat 1936, p. 120
96 Al-Jawzi, Tarikh al-Masrah al-Falastini, pp. 15–17. Also see al-Bawab, Mawsu‘at Yafa al-Jamila, pp. 1147–8.
97 Ibid., p. 1297. Also see Abu-Jbin, Kitab Hikayat ‘An Yafa, pp. 79–82; and Dajani, Madinatuna Yafa wa Thawrat 1936, p. 120.
98 Ahmad ‘Abd al-Rahim, ‘Mawsim Rubin’ in Imitiyaz Diyab and Hisham Sharabi, eds., Yafa ‘Utr al-Madina, p. 73. Also see Mahmoud Yazbak, ‘The Muslim Festival of Nabi Rubin in Palestine’, p. 194.
99 For example, in Snir, Palestinian Theatre, p. 1. Also see Mohammad, Theatre of the Occupied, p. 1.
100 Carlson, ‘Negotiating Theatrical Modernism in the Arab World’; and Khalid Amine, Al-Masrah wa al-Hawiyat al-Hariba (Theatre and Fleeting Identities: Dancing on the Hyphen) (Tangier: International Centre for Performances Studies, 2019).
101 Nicholas Rowe, Raising Dust: A Cultural History of Dance in Palestine (London: I. B. Taurus, 2010), pp. 80–8.