Two days before their concert in late November 2024, former political prisoner of Sednaya Prison, Asaad Shalash, along with his fellow ex-detainees Haitham Al-Qatrib, Kasra Kurdi, and Ibrahim Bayraqadar, began speaking with us in a hall at the Berlin Theater HAU, while he was busy transforming a plastic water pipe into a flute—a process he seemed to have performed thousands of times before. With deliberate precision, he slowly carved nozzles into the pipe using a scalpel in his hand. A calmness pervaded their conversation and movements, perhaps reflecting the long years they spent in prison, where there was no room for haste. Patience and determination had become their tools to transform injustice and darkness into words and melodies.
As preparations unfolded according to plan, a trace of (perhaps healthy!) concern appeared on the face of Elaf Badr al-Din, assistant professor of Arabic studies at Davidson University and a Syrian researcher. He had embarked years ago on a journey to unearth a supposed prison song in Syria and wrote a related study that is expected to come to light soon.
Around the hall, makeshift musical instruments lay scattered, faithfully reconstructed in the style of Sednaya Prison: here, the bowl oud; there, the dried bread oud.
“Resistance with Soft Power”
"Recovering the music you played in prison is beautiful, but doesn’t your preoccupation with it somehow bring you back to prison?"
My question momentarily pulled teacher Asaad away from crafting the flute. "I studied at the Institute of Music before my arrest, and I was detained just a month after graduating,” he explained. “The abundant time in prison became an opportunity to strengthen my abilities, though there were no references. I believe that music, in general, and singing, help maintain balance. After my release, my relationship with music remained strong, as a member of my family."
He paused before adding, "But it does, of course, evoke memories—memories filled with pain but also with beauty... even pleasure. It reminds you that the pain didn’t destroy you; instead, you were able to transform it into something beautiful. I’ve always called it resistance with soft power."
Kasra, who spent eight years in prison and learned to play with Asaad’s guidance, reflects on how detention reshaped his relationship with music. He describes the stages a prisoner undergoes in the search for balance—finding ways to fill the void of free time imposed by detention. Each prisoner explores different fields of art, knowledge, formation, languages, and music. Dozens began learning music, but only six continued.
"You find your balance and create your own world in prison, through which you discover yourself," Kasra reflects, referencing the term “detention” coined by writer Yassin al-Haj Saleh, which emphasizes adapting to and relying on the prison environment. Despite the many opportunities for other pursuits after his release, Kasra remained deeply connected to music. Whenever he played, he would recall the prison—where and how he learned music.
Haitham Al-Qatrib, a singing teacher from Salamiyah, who was detained in 1982 for ten years, offers a contrasting perspective. He says he never remembers the prison after his release, nor does he dream about it, describing it as "the place I despised the most (...). There is something burned inside us there that cannot be replaced."
He recounts learning music before his arrest but forgetting everything during his imprisonment, as he was placed in a different wing from the musicians. Yet, he rediscovered music using a radio he had, through which he followed music programs and relearned the basics of solfège. "After seven months, I organized a party for them, performing songs I had composed," he recalls. "After my release, I stayed away from music for a year, but then I returned to teaching.I became the first professor in Salamiyah to help students gain acceptance into the Higher Institute of Music."
“Elaf narrates in his research how Badr Zakaria would transform critical situations into humorous ones, such as laughing out loud when a torturer banged his head and the heads of other detainees against the wall in the interrogation room. Different groans emanated from them, and he imagined someone playing the piano with their heads, which led to him being beaten again.”
“Elaf narrates in his research how Badr Zakaria would transform critical situations into humorous ones, such as laughing out loud when a torturer banged his head and the heads of other detainees against the wall in the interrogation room. Different groans emanated from them, and he imagined someone playing the piano with their heads, which led to him being beaten again.”
As we continue our conversation, Asaad Shalash steps into the next room. From there, we can hear him testing the flute (Ney), ensuring its sound is just right.
The challenge of squeezing memory and recalling the musical aspects of their prison lives becomes apparent when we ask about their experience during a pivotal moment: the death of the dictator’s son, Basil al-Assad, in a car accident in 1994. Did they stop playing music during those days when the regime imposed national mourning on the population? Kasra recalls how terror permeated the prison at the time, leaving no space for music. They feared potential retaliatory measures from the prison administration for reasons that often defied logic. Ibrahim Bayrakdar recalls the punishment inflicted on Adnan Qassar, a horseman and fellow prisoner, although he was detained like them and certainly did not cause Basil’s death, nor had he ever committed a fault by surpassing him in horsemanship, he ended up spending 21 years behind bars.
"Symphony of Howling"
When asked about the Symphony of Howling mentioned in Elaf's research, their memories seemed insufficient to fully reconstruct the details of what their theater friend, Badr Zakaria, once did. It is said that he vented his anguish by howling under the prison door, and gradually, others joined in. The collective howling reportedly frightened the jailers.
Discussing music as a form of soul practice and resistance, Elaf narrates in his research how Badr Zakaria would transform critical situations into humorous ones, such as laughing out loud when a torturer banged his head and the heads of other detainees against the wall in the interrogation room. Different groans emanated from them, and he imagined someone playing the piano with their heads, which led to him being beaten again.
Diaries of a Lawyer at the Damascus Courthouse
24 August 2016
Regarding their most cherished musical memories in prison, Kasra recalls how irritating his music training was for the other detainees, prompting him to practice at the end of the wing to avoid disturbing them. One day, however, remains etched in his memory—when their friend Badr Zakaria expressed admiration for his playing, a moment that has stayed with him to this day. Ibrahim also remembers how annoying his training sessions were to the others and how, after a year of practice, he was selected among the beginners to perform in a concert. He says, “We sang songs like Laylat Yabareh and Sho Qoulak. That was the first time I felt a true sense of my own presence.”
Ibrahim also recalls a group memorial concert in which he, Asaad, and others participated on the day the "Prince of the Bouzouki," Mohammed Abdel Karim, passed away. During this tribute, they sang Raqqat Hasanak Wa Samarak (The Softness of your Beauty and Brown Skin).
Elaf categorizes this event under the heading “eulogies” in his research, a copy of which I had the opportunity to review. This research began with a grant from the Ettijahat Foundation and continued at the University of Marburg in Germany, later receiving support from other institutions, such as the Umam Foundation.
Melodies Drenched in Fear
But not all memories tied to music were rosy; they were melodies drenched in fear, deeply intertwined with deprivation and punishment. Ibrahim Bayrakdar, from Homs, who spent nearly nine years in detention, recalls a celebration they held for a friend's daughter’s birthday. Their friend Al-Raqawi, whose voice was beautifully resonant, was singing to the tune of his oud when “the most despicable disciplinary assistant suddenly burst into the room. We fell silent, and he spotted the oud in my lap. He asked, ‘Are you the one singing?’ I said yes—I thought it was better for only one of us to be punished rather than both.
He took me down to the cell, located four floors below ground. I stayed there for a month and five days. My smell became unbearable, indescribable. The fur I was wearing had completely disintegrated from the high humidity—it was as if a hyena had devoured it. No matter how much you knocked on the door, they wouldn’t answer. Hassan Azzou, one of our friends, kept knocking repeatedly, but no one came. He died in that cell.” Ibrahim adds, “The jailers were infuriated whenever they heard us play music. They would think, ‘These are prisoners, and they’re happy? How? They don’t want us to be normal human beings.’”
The jailers were infuriated whenever they heard us play music. They would think, ‘These are prisoners, and they’re happy? How? They don’t want us to be normal human beings.’
However, family visits and the rampant corruption inside and outside the prison played a role in improving their musical conditions, as Ibrahim points out that corruption allowed for the smuggling of many "contrabands", including real oud strings that they bought from the prison guards, while the families brought some strings with them during visits.
The development of the musical instrument craftsmanship... and a "historic ceremony"
Ibrahim recalls how the musical instrument industry developed in prison, "The first to make instruments was Asaad, he made Oud al-Qas'a (The Bowl Oud) in the Palestine Branch (...) When we moved to Sednaya, we used to take advantage of the eggplant and tomato boxes, and use glass to cut them, and we suffered a lot in that, and we used sock threads to make strings, until real strings arrived through visits and were purchased from the censors. There were experiments in other wings, ouds made from cardboard, then techniques developed, and elaborate ouds were made, they cut the wood and soak it in water and curved it, there were engineers who were experts in manufacturing." He remembers that when he came out of the underground cell and returned to the wing, with a broken oud and soul, one of them promised them, “Don’t worry about Barhoum, today there will be an oud ready for you,” Ibrahim says with a smile.
At the highly anticipated detainees’ concert, we heard them perform nine prison songs, one of which they had composed themselves. The lyrics to some of these songs were written in prison by the poet Faraj Bayrakdar.
The event was part of a program titled “Towards a Deeper Understanding of Prisons” organized by HAU Theater in collaboration with several human rights organizations. It also included a dialogue session moderated by Bente Schiller from the German Heinrich Böll Foundation, featuring writer Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Lynn Maalouf from the Office of the UN Envoy to Syria, and human rights activist Jumana Seif.
The audience at the concert felt a remarkable harmony in the band members' playing and singing, despite their decades-long separation after their release and having only spent a few days rehearsing together before the event. A representative of the German Theater described the concert as historic—not only because it marked the first-ever performance by these musicians post-release, but also because it was their debut in Berlin.
Hassan Abdul Rahman, a musician from Damascus now residing in France, who had begun learning music before his arrest and continued his studies while detained, held up a musical instrument during the performance to introduce the audience to a unique oud design. It mimicked the ones they used to craft in prison using cardboard and fruit boxes, reinforced with a mixture of soaked bread, sugar, and jam.
Later, during a seminar organized by the Tafakur Forum for Dialogue and Culture, Hassan recalled how someone from the audience at one of his concerts told him, after many years, that they had "eaten" his oud in Sednaya prison after Hassan and his companions were released. He explained that when a standoff occurred in the prison after several years, at the beginning of the third millennium, food supplies were cut off, and they were forced to break the stale bread into pieces, soak it in water, and eat it.
When a standoff occurred in the prison after several years, at the beginning of the third millennium, food supplies were cut off, and they were forced to break the stale bread into pieces, soak it in water, and eat it.
The musicians were joined on stage by Adnan Hassan, a doctor with a degree in English literature now living in France. Adnan, who spent 12 years and 16 days in the regime’s detention centers, had further developed his oud-playing skills during his imprisonment.
Asaad Shalash also introduced the audience to primitive instruments he made, the ney he made during his conversation with us, the bowl oud, to which he attached strings made from threads taken from socks, and a rectangular oud that imitated one they made in Sednaya from fruit boxes, which he played and sang with his companions the traditional song “Ammi Ya Baya’ al-Ward” (My Uncle, the Rose Seller).
He also introduced the audience to the so-called “morning” ritual, which are songs, most of which are from “Fayrouz classics”, that he played for the detainees, so that they could start their day in the nicest way possible, and to the ritual of “eulogies”, talking about a song they sang in detention about a detained officer who was released by the regime so that he could die outside of it.
Meanwhile, Kasra Kurdi sang with Hassan and the band's guest, the former detainee, artist Khuder Abdul Karim, the traditional Kurdish song "Yek Momek" which was also sung in the prison. The detainees also sang the song "Atab" which they composed collectively and whose lyrics were written by the poet Faraj Bayrakdar, who the research indicates participated in writing “Eight Prisoners". Researcher Elaf explains that this song is the only one of those restored that has been documented and reproduced.
During the concert, Asaad Shalash announced the formation of a group they called "Strings Behind Bars" to be a destination for everyone who resisted the harshness of detention through art and music, and to try to revive those experiences, according to his description. "Strings Behind Bars" is also the title of a novel written by Asaad about their musical experience in the prison.
After the event concluded, the former detainees left the HAU Theater, walking under a light rain toward a nearby hotel where they were staying. Their shared moment together felt like a scene from the many years they had spent bound by fate, sharing food, drink, and experiences.
Prison Song or Political Song?
The following evening, the Tafakur Forum symposium (which can be viewed here) became a public space for discussing the existence of a Syrian "prison song" in the first place. Researcher Elaf engaged in an open discussion not only with some participants from his study who were present on the panel but also with many of the former detainees in the audience about whether there could even be such a thing as a "prison song."
Concerning the classification of the series songs as prison songs, Elaf explained that he referred to Ibrahim Berqdar’s rendition of the song "Yamo," originally performed by Duraid Lahham in the series. This, he noted, illustrated the extent to which detainees were impacted by cultural products they encountered prior to their arrests. While acknowledging that detainees experience fatigue from their past trauma, he emphasized that he always ensured a female psychiatrist was present to help mitigate these effects as much as possible. The emotional fatigue felt by the detainees ultimately prevented them from performing any prison songs during the second evening.
One contributor suggested that the more accurate term might be "political song." He argued, "If we call every song sung by a criminal detainee a 'prison song,' would it be correct?" He also warned against labeling songs from the Duraid Lahham and Nihad Qala’i duo series as prison songs, pointing out that these songs were professionally created and filmed solely to serve the series.
In his research, Elaf classified the songs sung by the detainees during that period into three categories: complete prison songs, which were composed and arranged in prison; modified prison songs, which were songs performed outside before entering prison; and musical prison songs, which do not contain lyrics. During his research, Elaf was able to identify 34 songs and recover 14 of them. He hopes that at least the fourteen songs will be recorded today.
Elaf covers the prison song in Sednaya between 1987 (the year it was opened) and 1996, a different, certainly horrific period, but one that is distinct from the time in 2017 when Amnesty International described the prison as a "human slaughterhouse." He says that he conducted nearly 100 hours of interviews with detainees who were members of the Communist Workers' Party, active in the 1970s and 1980s. His reading of an article by the writer and former detainee Malik Daghistani on the Al-Jumhuriyah website motivated him to research further into this field, which had been absent from the research radar.
In his research, he mentions three teachers in Sednaya: Asaad Shalash, Samir Abdo (Abu al-Nada), and Haitham Qatrib, along with amusing competitive cases between Asaad and Abu al-Nada, who was nicknamed Sheikh Al Kar (The Master of the profession).
Elaf traces the stages of the spread of prison music, starting with the early days when teacher Asaad Shalash would run his hands over a piece of wood in the Palestine Branch to maintain the flexibility of his fingers. Then comes the fermentation and maturation phase in the late 1980s, in Sednaya prison, which witnessed the crafting and development of instruments, as well as other branches like the Palestine Branch. This is followed by a phase of decline and halting, though not entirely, in the early 1990s, due to various circumstances, including the release of musicians, their transfer, the destruction of their instruments, and the separation from their personal belongings.
Elaf’s study also explores prison music experiences in both European and Arab countries. He examines the reasons behind the absence and concealment of prison songs and the creation of prison musical instruments in the Syrian context. He notes that this research would not have come to fruition without the contributions of the detainees in exile, as it was impossible to carry out such work within Syria.
During both events in Berlin, a key point of discussion was how to address this musical phenomenon and its potential negative effects on detainees. Speakers and presenters questioned whether celebrating this phenomenon and the happy moments associated with it might inadvertently diminish the suffering that detainees experienced at the time.
Elaf hopes that this research will serve as a starting point for future studies on the subject of prison songs. Personally, he plans to embark on related research focusing on women’s prison songs. In addition, he envisions an "American tour," where prisoners will hold a concert similar to the one held in Berlin. Furthermore, Elaf is working on a prison music museum project, which will feature instruments made in prison.
