An episode of "Shabakat" program (10/2022) sheds light on the festival in the Tunisian city of Kairouan, the first Islamic city built in the Maghreb.
It is the city of 300 mosques, the oldest of which is the Great Mosque of Uqba bin Nafie, and annually celebrates the birth of the Holy Prophet.
And this year, the celebration was a festival for 9 days.
The festival was closer to the touristic character than the religious, and this can be seen in the performances held, especially the expressive African “Stambali” dance, which is the cry of Africans in the face of “slavery”, in an artistic expression of breaking the shackles of slavery, strong rhythm and lively dance that has several names, Such as "Al-Qenawa" in Morocco, "Al-Diwan" in Algeria, "Al-Makari" in Libya, and "Al-Buri" in Mauritania.
A dance performance was presented with loud music and indecent dress, which some saw as contrary to the sanctity of the religious occasion and as a precedent in the history of the ethnic Islamic city.
Habib Belhaj Saleh described the show as "moral decadence", and considered it unworthy of a religious occasion, so he said: "Something blemishes! Moral decadence! It would have been better to cancel it before the show because it is not appropriate for a religious occasion."
While Shaker Hamzawy described the festival's executive committee as "amateurs", he wrote, "It's normal, when some amateurs take charge."
On the other hand, Al-Hamidi Nabil believes that these problems can be solved in the future, and he said in a tweet to him, "Every human action is subject to error, and everyone should serve the best, and, God willing, these slips will not recur."
In turn, the organizing committee of the festival apologized in a statement on Facebook, in which it said: "We apologize for the content of the show at its beginning, due to the presence of some inappropriate scenes, and we have previously warned the showrunners to avoid this kind of it, knowing that we asked the show owner to stop this type of dance. Now, it has already been done."