"Singing A Shining Steed: The Mystical Origins of the Buraq" by Jessika Kenney

In this unique speech, Khateebah & Mu'adthinah Jessika Kenney delves into the many different understandings of the buraq, or shining steed, that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) rode on his Night Journey. She explores the more mystical and folklorish renditions of the buraq as a winged animal with a woman's head, to the more metaphysical and scientific theories of the buraq as electricity or light. At the end of her speech, Jessika treats us with an interactive singing performance in which she invites the audience to participate in chanting beautiful poetry in the background as she sings the main verses. // On the evening of May 10, 2019, The Women's Mosque of America held its fifth annual co-ed iftar & qiyam during the holy month of Ramadan, featuring all women speakers and a chance for the greater public to benefit from the spiritual insights of its Muslim women leaders.

Bio:
Jessika Kenney is a vocalist, composer/improviser, and teacher. Jessika’s singing can be heard on Ideologic Organ, Black Truffle, Weyrd Son, SIGE, Present Sounds, and other labels. She performs regularly with writers/scholars Red Pine (Bill Porter), Fatemeh Keshavarz, and Anne Carson. At international festivals, Jessika has performed her own compositions as well as music of Annea Lockwood, Hossein Omoumi, Morton Feldman, Giacinto Scelsi, and others. In 2015, her LP “ATRIA” (based on writings attributed to Sunan Kalijaga, who brought Islam to Java in the 15th century CE) was released alongside a sound, calligraphic score, sculpture, and video installation filling five rooms at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle.

Jessika taught from 2007-2015 at her alma mater, Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. She has studied sindhenan with many great musicians of Javanese gamelan in and outside Indonesia, particularly the late, great pesindhen Nyi Supadmi (d. 2015). She has studied Persian radifs with Ostad Hossein Omoumi (UC Irvine) since 2004. Kenney received the 2014 James Ray Distinguished Artist Award, and for collaborations with her husband Eyvind Kang, the 2015 Stranger Genius Award. She is VoiceArts faculty at California Institute of the Arts and lives in Pasadena, CA.

In 1997, Jessika had her first masjid experience in the Kauman neighborhood of Surakarta, Central Java, and she has been involved in Islamic and Sufi culture ever since.