The African ancestors of India’s Sidi communities sailed across the Indian Ocean to the western coast of India over many centuries. As practitioners of a unique strand of Sufism, Sidis follow the 14th century Rifa’i Sufi saint, Bava Gor, and his disciples Bava Habash and Mai Mishra. At our Online Talk #SidiSufism, ethnomusicologist Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy will trace the roles the healing music of Sidi Goma and Sidi Dhamal play in the development of Sidi identity. Narrating excerpts of her films and slides and recordings, she will explain how the 'Sidis at the Millennium' conference led to the first Sidi Goma international tour she curated in 2002, and her documentaries ‘From Africa to India: Sidi Music in the Indian Ocean Diaspora’ and ‘The Sidi Malunga Project: Rejuvenating the African Musical Bow in India.’ About the speaker Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy is an ethnomusicologist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She has been working with the Sidi community for more than 25 years. In 2002, she organized the 'Sidis at the Millennium' conference where 400 Sidis and several international scholars gathered at the Rajpipla Palace in Narmada District. After co-directing the Sidi Literacy Project (2015-2024), she is co-directing the Sidi Cultural Centre Project in Bharuch District (2024-) with Sonal Mehta of Eklavya (Ahmedabad) and Professor Beheroze Shroff (University of California at Irvine). Her research on Sidis of Gujarat, Karnataka, and Hyderabad was supported by a Senior Research Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies, and is archived in their Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE) in Gurgaon, Haryana.