Julien Jalâl Eddine Weiss

Julien Jalâl Eddine Weiss (October 18, 1953 – January 2, 2015) was a French musician, composer and the founder of Al-Kindi Ensemble, a Sufi musical group based in Aleppo, Syria.

As a student in 1976, he was fascinated by classical Arabic music when he met Munir Bachir, the Iraqi grand master of the oud (oriental lute).

Abandoning the oud for the qanûn, a sort of oriental zither, which he learned from masters in various countries of the Middle East, Julien Weiss founded in 1983 the instrumental ensemble Al-Kindi.

[2] Three years later, in 1986, he converted to Islam and took the name Julien Jalâl Eddine Weiss as an homage to Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī.

[4] French novelist Mathias Énard cited his death in his novel Boussole (translated into English as Compass).