Mazaher is an ensemble in which women play a leading role.
The musicians of Mazaher, Umm Sameh, Umm Hassan, Nour el Sabah, are among the last remaining Zār (زار) practitioners in Egypt.
[1] Zār is a community healing ritual of drumming and dancing whose tradition is carried on mainly by women (men have the secondary roles) and whose main participants are women.
A featured instrument in the Zār ritual is the tanbūra, a six-string lyre, which, like the Zār practice itself, exists in various forms in an area stretching across East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.
[2] Other instruments are the mangour, a leather belt sewn with many goat hooves, and various percussion instruments.