...Of Codicils And Collaborations - The Tazmeen

I think it's proper to preface this post with an apology for laziness, tardiness, negligence and all-round faience (I had to look that up, how's that for not being lazy). I've neglected writing a new post for way too long. I could make excuses; some of them pretty valid too, but the underlying cause of not regularly updating the blog has been downright procrastination. I haven't been able to devote the extra time and effort that goes into earmarking the hours that I usually carve out of my once a month weekends. The realization that this temporary hiatus might insidiously turn into something of  a permanent rut that might be impossible to get out of has been bothering me for quite some time. Therefore, when the time came for a period of extended leave - 10 days is about as extended as my leave can get, sigh - I started planning a series of posts aimed at rectifying the long hibernation and revivifying the blog. Over the next week or so, I'll try to make up for the absence, in quantity if not in quality.

Now that that's taken care of, let's get to the point, shall we.

Qawwals are distinct from other performers in many respects, and one of the qualities that distinguishes a great Qawwal from the run-of-the-mill performers is versatility of repertoire. To put it another way; with obvious exceptions, a good ghazal singer sings ghazals, a good folksinger sings mahiye or tappay or baits or whatever he specializes in and a good classical performer sings classical/semi-classical pieces. A good Qawwal, a really good Qawwal sings all of the above and then some. Or perhaps, good Qawwals used to be able to sing all of the above and then some, for most of the current crop of Qawwals - especially the innumerable Nusrat clones - have painfully limited repertoires. This was borne out to me on my most recent "Organize your Library Week" -yes, it takes me a week to organize my music library, I'm that annoying a stickler for order - when I realized that among almost two hundred recordings of one of the most important Qawwali parties of today, I could find only thirty-odd kalaams being repeated. The repertoire that just one generation ago had spanned hundreds of kalaams was now whittled down to three or four dozen pieces mish-mashed together in various combinations.

This is something of a natural phenomenon in an art form that mostly relies on centuries-old canonical pieces passed down generation to generation, but it's still a troubling trend. Some forms of poetry have almost disappeared from the repertoires of most Qawwals - it's been ages since I heard a Ruba'i performed by a Qawwal - and performers have mostly fallen back on the Farsi/Urdu/Punjabi ghazal as a staple of their repertoire, with the Punjabi qawwals borrowing from the kalaams of Hz Baba Bulleh Shah and Khwaja Ghulam Fareed (RA) and derivations thereof.

One of my favorite forms of poetry, which is sung very rarely by Qawwals, and which is written even more scarcely by modern poets is the Tazmeen. A tazmeen is a slightly unusual verse form, and it needs some explaining. It's when a poet takes a ghazal - usually of one of the "Asaateza" of Urdu or Farsi - and appends three rhyming verses before each couplet, converting the verse from a couplet (two lines) to a cinquain (five lines) and changing it from a ghazal to a "mukhammass". A 'mukhammas', another verse form rarely written today, consists of series of five-line cinquains in which the last 'misrah' or hemistitch of each cinquain rhymes with the last misrah of each succeeding cinquain and constitutes the 'samm' of the kalam while the first four misrah's of each cinquain rhyme with each other and follow a different rhyme scheme for each cinquain. The result is a hybrid, with each cinquain or 'bandd' containing three lines from one poet and the final two lines from another.

I know it sounds confusing, all this talk of cinquains and hemistitches leaves the gentle reader's mind boggling,so let me give an example. The following is a wonderful Farsi ghazal of Hz Quddusi (RA).

آستین بر رخ کشیدی ہمچو مکار آمدی
با خودی خود در تماشا سوۓ بازار آمدی

در بہاران گل شدی درصحن گلزار آمدی
بعد ازان بلبل شدی بانالۂِ زار آمدی

خویشتن را جلوہ کردی اندرین آئینہ ہا
آئینہ اسمے نہادی خود بہ اظہار آمدی

شورِ منصور از کجا و دارِ منصور از کجا
خود زدی بانگِ اناالحق بر سرِ دار آمدی

گفت قدوسےؔ فقیرے در فنا و در بقا
خود بخود آزاد بودی خود گرفتار آمدی

And now here's the same kalaam with a Tazmeen by Amjad Hyderabadi.

نازدکھلاتی ہے پردے میں تیری جلوہ گری
حوربنکر تو نظر آیا کہیں بنکر پری
پھر کہو سیکھا کہاں سے ہے یہ طرز دلبری

 
آستین بر رخ کشیدی ہمچو مکار آمدی
با خودی خود در تماشا سوۓ بازار آمدی

جب سمایا میرے دل میں اُٹھ گیا نقشِ دوئی
نور یک رنگی کا چمکا مٹ گیا حرفِ دوئی
باغ میں کھل کھل کے کہتی تھی چمن کی ہر کلی

در بہاران گل شدی درصحن گلزار آمدی
بعد ازان بلبل شدی بانالۂِ زار آمدی

روح میں میری اَلَسْتُ جس گھڑی تو نے کہا
سنتے ہی کہنے لگی قَالُوبلٰی قَالُوبلٰی
پھر نظر آۓ نہ کیوں ہر شان میں جلوہ تیرا

خویشتن را جلوہ کردی اندرین آئینہ ہا
آئینہ اسمے نہادی خود بہ اظہار آمدی

یہ معقولہ عاشقِ صادق کا بے شک ہے بجا
اس نے جلوہ شان کا ہر رنگ میں دکھلا دیا
تو ہی کہہ دے معرفت میں اے کریمِ بے نوا

گفت قدوسےؔ فقیرے در فنا و در بقا
خود بخود آزاد بودی خود گرفتار آمدی

Tazmeens were regularly written on the ghazals of the "Asaateza" of both Urdu and Farsi, in both Urdu and Farsi, by the leading poets of the past. It was a both a way of paying tribute to poets by their students and admirers as well as a means of exploring or highlighting the hidden meanings of the ghazal. Most of the "asaateza" of Urdu and Farsi have themselves written Tazameen to ghazals of their predecessors. This tradition is shared by the Sufi poets, with everyone from Hz Hafiz Sherazi (RA) to more recent Sufi poets like Bedam Shah Warsi, Amjad Hyderabadi and Isa Amritsari (RA) having written Tazameen on various ghazals.

The Tazmeen was a regular part of the repertoire of Qawwals of the past, with some Qawwals like the seminal Sufi Ali Buksh Waiz Qawwal and Muhammad Ali Faridi Qawwal writing their own tazmeens to canonical kalams. In fact, Hz Pir Mehr Ali Shah (RA) bestowed the title of "Sufi" to Waiz Qawwal after hearing him perform a tazmeen on Pir Sb's immortal Punjabi kalam "Ajj sikk mitran di wadheri ae". Several of Waiz's tazameen - on poets ranging from Kabir to Khusrau (RA) - survive in his 'Beyaaz'. Succeeding Qawwals also regularly performed tazameen, however they have gradually disappeared from repertoires. An important distinction must be made here. Some listeners confuse the meaning of the terms "girah" and "tazmeen". A Tazmeen is the verse form I described above, while a girah constitutes a verse or group of verses that a Qawwal inserts between the verses of the main kalam that help elaborate the main kalam. These verses may or may not be in the same language, the same metre or the same verse form as the main kalam. For example, Haji Mahboob Sb used to insert girahs of Maulana Rumi's (RA) Mathnavi in most of his performances.

The Tazmeen in itself is a wonderful verse form, and is especially suited to Qawwali. The aim of the Qawwal is to perform a text in such a way as to bring out its various mystical and spiritual meanings, while at the same time conveying to the listener it's more literal meanings. A tazmeen fulfills both requirements admirably, with an added benefit. Urdu or Punjabi Tazmeens to Farsi kalams help the non-Farsi literate members of the audience in understanding the meaning and message of the main kalam. Before I acquired the smattering of Farsi required to understand what was being performed by various Qawwals, it was the girahs and Tazmeens sung by the Qawwals that helped me in connecting the dots and understanding the main kalam. It is therefore, doubly sad that the Tazmeen in Qawwali is gradually disappearing, for it is a wonderful verse form to introduce the lay-listener to the nuances of the canonical kalaams. It's heartening to note that Khanqahi qawwals - as opposed to the more commercially oriented ones - in both India and Pakistan continue performing Tazmeens in their repertoire, thus maintaining this important medium of spiritual instruction.

After this rather lengthy preamble, I'd like to share some of the Tazmeens in my collection to illustrate how an expert Qawwal can use this unique verse formin the Qawwali context to highlight and explore the deeper meanings of sufi texts. These recordings range from some of the very earliest Qawwali recordings produced in the subcontinent, to a mehfil from just a couple of years ago.

First off, two grand old masters of Qawwali, who were pioneers of their field. Baba Din Muhammad Jalandhri Qawwal, father of Miandad Khan Qawwal, grandfather of Badar Miandad Khan Qawwal,uncle to Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali Qawwals and a very important Ustad whose influence can clearly be heard in many of the Fareedi/Fatehkhani shagird Qawwals of the modern era. In this recording he sings the landmark Na'at of Hz Bedam Shah Warsi, Adam Se Layi Hai Hasti Main Arzooe Rusool (SAW). He uses an Urdu tazmeen by an unknown poet, and sings it in his highly distinctive sing/speak style. Along with his trademark shouts of "Haan!" and his fullthroated voice, he uses vacillating taans that were later perfected by Agha Basheer Fareedi, a shagird of Baba Din Muhammad's nephews Fateh Ali and Mubarak Ali.

Next up is another seminal Pre-Partition Qawwal, Azim Prem Ragi Qawwal , who performs his own Tazmeen to Maulana Rumi's (RA) Naat from the Diwan-e-Shams Tabraiz, Ya Rusool-Allah Habibe Khaliqe Yaktaa Tu'i. Prem Ragi was well known for writing his own kalam and performing canonical kalams with his own tazmeens. Here he uses his remarkably emotive voice and minimal instrumentation to embellish a very famous naat.

Jumping ahead in time to another brilliantly gifted Qawwal, about whom Nusrat had once remarked, "Takraar main unn ka koi saani nahi hai" (No one comes close to him in Takraar). Sadly, I only have a dozen or so recordings of Murli Qawwal ,but the ones I have are ample proof of his prodigious talent. And as Nusrat said, he has no parallels when it comes to Takraars, seemingly conjuring them out of thin air and seamlessly flitting from one takraar to another, picking up little phrases and repeating them just perfectly. Here he sings a Tazmeen to Hafiz Sherazi (RA)'s ghazal, Ba Mulazimaane Sultan Geh Rasaanad Een Dua Ra.

Among the modern Qawwals, one of my favorites is Muhammmad Ahmed Warsi Qawwal , hailing from Rampur. One of a very small group of pure khanqahi Qawwals who are also well versed in classical music, Muhammad Ahmed Warsi Sb is a wonderful Qawwal. His unique style, with a staccato harmonium and a seemingly dishevelled performance style that comes off as endearing rather than slipshod, is perfectly complimented by his vast knowledge of Sufi texts and the obvious enjoyment he derives from performing. Here he performs a Tazmeen on Hz Amir Khusrau (RA)'s kalam, Aamada Ba Qatle Mun Aan Shokh Sitamgaaray . The recording is taken from a wonderful mehfil uploaded at Naadsaagar.com .

The final Tazmeen is by Haji Mahbooob Ali Qawwal (RA) , who in my opinion fulfilled all the criteria of a perfect Khanqahi Qawwal. Nurtured and trained personally by Hz Syed Mohyeddin Gilani (RA) - Hazrat Babuji (RA) - Haji Mahboob Sb was extremely well versed in Sufi kalam. His grasp on talaffuz, adayegi and especially girahbandi was legendary. His relative weakness in classical musical education - which he was always the first to admit - was more than balanced by his unique Sitar playing and his wonderful spontaniety as a performer. Tazmeens were his specialty, and special tazmeens were written by poets like Isa Amritsari (RA) for him to perform. His version of Maulana Jami (RA)'s landmark naat "Nasima Janibe Bat'ha Guzar Kun" with a wonderful tazmeen is absolutely spellbinding. In his almost six decades of daily performance at Golra Sharif, he regularly performed Tazmeens. From the recordings that survive, here is a wonderful Tazmeen written by Isa Amritsari to Hz Badruddin Hilali (RA)'s ghazal Ae Teer-e-Ghamat Raa Dil-e-Usshaaq Nishana . Haji Sb's girahs on the final two verses - especially the girah-dar-takraar that he performs on the second last verse- open up whole vistas of hidden meanings in this kalaam. It is one of my favorite Tazmeens, and serves as a fitting bookend to this post.

P.S  I briefly mentioned the "mukhammas" or "makhmas' as five-line verse form that the Tazmeen resembles. Mukhammas is a very popular verse form in the Darri/Farsi culture and is regularly performed by musicians there. Almost all the classical Farsi poets have written Mukhammas, and many of these are still performed today. As an added treat, here's a beautiful Mukhammas of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi (RA) , performed by the phenomenal Ustad Muhammad Hussain Sarahang. This Mukhammas was a special favorite of the Ustad, referencing as it does his hometown Kabul suburb of "Kharabaat", once the cultural heart of the city. So, to end this post, Ustad Sarahang performing Maulana Rumi (RA)'s Mukhammas Mun Jaane Kharabaatam.

...On Manzoor Niazi Sb's Passing

It seems the only thing that can awaken - at least momentarily - this long slumbering blog from its stupor is the passing of one of the Great Ones; the Touchstones that support the spiritual/cultural/psychological/whateverelse-ical framework of my life. In the past I've had to write - briefly or at length, depending on my state of mind at that time- about my thoughts on the passing of Iqbal Bano, Mehdi Hassan, Jagjit Singh, Shammi Kapoor etc, and one one rare occasion, of my grandfather. It's like the only time my thoughts crystallize into a coherent whole is when another one of my Touchstones crumbles and I have to frantically try and balance myself , my Self , on the precious few that remain.

Ustad Manzoor Ahmed Khan Niazi has passed away today. He was 98. He was, both age-wise and stature-wise the senior-most Qawwal in the Indo-Pak Subcontinent. He had one of the most instantly recognizable and absolutely, mellifluously endearing voices in all of Qawwali. He was the leader of the most phenomenally gifted, albeit short-lived Qawwali group of the last century, a Supergroup which included his cousins Munshi Raziuddin Khan. Ustad Bahauddin Khan and Iftekhar Ahmed Nizami, and whose surviving recordings seem to date from a time and place that's almost too phenomenally wonderful that merely listening to them sometimes feels like an act of desecration. His last recordings, from when he was 90 years old, still carried the same verve, the same 'taazgi' as his recordings from the '60s
 

His was the voice that first sang Maulana Jami's "Naseema" and Nawab Hilm's "Yaad Hai Kuch Bhi Hamaari Kanhaiyya" to me, and even today I can scarcely appreciate these two canonical Qawwali kalaams in any other Qawwal's voice. With Niazi Sb's passing closes the chapter of the Golden Age of Pakistani Qawwali. He was a predecessor of, and later a contemporary of Nusrat, The Sabri Brothers, Aziz Mian Qawwal, Bakhshi Salamat Qawwal, Aziz Ahmed Warsi, Jafar Hussayn Khan Badayuni and ALL the Qawwals of the latter three quarters of the twentieth century. He survived them all well into the twenty-first century before finally returning to his Maker

I hope that Manzoor Niazi Sb's legacy - in the form of the Qawwal Bacchon Ka Gharana, of which he was the senior-most doyen - flourishes and thrives, and keeps on serving, nurturing and promoting the art of Qawwali that its three stalwarts; Qawwal Bahauddin Khan Sb, Munshi Raziuddin Khan Sb and Manzioor Ahmed Niazi Sb served so nobly. His son Abdullah Manzoor Niazi Qawwal has inherited his father's unbelievably melodious voice and is among the foremost Qawwals of the subcontinent today. I'm sure that Abdullah Niazi Sb, along with Farid Ayaz & Abu Muhammad, Qawwals Najmuddin Saifuddin And Brothers, Subhan Ahmed Nizami Qawwal and the third generation of the Qawwal Bacchay will carry on the wonderful and unbroken 700 year old tradition that their ancestors learnt from Hz Amir Khusrau (RA).

I shall now spend the rest of the day listening to Manzoor Niazi Sb's version of Naseema and praying for his departed soul; and I'd request the readers to do the same.

N.B.  A selection of Niazi Sb's recordings can be found here. 

...Of The Voice Of The Rohi

If you stopped me on the street tomorrow and asked, "What's the proudest day of your life?" I wouldn't hesitate a second before answering, " 30th October, 2010. "

It's not the day I got admission into Med School, it's not the day I graduated, or the day I started my professional life, or the day I got to talk to Mushtaq Ahmed Yusfi Sb (although come to think of it, that's a very close second). It's the day almost exactly two years ago when I ended my five day exploration of South Punjab with a visit to the shrine of one of the greatest Sufi poets in the history of the subcontinent, Hazrat Khwaja Ghulam Fareed Sb (RA).

I think I've written about it before but I'll give a quick recap. During the disastrous floods of autumn 2010, I went to Dera Ghazi Khan in Southern Punjab for a month of flood relief duties. Towards the end of my spell, I was given five days leave. Since my one month tour of duty was almost ending, I decided to use these five days to explore South Punjab; traveling more than 2000 kilometers over the course of five days and visiting Multan, Bahawalpur, Cholistan, Derawar, Ucch Shareef and various other places east of the river Indus. On the final day, when I was to return to DG Khan, I crossed the Indus and travelled a further 120 miles to the southernmost tip of Punjab, a little town called Mithan Kot. I was there to pay my respects at Khwaja Sb's mazaar.

Before going on to describe what happened that day, I'd like to take a few moments to explain the reason of my visit. My fascination with places of spiritual and historical significance had started during that one month of flood relief duty, yet my visits to various shrines and mazaars weren't motivated by any spiritual reasons. Of course I had the proper respect for them, but I wasn't going there as a pilgrim, merely as a tourist. With Khwaja Sb's shrine however, the motivation was different. I was going there out of spiritual and emotional affinity.

The reason for my "spiritual and emotional affinity" was that since earliest childhood, I had been exposed to Khwaja Sb's poetry via some of the greatest voices of Pakistani history. The names of Pathanay Khan and Zahida Parveen - especially Zahida Parveen - were not just familiar to me, their voices were part of my childhood. My grandparents listened to them - my Daada had me play Zahida Parveen's Kafis to him in his last days - my parents listened to them and in turn, I listened to them. The voices were filled with the sights, sounds and scents of the deserts of the "Rohi". Their tones depicted longing and hope, optimism and regret, love and heartbreak all in the same breath. It was much later when I started to better understand Seraiki that I really began to appreciate what was being sung by these amazing artists.

I think no other subcontinental Sufi poet has better expressed the feelings of longing and separation better than Khwaja Sb. Drawing from Punjabi romantic epics as well as the folk idiom of Seraiki, Khwaja Sb created a distinct language based solely on the concept of Love. Love in Khwaja Sb's poetry, whether spiritual or temporal, is a source of fulfillment and completion, while at the same time leaving one unfulfilled and incomplete. It's hard for a layman like me to explain the nuances of his kalaam, suffice to say that Khwaja Sb is the only poet whose verses have made me burst into tears.

What happened on that October day two years ago was described by me in a previous post as follows;

The obvious step after paying my respects was to ask around for anyone who might sing one of Khwaja Sb's immortal kaafis for me. Somebody directed me to a group of Fakirs sitting in a corner of the shrine courtyard, one of whom was the current Khalifa of the shrine. I introduced myself and expressed my desire to listen to some of Khwaja Sb's kalam and the Khalifa Sb graciously consented to sing some for me, albeit making excuses for his voice. As I brought out my cellphone camera and he started singing, goosebumpy silence was quickly followed by a sudden gush of emotion as tears came to my eyes. I looked around and realised that I wasn't alone, very soon the entire circle of Fakirs was gently sobbing (some of which can be heard on the recording). This in itself would've been enough to make this an unforgettable experience, but somehow I plucked up the the courage to ask the gathered audience if  I could sing something too. they graciously consented and there, right next to Khwaja Sb's resting place, in the company of a group of Fakirs, I sang one of my favorite (and my parents' and grandparents' favorite) kaafi. When I ended, the teary-eyed assemblage very kindly appreciated me and we prayed together for a while before I took my leave. Nothing, and I mean nothing has come close to the sheer spiritual and psychological elation I felt that day.

 Qawwali performers have mined the rich veins of Punjabi Sufi poetry for centuries, drawing from the inexhaustible well of poetry by the likes of Baba Fareed Ganj Shakkar (RA), Baba Bulleh Shah (RA), Hz Waris Shah (RA) and others, and although they have used Khwaja Ghulam Fareed Sb's Kafis in Qawwali too, the use hasn't been very widespread. His Kafis are mostly used as girahs, or as Dohas at the start of the performance, but relatively few Qawwals have performed Khwaja Sb's kalams as a separate piece. This may be due to a reluctance to use the lesser understood Seraiki dialect or due to the unusual Rubai-like quatrains of Khwaja Sb's Kafis which pose some difficulties when it comes to arranging and performing them in Qawwali settings. Yet the few Qawwals who have performed Khwaja Sb's Kafis, and the fewer still who have performed them well, have managed to rival the likes of Zahida Parveen, Pathanay Khan, Hussain Bash Dhaadi, Jumman Khan, Abida Parveen and other folk singers in elucidating the spiritual power of his kalaam.


The following collection comprises of some of my favorite Qawwali recordings of Khwaja Sb's Kafis, accompanied by renditions of the same kalaams by the pre-eminent Folk and Classical singers of their day. Three of these recordings have a very special place in my heart for various reasons, and all of them are very dear to me, as indeed are all renditions of Khwaja Sb's kalam.

Pathanay Khan and Haji Mahboob Ali Qawwal - Aa Mil Maroo, Mararroo

Ustad Salamat Ali Khan-Nazakat Ali Khan and Bakhshi Salamat Qawwal - Ishq Anookhri Peer

Zahida Parveen and Akhter Shareef Aroop Walay Qawwal - Itthaan Main Mutthri Nit Jaan Ba Lab

Abida Parveen and Agha Rasheed Ahmad Fareedi Qawwal - Yaar Sipahiya Aa Wass Mandray Kol

Haji Mahboob Ali Qawwal and Miandad Khan Qawwal - Bandi Te Bardi, Taen Dilbar Di O Yaar

...Of The Klaseeki Angg and the Punjabi Rungg

Over the last decade or so, Qawwali in Pakistan has undergone many changes. The death of most of the leading Qawwals of the last century left a vacuum that hasn't been filled by their successors. The overarching influence of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has led to a large number of Qawwals adopting - or trying unsuccessfully to adopt - his style while neglecting their own gharana-specific traditional andaaz. Another change that has ocurred has that Qawwals in Pakistan have become divided into two broad groups ; the Punjabi Qawwals and the "Karachi walay" Qawwals as they are known. The first group consists of the successors of the Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali clan, the Fareedi group of Qawwals, stalwarts like Mehr Ali Sher Ali Qawwals etc and their subsequent shagirds while the latter group comprises of the members of the Qawwal Bacchay gharana, the Khurja Noharbani gharana and others who migrated to Karachi around partition. Although there are many stylistic differences between these two groups - and many stylistic overlaps too for that matter - the main difference is the adherence of most of the Karachi-walay qawwals to a traditional classical-based andaaz, contrasted with the Punjabi qawwals' preference for a more bombastic, dhamaal based qawwali style.

This wasn't always the case however; as past generations of Punjabi Qawwals remained true to the classical roots of qawwali while still being faithful to the sights, sounds and moods of their native land. Qawwals like the Sabri Brothers bridged the divide between the traditional Punjabi and the classical styles of the migrant artists. The current generation of Punjabi performers, with one or two exceptions, has overlooked the importance of rooting their performance in the fertile soil of the Hindustani classical musical tradition. In contrast, their forbears ensured the inclusion of Raag based arrangements, and in many cases, specific khayal based items in their performances. As a result, they created a wonderful amalgam of Classical and traditional music.

The following are a group of recordings from some of the pre-eminent Punjabi qawwals of the last century as they perform Khayaal based on classical North-Indian Raags. It is no coincidence perhaps that they all come from a single scholastic lineage in that they are all shagirds of Ustads Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali Qawwals. The influence of their traditional Punjabi backgrounds is clearly evident here, as is their respect for, and adherence to the pure classical idiom. It is a real shame that such performances aren't being heard anymore from the current crop of Punjabi Qawwals.


1.Bakhshi Salamat Qawwal - Piya Ka Darshan Main Kaise Paoon Gi, Raag Bhairon

2.Ustad Ameer Ali Murkianvale Qawwal - Piya More Aaye Re Mandarva, Raag Khambavati

3.Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party - Dhan Dhan Bhaag Hamaro, Raag Gawati

4.Agha Rasheed Ahmad Fareedi Qawwal - Ab Na Rahe Gi Peerr, Raag Hameer ( This is an excerpt from a one hour performance that is among my most favorite Qawwali performances by any qawwal)

5.Ustad Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali Qawwal - Classical Bandish -Live In Karachi 1961 (This is a Khayal performance taken from a mehfil recording, however I am not sure about the raag being performed).

...Of The Halqa-e-Sukhun

I think I've stated this fact - actually it's an opinion, but I consider all my opinions to be incontrovertible facts - many times before but I'll state it again for good measure ; I think Ustads Fateh Ali Khan and Mubarak Ali Khan were the greatest Qawwals of the last century. I say this despite my almost fanatical love for the other two qawwals who constitute my Qawwali holy Trinity - Munshi Raziuddin Ahmed Sb and Haji Mahboob Ali. I think I once referred to the sound of Tom Waits' voice being like the mating call of a mastodon or a grizzly bear drunk on moonshine; Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali also affect me on a similar, primal and elemental level. Their voices seem to come from some distant, long forgotten place that still echoes with the remnants of the first, universe-creating, big-bang causing celestial music that everyone from Maulana Rumi to Tolkein talks about. There's a wonderful moment in Ken Burn's landmark documentary "Jazz" in which critic Matt Glaser fantasizes about a Louis Armstrong concert in Copenhagen in 1933, saying that he hoped it was attended by the physicists Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Shroedinger. Heisenberg and Shroedinger had both recently received Nobe prizes for their work on Quantum Mechanics and the Wave Equation and were fathers of the theory of relativity. How wonderful it must've been, Glaser muses, if the two physicists actually attended the concert and saw firsthand the phenomenal Louis Armstrong give a practical demonstration of the fact that when something travels at the speed of light; time actually does slow down.

Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali can also be placed into a similar fantasy, only this time Shroedinger would be accompanied by chemists Rutherford and Bohr, and the event would take place after the discovery of electron orbits and orbitals around an atomic nucleus. They would -assuming they somehow made it to Lyallpur in India, but since it's my fantasy I can assume away - be able to listen to the two brothers voices, revolving around a common musical nucleus, giving off and absorbing energy from each other, soaring and dipping constantly but at all times never losing sight of the central musical and spiritual core of their performance. It was this ability that propelled them to the very forefront of the Qawwali musicians of the subcontinent.What is wonderful is that they were able to impart some of their brilliance to an absolutely stellar line-up of shagirds, a list of whose names reads like a who's who of post-partition qawwali ; Agha Rasheed Fareedi Qawwal, Agha Bashir Fareedi, Bakhshi Salamat Qawwal and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan among many others. Obviously none of them could ever completely match the talent of their teachers, but they all displayed flashes of the Ustads' art in their performances.

If my claim that Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali were the greatest Qawwals of the last century is met with skepticism - which it should, I don't think anyone would disagree with my second claim, that they were the greatest interpreters of the greatest Sufi poet of the 20th century, Hz Allama Iqbal (RA). This is borne out by the fact that they performed during Allama's lifetime and received appreciation from Allama himself. The key to performing Iqbal's kalam well in Qawwali is the use of the girah. As most of Iqbal's kalam is unified by a single spiritual core, the experienced Qawwal can mine dozens of verses of girah from Iqbal's Urdu and Farsi kalam, and the more apt and timely the girahs, the more powerful the performance. I've heard no other qawwals put this girah-bandi to better use than Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali. They used verse upon wonderful verse, maintaining a takraar on a single phrase, drumming the audience into a frenzy. I have a recording of theirs, from a mehfil at Government College Lahore I'm told, that is a thing of elemental beauty. The quality is very shoddy, but there's no mistaking the electricity in the atmosphere as Mubarak Ali dives into one vacillating taan after the other and Fateh Ali offers girah upon girah while the accompanists maintain a steady takraar of the phrase "mujh se kaha Jibraeel ne". It is a six minute fragment of hair raising brilliance.

Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali's shagirds carried on their tradition of performing Iqbaliyat, starting in the '50s when the performance of Iqbal's kalam was actively promoted on the Radio by the Government. The more talented of the shagirds also carried forward their Ustads' technique of takraars and girah-bandi, As a result, some of Fateh Ali-Mubarak Ali's brilliance managed to live on in the coming decades and their service towards the popularization of Iqbal's kalam became a Sadqa-e-Jariya.

The following collection showcases Iqbal's kalam as sung by Ustad Fateh Ali Khan-Mubarak Ali Khan and their shagirds. For the purposes of economy, I have restricted myself to only one recording of each kalam, and only one recording by each of the shagirds, while allowing the Ustads themselves to have three recordings. The details of each recording are as follows;

Ustad Fateh Ali Khan-Mubarak Ali Khan

Har Shai Musafir, Har Cheez Raahi
Yeh Payam De Gyi hai Mujhe Baad-e-Subha Gaahi
Tu Rehnavarde Shauq Hai

Agha Bashir Fareedi Qawwal
 Hai Yehi Meri Namaz, Hai Yehi Mera Wuzu


Agha Rasheed Ahmad Fareedi Qawwal
 Khol Aankh Zameen Dekh, Falak Dekh, Fazaa Dekh


Bakhshi Salamat Qawwal
 Mataa'e Be Bahaa Hai Dard-o-Soz-e Arzoo Mandi


Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan-Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Phir Chiraagh-e-Laala Se Roshan Huay Koh-o-Daman , recorded soon after Fateh Ali Khan's death when Nusrat had taken over the lead of his father's group.


Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Soorat Na Parastam Mun, Butkhana Shikastam Mun



P.S I have deliberately left out the more well known recordings of Shikwa and other more commonly performed kalaams in order to highlight some of the lesser known but still brilliant interpretations of Iqbal's kalam.

P.P.S The title of this post comes from Iqbal's verse

میرے حلقہِ سخن میں ابھی زیرَ تربیت ہیں

وہ گدا کہ جانتے ہیں رہ و رسمِ کج کلاہی