India and Pakistan share a similar musical history and style, which is why each has appreciated the singers from the other. One of the most important constituents of culture is music and songs. But, the sub-continent, as a whole, shares a common culture, and, presents uniformity in the middle of diversity. These countries are quite varied from each other. Qawwali, with its complex rhythm, virtuoso singing and impulsive, impassioned delivery, is a ritualised form of music that triggers ecstatic states in musicians and listeners, thus making the divine tangible at an individual level.The Indian sub-continent is a cluster of many different countries. Qawwali combined the musical styles of ancient Indian classical music such as dhrupad with the poems and emotions of the Islamic mystics. The poet and singer Amir Khusro, a disciple of Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, is considered the founder of the genre. The origins of Qawwali go back some 900 years. "Qawwali" in turn is derived from the Arabic "qal" meaning utterance or pronunciation. Faridi defines the name of the ensemble as an "ultimate state of complete realisation of Allah when the veil of duality is lifted." As a result the masters took us all the more seriously."įanna-fi-Allah – a kind of Islamic counterpart to Buddhist nirvana – can be translated as "annihilation in Allah". "The deeper we got into this music, the more we had to prove our dedication to the tradition – that we would go on showing up to receive more. "The ustads in Pakistan were intrigued by the devotion in our hearts and by the fact that we had come all the way to follow it," Farid says. Traditionally, Qawwali performances take place either in the courtyards of the Sufi shrines of India and Pakistan or in the presence of a spiritual master With its complex rhythm, virtuoso singing and impulsive, impassioned delivery, Qawwali is a ritualised form of music that triggers ecstatic states in musicians and listeners, thus making the divine tangible at an individual level. The origins of Qawwali go back some 900 years: the poet and singer Amir Khusro (1253-1325), a disciple of Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, is considered the founder of the genre. He also dedicated himself to learning the harmonium, Qawwali’s most important accompanying instrument. Over the years that followed, Faridi, together with his band colleagues, studied with the masters of the tradition, including renowned singers such as Nusrat's nephew Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. What united them was a passion for the music of the great Qawwals – especially the singing of the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Its band members first came together in 2001 as a group of hippies and breakaways whose quest for meaning had led them to the Indian subcontinent. Today, Faridi is the lead singer of Fanna-fi-Allah, the West’s most successful Qawwali ensemble. Immersing himself in traditional Qawwali music during numerous stays in Pakistan and India, Faridi gradually penetrated the spiritual world of South Asia’s Islamic mystics. At the age of seventeen he found a Sufi master, converted to Islam and took the name Tahir.
As a teenager, Faridi, whose name is derived from Baba Farid – a 13th century Sufi saint – travelled through India as a meditating wandering ascetic. The Canadian Tahir Faridi Qawwal, born Geoffrey Lyons, dared to do it anyway.
It is not easy to learn a musical tradition that has grown organically over the centuries and produced successions of masters while striving for ever greater levels of perfection – especially when you yourself come from a completely different culture.
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