Qawwali

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Qawwali singer Abida Parveen, accompanied by harmonium, dholak (in the background) and tabla , at a concert in Oslo, September 2007

Qawwali (spoken: Kauáli, from Arabic قوّالي, DMG Qawwālī  , the one who spreads the word ') is a devotional style of singing belonging to Sufism , whose home is in the former province of Punjab in what is now Pakistan and northern India . The style goes back to Persian qaul chants ( Arabic قول, DMG qaul  'word, said' resp.قول الله, DMG qaul Allāh 'Word of God', one of the names of the Koran), which Sufi preachers brought to India at the end of the 10th and beginning of the 11th century. Muinuddin Chishti (1141–1230) from Ajmer contributed significantly to the spread of Qawwali. Traditionally, the performances take place at Sufi shrines in honor of a saint. Internationally, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan became the most famous qawwali singer ( qawwāl ) with his style influenced by western popular music .

Origin and Distribution

Qawwali is deeply rooted in Sufism , Islamic mysticism , the center of which is the approach to God through various techniques, including that of ecstasy . The ecstatic quality of the medium of music was linked to the reading of the Koran as early as the 8th century in Iraq , around 1300 the Qawwali was introduced by Amir Chosrau at the court of the north Indian Delhi Sultanate , an event that to this day is known as the "birth" of Qawwali applies.

Qawwali is influenced by North Indian classical music . From the 1960s onwards he increasingly adapted the influences of popular music, initially by integrating elements of Indian folk music, but later, with the success of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, also from Western forms of music such as pop , rock and dub . These variants are very controversial in Sufi circles; many Sufis deny these crossovers recognition as music of devotion. The Sabri Brothers , representatives of a traditional line, said, “That's good. People take different routes to qawwali. But the real, orthodox qawwali wouldn't like what's going on. "Her spokeswoman said," Those poppy sounds just mean that a lot of Sufis won't listen to it. "

Other forms of mystical Sufi music in Pakistan are the folk music-based style Kafi, in which the singer accompanies one or two-stringed plucked ektara and a wooden rattle , and the Way. In these songs, addressed to the poet Shah Abdul Latif , five to six singers strike an accompanying rhythm on the long-necked lute tanburo .

Performance practice

The set of instruments has remained largely the same since the 18th century: rhythmic clapping of hands, singing in unison or homophone , drums ( tabla and dholak ) and, as a melodic addition, the harmonium introduced by English missionaries in the 19th century . In the 1930s, the key zither bulbultarang was added as an accompanying melody instrument in the popular qawwali. Qawwali is mostly practiced on the commemoration days of Sufi saints. The individual chants are not strictly composed, but improvisations, last approximately 30 minutes and use classic Sufi texts as a basis, mostly poems, on the basis of which they can be divided into three different forms:

to form

Ghazal

Ghazal is a form of song in verse, the content of which is always love for God, even if it is directed at a human counterpart on an external level.

Tarana

Tarana belong to North Indian classical music. There are sometimes fast, rhythmic chants whose text consists only of syllables, comparable to the scat singing in jazz . Taranas usually serve as an intermezzo within a piece.

Hamd

A concert is usually opened with a hamd , a praise to God.

Na'Att

Naat is a hymn to the prophet Mohammed , comparable to the Hindu counterpart Bhajan .

Musician

literature

  • Rashid Ahmed Din: Shahen-Shah-E-Qawwali. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and the Qawwali tradition. In: Jean Trouillet, Werner Pieper (Ed.): WeltBeat. Pieper, Löhrbach 1989, ISBN 3-925817-32-8 .
  • Regula Burckhardt Qureshi: Sufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context and Meaning in Qawwali. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1987
  • Regula Burckhardt Qureshi: Exploring Time Cross-Culturally: Ideology and Performance of Time in the Sufi Qawwālī. In: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 12, No. 4, Fall 1994, pp. 491-528
  • Hiromi Lorraine Sakata: Spiritual Music and Dance in Pakistan. In: Etnofoor, Vol. 10, No. 1/2, Muziek & Dans. 1997, pp. 165-173

Web links

Commons : Qawwali  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Qavvāli. In: Late Pandit Nikhil Ghosh (Ed.): The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Music of India. Saṅgīt Mahābhāratī. Vol. 3 (P – Z) Oxford University Press, New Delhi 2011, p. 837
  2. ↑ a b Karla Kelsey: Sabri Brothers to perform traditional Sufi music. In: The Daily Bruin. 5th November 1996.