Qawwali Status 30 Second Download
Heidi Asman
Khusrau is regarded as the "father of qawwali" (a devotional form of singing of the Sufis in the Indian subcontinent), and introduced the ghazal style of song into India, both of which still exist widely in India and Pakistan.[7][8]Khusrau was an expert in many styles of Persian poetry which were developed in medieval Persia, from Khāqānī's qasidas to Nizami's khamsa. He used 11 metrical schemes with 35 distinct divisions. He wrote in many verse forms including ghazal, masnavi, qata, rubai, do-baiti and tarkib-band. His contribution to the development of the ghazal was significant.[9]
Amir Saif ud-Din and Bibi Daulatnaz became the parents of four children: three sons (one of whom was Khusrau) and a daughter. Amir Saif ud-Din Mahmud died in 1260, when Khusrau was only eight years old.[12] Through his father's influence, he imbibed Islam and Sufism coupled with proficiency in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic languages.[12] He was known by his sobriquet Tuti-i Hind ("Parrot of India"), which according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam "compares the eloquent poet to the sweet-talking parrot, indicates his canonical status as a poet of Persian."[13] Khusrau's love and admiration for his motherland is transparent through his work.[14]
Nasir ud-Din Bughra Khan, the second son of Balban, was invited to listen to Khusrau. He was impressed and became Khusrau's patron in 1276. In 1277 Bughra Khan was then appointed ruler of Bengal, and Khusrau visited him in 1279 while writing his second divan, Wast ul-Hayat (The Middle of Life). Khusrau then returned to Delhi. Balban's eldest son, Khan Muhammad (who was in Multan), arrived in Delhi, and when he heard about Khusrau he invited him to his court. Khusrau then accompanied him to Multan in 1281. Multan at the time was the gateway to India and was a center of knowledge and learning. Caravans of scholars, tradesmen and emissaries transited through Multan from Baghdad, Arabia and Persia on their way to Delhi. Khusrau wrote that:
On 9 March 1285, Khan Muhammad was killed in battle while fighting Mongols who were invading the Sultanate. Khusrau wrote two elegies in grief of his death. In 1287, Khusrau travelled to Awadh with another of his patrons, Amir Ali Hatim. At the age of eighty, Balban called his second son Bughra Khan back from Bengal, but Bughra Khan refused. After Balban's death in 1287, his grandson Muiz ud-Din Qaiqabad, Bughra Khan's son, was made the Sultan of Delhi at the age of 17. Khusrau remained in Qaiqabad's service for two years, from 1287 to 1288. In 1288 Khusrau finished his first masnavi, Qiran us-Sa'dain (Meeting of the Two Auspicious Stars), which was about Bughra Khan meeting his son Muiz ud-Din Qaiqabad after a long enmity. After Qaiqabad suffered a stroke in 1290, nobles appointed his three-year-old son Shams ud-Din Kayumars as Sultan. A Turko-Afghan named Jalal ud-Din Firuz Khalji then marched on Delhi, killed Qaiqabad and became Sultan, thus ending the Mamluk dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate and starting the Khalji dynasty.
In 1290 Khusrau completed his second masnavi, Miftah ul-Futuh (Key to the Victories), in praise of Jalal ud-Din Firuz's victories. In 1294 Khusrau completed his third divan, Ghurrat ul-Kamaal (The Prime of Perfection), which consisted of poems composed between the ages of 34 and 41.
After Jalal ud-Din Firuz, Ala ud-Din Khalji ascended to the throne of Delhi in 1296. Khusrau wrote the Khaza'in ul-Futuh (The Treasures of Victory) recording Ala ud-Din's construction works, wars and administrative services. He then composed a khamsa (quintet) with five masnavis, known as Khamsa-e-Khusrau (Khamsa of Khusrau), completing it in 1298. The khamsa emulated that of the earlier poet of Persian epics, Nizami Ganjavi. The first masnavi in the khamsa was Matla ul-Anwar (Rising Place of Lights) consisting of 3310 verses (completed in 15 days) with ethical and Sufi themes. The second masnavi, Khusrau-Shirin, consisted of 4000 verses. The third masnavi, Laila-Majnun, was a romance. The fourth voluminous masnavi was Aina-e-Sikandari, which narrated the heroic deeds of Alexander the Great in 4500 verses. The fifth masnavi was Hasht-Bihisht, which was based on legends about Bahram V, the fifteenth king of the Sasanian Empire. All these works made Khusrau a leading luminary in the world of poetry. Ala ud-Din Khalji was highly pleased with his work and rewarded him handsomely. When Ala ud-Din's son and future successor Qutb ud-Din Mubarak Shah Khalji was born, Khusrau prepared the horoscope of Mubarak Shah Khalji in which certain predictions were made. This horoscope is included in the masnavi Saqiana.[16]
Khusrau is credited with fusing the Persian, Arabic, Turkic, and Indian singing traditions in the late 13th century to create qawwali, a form of Sufi devotional song.[24] A well-punctuated chorus emphasising the theme and devotional refrain coupled with a lead singer utilising an ornate style of fast taans and difficult svara combinations are the distinguishing characteristics of a qawwali.[25] Khusrau's disciples who specialised in Qawwali singing were later classified as Qawwals (they sang only Muslim devotional songs) and Kalawants (they sang mundane songs in the Qawwali style).[25]
Traditional qawwali practice is built upon a system of hereditary training in which qawwals are part of the service community connected to a particular shrine. Their primary function to the shrine is to service formal activities, primarily the death anniversaries of Sufi saints (Urs).[7]
Since the intention of qawwali is to act as a bridge toward the experience of Sufi mystical love and builds upon religious chants and chanted poetry, the practice is viewed as permissible in what Islamic scholar Lois Lamya al-Faruqi refers to as non-musiqa.[8][9] Qawwals themselves are central figures within qawwali ritual but are not regarded as the focus and are still regarded as part of the servant class.[10]
The songs which constitute the qawwali repertoire are primarily in Persian, Urdu, and Hindi,[13][14] although Sufi poetry appears in local languages as well (including Punjabi, Saraiki, and dialects of northern India like Braj Bhasha and Awadhi.)[15][16] The sound of regional language qawwali can be totally different from that of mainstream qawwali, as in the case of Chhote Babu Qawwal, whose style of singing is much closer to the Bengali Baul music than to the qawwali of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, for example.
The central themes of qawwali are love, devotion and longing for the Divine. The Sufi poets whose texts have made up the qawwali repertory often used worldly images to convey mystic spiritual love. As such, it is not uncommon to see mentions of worldly or forbidden concepts such as romantic longing, wine, and drunkenness, which are used as metaphors for the mystic state.[17] Qawwals bear the responsibility of maintaining a spiritually appropriate context for such songs, so as not to distract from the religious focus of the Qawwali occasion.[18]
A group of qawwali musicians, called a party (or Humnawa in Urdu), typically consists of eight or nine men including a lead singer, one or two side singers, one or two harmoniums (which may be played by the lead singer, side singer or someone else), and percussion. If there is only one percussionist, he plays the tabla and dholak, usually the tabla with the dominant hand and the dholak with the other one (i.e. a left-handed percussionist would play the tabla with his left hand). Often there will be two percussionists, in which case one might play the tabla and the other the dholak. There is also a chorus of four or five men who repeat key verses, and who aid percussion by hand-clapping.
Women used to be excluded from traditional Muslim music, since they are traditionally prohibited from singing in the presence of men. These traditions have changed, however, as is evident by the popularity (and acceptance) of female singers such as Abida Parveen. However, qawwali has remained an exclusively male business. There are still no mainstream female qawwals. Although kafi singer Abida Parveen has increasingly incorporated qawwali techniques into her performances, she is still not considered a qawwali singer.[27]
The longest recorded commercially released qawwali runs slightly over 115 minutes (Hashr Ke Roz Yeh Poochhunga by Aziz Mian Qawwal). The qawwali maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has at least two songs that are more than 60 minutes long.
The singing style of qawwali is different from Western singing styles in many ways. For example, in words beginning with an "m", Western singers are apt to stress the vowel following the "m" rather than the "m" itself, whereas in qawwali, the "m" will usually be held, producing a muted tone. Also in qawwali, there is no distinction between what is known as the chest voice and the head voice (the different areas that sound will resonate in depending on the frequency sung). Rather, qawwals sing very loudly and forcefully, which allows them to extend their chest voice to much higher frequencies than those used in Western singing, even though this usually causes a more noisy or strained sound than what would be acceptable in the West.
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The secondary nerves work to produce heat, whereas the function of the central nerves is to produce the opposite effect. It is due to these nerves that feelings of sloth, sleep, thoughtlessness, forgetfulness, grief, sorrow, fainting, unconsciousness and even death occur.
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