About the Journey of Life

Music Editor, "Rock on... the Sufi way"- The Times Of India - India
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Sufism, Islam’s mystical tradition, has always been popular in South Asia, where it sought to reunite people with love, peace and goodwill

Music played a large part in popularising Sufism like the Qawwali genre, which originated in 14th century India.

Through the 20th century, western and sub-continental musicians experimented by fusing these two very different strains.

The process peaked in the 90s, when Indian and Pakistani musicians mixed conventional rock with traditional sufi music. The resultant genre has been christened as ‘Sufi Rock’.

Conventional wisdom has it that Sufi rock began in 1996, when the Pakistani band Junoon released its third album, Azadi, featuring an eclectic mix of Sufi poetry and imagery, backed by hard rock rhythms.

However, cultural historian and musician, Madan Gopal Singh, feels otherwise: “Sufi rock is not an entirely Pakistani creation. In India, post-1991, the process of reviving Sufi music was going on.
It was a period of turmoil. The Punjab militancy had ended, Kashmir was boiling. Post-Babri Masjid, many NGOs organised Sufi concerts to stress communal harmony’s importance.
Then there were bands like Indian Ocean and artistes like Shubha Mudgal, who used a lot of Kabir in their songs.”

Agrees Palash Sen, lead singer of Euphoria, “We always assume that only Pakistani bands play Sufi music. But, we have a lot of Sufi elements in our music.”

So, what are Sufi rock’s distinct traits? “Spirituality. A lot of Sufi qalam (poetry) is about the love of God. Since Sufi rock fuses qalam with rock strains, the result is unique,” feels popular Sufi rocker, Rabbi Shergill.

Sufi imagery feel some is why Sufi rock is such a rage with the youth.

“The Sufi tradition is about pain, the search for happiness, and the journey of life, which makes Sufism attractive to the youth as they are asking similar questions in their lives,” says singer Zubeen Garg.

But, is Sufi rock the best way of bringing the wisdom of the revered Sufis to to-day’s youth? Filmmaker Muzaffar Ali, the man who introduced us to Sufi festivals like ‘Jahan-e-Khusro’, feels that it is both, good and bad.

“It is bad since these songs are more about titillation and don’t touch exactly where they should. Also, these bands remix lyrics which are a Sufi composition’s spine. But, as most people are not fully aware of Sufism, for now, this is an effective way of putting the message across to audiences.”

Singh puts it best when he says nobody denies such bands to brand their music as Sufi.

“Sufi music was never dogmatic, monolithic or homogenous. The various Sufi Tariqas and Silsilas differed vastly in their approaches to music and other aspects of life. Some, like the Naqshbandiyyah Tariqah even frowned on music. Others advocated music as a means to achieving God.

Most orders frowned on women and under-age males singing qalams. But, Abida Parveen and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan defied this injunction.

Sufism always has involved interpolation and has never been puritan,” he adds. And it never will be, dare we say.

[Picture: Kailash Kher. Photo by TOI (The Times Of India)].