Millions think this singer of Sufi devotional music is the Voice Of The Century

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Dimitri Ehrlich, Shambhala Sun, May 1997. 

 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is a soft-spoken man. Despite his ability to sing, without a microphone, in a voice of such power and grace that he is now South Asia’s most popular musician, in person his words tumble out in whispers, disappearing into his ample chest.
    The Pakistani singer is perhaps the world’s greatest living master of qawwali, a mystical Sufi music in which the voice coils upward like a snake being charmed out of a basket, raising listeners to a kind of spiritual ecstasy.
    Qawwali is among those forms of music in which religion and sex seem most closely intertwined: for while Khan’s lyrics are all based on Islamic law, his voice, accompanied by a party of tabla drummers and harmonium players, has a quavering orgasmic quality that drives listeners wild, causing them to shower the stage with money and dance in a manner that would be considered most unbecoming by the ayatollahs of this world.

Although Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has recorded more than a hundred albums and enjoyed
widespread popularity in Pakistani communities around the world for many years, it is
only recently that Western audiences have begun to discover his work. His profile in the
United States began to soar after Peter Gabriel performed live with him and helped
distribute Khan’s albums in the West. More recently, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam sought
Khan out for a collaboration that appeared on the soundtrack of the movie Dead Man
Walking.

    A few days after attending the MTV Video Music Awards with Peter Gabriel, Khan sat
down with me in the dimly-lit lounge of a hotel in midtown Manhattan, attended by an
interpreter and manager. Although he is not a particularly tall man, he weighs several
hundred pounds, with a protuberant mid-section that’s difficult not to notice. But his
hands look like they belong on a little girl, ending in wispy fingertips, and one finger is
adorned by a jade ring the size of a grape. His watch, a sleek black and gold number
from Cartier, would be at home on the wrist of an oil sheik. His eyebrows are barely
existent, and he has a giant, smooth forehead with fiery eyes weirdly planted a bit higher
in the skull than normal.

    As his vast corpulence settled into the couch, his beige gown draping the floor, he
seemed kingly, unearthly, and decidedly out of place in the middle of New York. Sitting
there in the shadows, occasionally rubbing his eyes with evident exhaustion, Khan spoke
softly and without any hint of his awesome lung power. His presence went largely
unnoticed by passersby, who were unaware of the musical legend in their midst.

Dimitri Ehrlich: I know that your music is based on the Sufi tradition, but what
is your personal religious affiliation, if any? Do you meditate or pray?
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: I am not Sufi, but I spent a lot of time since my childhood with
the Sufis, and I deeply studied them. Sufi music, especially, is a kind of prayer. If you
sing in this manner, you will become closer to God, very close. That’s basically what I do.
Dimitri Ehrlich:What is your inner, mental experience when you are singing? What do you
think about, or don’t you direct your mind in any specific way?
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:When I sing traditional spiritual songs, I always concentrate on who it is that I’m singing about. For instance, if I am inspired by the holy prophet, I concentrate on the prophet. In
my mind, there are many things, but when I sing, I sing for God, and for holy prophets,
for Sufi saints. When I sing, their personalities are in my mind. I feel like I am in front of
them. I feel their personalities, and I pray. I feel like I am in another world when I sing.
I am not in the material world while I am singing these traditional holy messages. I’m
totally in another world. I am withdrawn from my materialistic senses; I am totally in my
spiritual senses. And I am intoxicated by the holy prophet, God, and other Sufi saints.
Dimitri Ehrlich:Is there a different sort of prayer or meditative mode associated with songs concerned with Allah, Mohammed, and the Sufi saints, respectively?
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:When I sing for God, I feel myself in accord with God, and the house of God, Mecca, is right in front of me. And I worship. When I sing for Mohammed, peace be upon him, our
prophet, I feel like I am sitting right next to his tomb, Medina, and paying him respect
and admitting to myself that I accept his message. When I sing about the Sufi saints, I
feel like the saints are in front of me, and as a student, I am accepting their teachings.
And I repeat again and again that I accept it, that I am really their follower.
Dimitri Ehrlich:I know that Sufism is essentially a mystical sect of Islam, but are there also
strains of other religious thought involved with the liturgy or philosophy of Sufism?
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Every religion has its own way of describing God. For instance, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhs-they all have their own way of following God. Sufism basically
describes God and teaches how to come closer to God. So basically, I follow the Islamic
form of Sufism to find my way to God.
Dimitri Ehrlich:I know that when you were sixteen you had a visionary dream in which your
father, a great qawwali singer who had recently died, came to you and told you that you had been given his musical gift and should devote your life to qawwali. Since that dream, how has your understanding of your music changed?
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:Since the age of sixteen, when I started singing, I have had the same message to deliver to people about Sufism. But some changes have come accordingly as I grew and my experiences grew. Of course you really go to greater depths as time passes, more and more and more, and you grow and grow with the songs.
Dimitri Ehrlich:So how would you define your message?
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:My message is the message of humanity, love and peace. The goal of this message that bring to people is to bring them toward brotherhood, to bring them closer to each other, without hatred, without any concern for race, religion or color. I try to bring people, through spirituality, to a position in which they’ll be more honest with each other, and live a truer life, less concerned with the materialistic world where they cannot find themselves. I try to bring them to a place where they can at least recognize themselves.
Dimitri Ehrlich:Other than your musical practice, which clearly has a very powerful spiritual dimension, do you have any formal religious practice?
 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:I pray five times a day. And I pray before I eat, giving thanks to my God for the
opportunity to eat this food. And after eating, I pray and give thanks again. And after all of my practices of my music, I always pray and give thanks to my God and say, God, I am your slave, and thanks to you I have this opportunity to give my message to the world.
Dimitri Ehrlich:For many performers, the gulf between the ecstatic experience of being in the
spotlight and the “coming down” that inevitably accompanies going offstage draws them into drug addiction and other self-destructive behavior. Obviously you’ve avoided that pitfall, but do you ever feel any kind of emotional depression from coming down from the high of being on stage?
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:During the time I am singing traditional qawwali songs, I feel that I am in a prayer
position in front of God. When I finish my prayers, whether is it my singing or the formal prayers I do, I feel deeply peaceful. I feel that I have had some success in accomplishing the mission that God has given to me. I have no difficulty making a transition from that frame of mind to my normal daily activities because prayer is a routine part of my life and I do it all the time.
Dimitri Ehrlich:In Buddhist psychology, there is a vast pharmacopia of different meditative
antidotes that can be applied to various mental afflictions. So, for example, there are certain practices you can do if you are very angry, and different meditations if you are greedy, or jealous, or hateful or whatever. Do you have any kinds of specific prayers that are designed to deal with specific problems, such as anger, jealousy and greed?
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:Because of this music and because of this message which we have in our hearts and our minds all the time, it is extremely rare to feel anger toward anybody. This is the basic medication that controls us, preventing us from getting angry and keeps us happy.
Dimitri Ehrlich:What did you learn from your father, other than the specific musical training that you got as a singer of qawwali?
 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:From my parents I learned my religion, how to live and follow Islamic rules. When I was young I went to the mosque and read the Koran and learned all the Islamic rules. From my teachers I got a basic education in science, mathematics, geography, English, Urdu, all the common subjects. And from Sufis I learned about Sufism. I try to learn and integrate the teachings from these three sources-from the saints, from school, and from my father. Of course when I was a child, before I turned sixteen, I was just a regular
young person. I got angry, I argued, I lived like a boy. But since I saw the dream and became a follower of Sufism, and began singing the traditional qawwali, it really gave me peace in my heart. Since then my life has been totally changed. Since then I control everything that comes to my brain and to my heart.
Dimitri Ehrlich:Let’s talk a little about motivation. For some pop musicians, there is a desire for
success that is equal to or even greater than the desire for excellence. Your music is so transcendentally spiritual, I wonder whether you ever think about making money and being a star as a motive behind what you do.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:When I started singing, of course, I had in my mind the desire for success. I was always thinking that the people should listen to me, that the crowd should pay me respect as the
artist. Of course, I wanted applause and felt that the singer should get some reward in the shape of appreciation from the public. But as time went by, I found myself in a situation where all I wanted was to give a lesson, the purpose of which was to give more happiness to people. My sleeping, my waking, my talking, my eating, everything in my life, the music is always with me in my mind. I’m always thinking about new tunes, new discoveries, and new music.

Dimitri Ehrlich writes for Interview, The New York Times, and other publications. His band, Dimitri and the Supreme 5000, released its debut album last year. He is currently writing a book about music and spirituality.

The 20th Century Greatest

In 1995,Notable Author Paul Williams attended one Of Nusrat Saheb’s Concert, probably just because of curiosity….it was just that 4 hours first time experience which forced him to include the Mystero’s name in his 20th Century Greatest Hits Book….Recalling the concert as “The Celebration Of Life” he also claimed that Nusrat’s each and every concert diserverd a place in his book. Here is a small excerpt…..

This time I get to write about a concert I did attend. There can be no argument that Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan of Pakistan (1948-1997) was one of the truly great singers of the 20th century in any form (opera, popular song, or qawwali) and in any language. Anyone who care about singing and who are aware of the history of this art form in the 20th century and who have ears to hear the available recordings would not deny Nusrat’s stature as a great man, great artist, exceptional musician. So it seems eminently reasonable, if one wishes to honor the performing arts, to place one well-executed example of his work in his chosen art form on a greatest-works-of-the-era list. And since it is not easy to determine whether in fact audio or audiovisual recordings of the performing arts can be considered the equivalent (for purposes of making aesthetic judgments) of actually being present at a dance performance or musical concert, it makes sense that the judgment of the singers’ live audiences (as individuals and collectively) must be considered by critics and commentators and curriculum committees identifying “great works.”

So of course, what is really on my list is “a concert by Umm Kulthum,” “a concert by the Grateful Dead, “any concert by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.” Great hits of the era, indeed. But to mock the fact that critics and art historians must point to particular objects, specific paintings or novels or compositions, I chose for my list a few credible examples of concerts on specific dates by the aforementioned great artists. Concerts which you who are reading these words in another century surely wish you could have been present at. I apologize if I seem to be boasting of my good fortune–but it does seem appropriate to me that one of my selections be a concert I actually experienced directly as an audience member, someone standing or sitting before the performer in the actual time and space in which the work of art was created.
Okay, in order not to get trapped in trying to justify this particular Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan concert as an especially memorable work of art, let me point to the obvious: It is memorable to those of us who were there because we were there, and this is the universal rule for the performing arts. And let me repeat and quote what I wrote about this concert back then, in my quarterly music newsletter,shortly after seeing and hearing (and being part of) it:

Saturday September 16 was a day I’d been looking forward to for weeks. For years–-since good friends in Europe introduced me to his music and described the hysteria at his live appearances wherever there are Pakistani immigrants–-I have wanted to see Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in concert as much as I’ve wanted to see any living performer. And finally my chance came. Nusrat has been called “the Elvis of Pakistan.” He’s also the inheritor of a long (and sacred) musical tradition called qawwali–-Sufi devotional music, “a dominant feature of Indian Islamic culture since the twelfth century.” This is truly ecstatic vocal music (accompanied by tablas and harmoniums) about the love of God. Expressing and conveying the love of God. What can I tell you? If you haven’t heard his records yet, he is one of the greatest and most expressive singers now alive on the planet. I would even describe him, if this makes any sense to you, as the person Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard have always wanted to be. God’s singer. Who has the power to make us feel our oneness with Divine Spirit by opening his musical mouth. Regardless of one’s religious or cultural background. On the Indian sub-continent, he’s also loved by Hindus and Sikhs and non-Sufi Muslims. He also, on his albums, speaks directly and convincingly to me of my God, as too few singers ever have. And it makes no difference that I don’t speak his verbal language, because his, musical language is utterly universal. I’m not talking about theory. I’m talking about ecstatic personal experience. Get yourself a copy of Shahenshah or any other Nusrat album. You too might find that this is something you’ve forever waited for. So we went to the pyramid-shaped basketball arena at Long Beach State College to see and hear the man described on the ticket as “The Great Khan.” My anticipation was keen. I really believed in this man’s greatness, though I hadn’t heard him live yet, and I knew that many others also passionately believe in and recognize him as a great soul, a star of a very special kind … I mean just slightly beyond even, say, Willie Mays or Jackie Kennedy in our culture (besides, imagine you were going out tonight to see Willie Mays play outfield!) … and I knew or expected that many people who felt that strongly would be, present at this show tonight.


“Star” is an overused word in our culture, but in a certain context it can be understood to have a spiritual side. Sometimes a mere singer or athlete can shine forth as our brightest embodiment, a king but truly a man of the people. Nusrat is often referred to by his public as “Shahenshah-e-qawwali” (the brightest, shining star of qawwali). I worried that we’d have trouble meeting up with our friends who had the tickets, not likely, but I mention it as an indication of this inner trembling I felt (some- thing extraordinarily important may be about to happen to me tonight, unless something goes wrong somehow). We did meet, got inside, and waited in long lines for Indian food being supplied by special concessionaires, because we were hungry but also perhaps because we all collectively knew that we were to begin this evening by eating together. Real (homeland) food. Meanwhile an opening act, maybe an Indian pop singer, was warming us up, but speaking for myself I was impatient. “When do we get to the real stuff? The Man?” And as my own kind of warmup, while waiting in the curry line, I read to my friends from a xeroxed page of a book called Qawwali I’d grabbed from my files as we left the house:


Like other forms of Islamic vocal meditation, qawwali transports the audience into another plane of consciousness. Regular attendees of qawwali sessions often use the concept of travel when they speak of their experience during a qawwali. They feel as if they are traveling to another domain or plane. The external manifestation of this transportation is the ‘haal’, literally meaning ‘state of mind’, often used to denote musically induced ecstasy. This ecstasy can range from rhythmic moving of the head, dreamy dancing, to such extremes as violent convulsions of the body, depending on the person affected. This musically induced state of ecstasy is closely watched by the qawwal [the singers], who find the combination of music and content responsible for the state, repeating it with increasing intensity until a climax is reached, often creating enough resonance to pull in other members of the audience.
–-Qawwali by Adam Nayyar, Islamabad 1988



We ate, found our seats on the arena floor, waited through the pop singer and her band, glanced around at the crowd, mostly Indian or Pakistani, some anglos but not many and, mysteriously, almost no college students. And then Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan took the stage with his party, other vocalists, tabla and harmonium players. I was not disappointed.. He sounded good, the sound of his voice (and of the other occasional lead voice) was familiar to me from the records, and though I wasn’t sure yet that anything remarkable was happening, my feeling was more one of acceptance, being lulled by the music and believing that it would catch me up more and more palpably as the chanted, droning rhythms repeated themselves. I was not sure what was happening yet, but I believed I’d get to like it a lot, and it was easy to give myself to the music, though I wouldn’t have called it a trance, yet. Just a warm happy I’m-hearing-a-good-concert feeling. I wanted to get a little closer, to see the singers and musicians, especially Nusrat, more clearly. There were hired security people preventing audience members from moving from the higher seats to the floor, but I guessed that I could go forward for a little while up the side row we were in without being stopped. I did, and saw the musicians more clearly, and felt like I brought that image of them back with me to our seats, I could feet their presence better now. Good singing, good music, good songs. But not tense. As though it just felt okay to accept it and enjoy it gradually, naturally. Oh, those highs and lows, those rhythms, those repetitions, felt by my body and spirit, not so much thought about by my mind. It was pleasantly easy to be mindless while grooving with this performance.


I had heard from friends including one with us who had attended a Nusrat concert before, that it’s common at these shows for men to rush up and show their enthusiasm by giving money, currency, to the performer. And I’d heard descriptions of the excitement of the men taking part, like girls at a Beatles or Elvis show at the right stage in their careers, keen in any case, caught in a kind of frenzy. And I’d been told, maybe by a German friend, that the audience was an important part of the Nusrat experience, in the right communities. I had the notion before the show that I might like to do the money ritual if it turned out to be not too bold or improper for a non-Muslim, and so I made sure to have a number of dollar bills in my wallet. I think I envisioned something like men sticking bills into a belly dancer’s costume, or perhaps with more dignity leaving bills at the singer’s feet.


It took time (things were building, naturally and wonderfully, with time), but I did see some men make money offerings in the second or third hour of Nusrat’s performance, and what they did was shower the performer, tossing the bills into the air in front of him or over his head. I’d got up from my seat again, as the show went on and again it felt like it would feel good to get closer (well, don’t I always feel that at a good concert?). I was standing in the side row near the front, and I’d watch the occasional man (once or twice a woman, we’d wondered if it was okay for women to do, but it seemed to be; the women in our party felt underdressed when they saw the great colorful finery the Indian or Pakistani women came in) walk past the front row and over to the floor space before the singer (he kneels or sits cross-legged on the low stage, as do the others) and look at him and then throw money. Nusrat would nod to the person who approached him, thus acknowledging the acknowledgement. I was watching, and an Indian man standing near me said, “Go ahead!” as if my eyes showed clearly that I was considering walking past where we were to the midstage area. I guess I had the bills in my hand, that was the other clue that I was considering it, despite my white skin. So okay (the security hadn’t been restricting us at all, us who were standing somewhere near the front). I walked over, and by this time I was happily and naturally dancing, moving back and forth in place like at a Grateful Dead concert, to the unstopping pulse of the music, and that feeling helped take me right to the singer.


I met his eye and threw the bills in the air more or less over him. He nodded slightly to me, still singing,and I (feeling great) continued in the direction I was going, to before-stage-right, intending mostly to head back to my seat and friends, already with some feeling of pleasure at accomplishment (acknowledging and being acknowledged, participating). There were a lot of men standing and dancing, crowding the aisle of the left front section. One man grabbed my hands aggressively and I thought he was like a security guy telling me to go around and not walk down that aisle, but he didn’t let go of my hands and in an instant of understanding and acceptance I suddenly realized he was dancing with me, so we danced, held hands and danced together happily. Another man danced with me, and one of them or another threw some bills at me and gestured that I should pick them up. I declined, not knowing if it was wrong to decline, but I was doing fine just doing whatever came naturally to me. People looked at me appreciatively, warmly, I felt good, knowing my own sincerity and enjoying this feeling of freedom and wet, come and acceptance as I walked, danced, back to our seats. Before long my girlfriend and a male friend and I went back to that left front comer again and danced in the crowd. It felt great. And when the four-hour performance (Nusrat and party, not counting the opening act) was done, we just all felt so high [with no alcohol or other intoxicant having been consumed]. People came up to me and said friendly things. At least two men, one in the auditorium and another at a convenience store a mile away, said, “I saw you dancing!!” One man told us with pride and pleasure that Nusrat was from his home town in Pakistan. The excitement of dancing and being danced with and of feeling so accepted and appreciated by the Muslim men and women, was a wonderful high certainly, but for me it was part and parcel with what I was feeling directly from the music. In hindsight, I could say that I did enter a kind of trance, and that it was not alien to me. I recognized it from, say, the Fillmore and Avalon Ballrooms in
San Francisco in 1967 when I was 18 or 19. And, thankfully, many other music experiences. I’ve been similarly transported at a Violent Femmes concert in a club. Reading that trance passage again, now, I recognize more surely than I did then (I didn’t want to “try” to have anything happen, just let it take place naturally) that I was in fact in a musically induced ecstasy, encouraged and pushed on by the performer,
by each new verse or song, and supported by the friendship of and safe space created by the rest of the audience, all of us in this altered state together. It was absolutely fantastic. Okay, I got treated nice because I was an anglo and because I had so sincerely and genuinely participated (I guess), and that was a wonderful experience for me, but the main thing (and this is the basis of community) was that we had accepted each other. United by our common love. For the singer, for the singing, and for God. Singer as vehicle of God’s spirit. And each other as vehicles of the singer’s and song’s spirit. Yeah. Something like that. We all had such a good time. Because the singing and the music truly were great, fulfilling needs too large for even a long-winded music essayist like me to articulate. Naw. It happened. Great good fortune. Just a matter of being here now. What else could be the secret of the live music experience?


I don’t know. But I gotta tell you, it gets easier with practice. But at the same time there’s something holy about being a beginner, as I was a beginner that evening in Nusrat’s audience. Zen mind, beginner’s mind. Different tradition. But the same ancient wisdom. Love of God. Love of music. Spontaneity. We don’t have to be so afraid of these things. And I think of Patti Smith [at a club performance a week earlier-see entry #24] even sharing with us, from her experience, that we also don’t have to be so afraid of death and loss. Love of life. What a teaching. Gosh, the things you can team at a concert! School of love, school of awakening, school of community, and refreshing fountain of courage and health and spirit. Drink deep. That’s what I’ve been doing. Who needs to drink spirits? I mean, it’s okay, but for me drinking music is like drinking Spirit itself. And I sure have some great adventures. I’d like to thank the music for constantly calling out to me and getting me into these situations. I can’t help it if I’m lucky … spirits? I mean, it’s okay, but for me drinking music is like drinking Spirit itself. And I sure have some
great adventures. I’d like to thank the music for constantly calling out to me and getting me into these
situations. I can’t help it if I’m lucky …

The Last Prophet

“To be a qawwal is more than being a performer, more than being an artist,One must be willing to release one’s mind and soul from one’s body to achieve ecstasy through music. Qawwali is enlightenment itself.”

    •Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on release of his biography,1992. Statement was included in the book

I have nothing but dust from the mazars where the beloved of Allah sleep.I transform this dust through my surs into my songs. A recreation , a perennial recitation of the Holy names of Allah, the Holy Prophet(PBUH) and Ali is my heritage. I will pass it on to the next generation. Perhaps Allah likes what I do and He has opened the gates of blessings on me.I love Him. I go far and wide with the name of my Beloved on my lips. To those who do not knowlanguage I chant Allah hoo, I sing of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and sing of Ali, the people are enchanted.I claim no skill, it is because of the great men of Allah, when I was awarded the Grand Prixin Paris Uxi Mufticame to me in thr green room and said that I possessed no skill for the honour and that it was because of saintsand blessings of Allah. He was right. what is man but a handful of dust and what canhe do?  Myself, I am nothing, If I am anything it is because of my companions. An axe cannot chop wood without its handle. I also cannot do anything without my companions and friends who work with me. They are as important as a thumb is in hand. The more honours I am given , the more afraid I become, that I might not slip inthe eyes of my fans. I pray to Allah to preserve me and keep me in his favour. I need his friendship . I do not bother about the disaffections of the times.  Naheed, my wife and Nida (my daughter) are the two rulers sitting on the throne of my heart. I travel long and wide to extend their empire. But I never forget them. In my heart are two portraits. Whenever I have an opportunity I bend and see them in my heart. The strings of my heart are in their hands. Farrukh and Rahat are my two eyes. I see the world through them. The world looks so beautiful. When these two eyes open it is daylight for me when the close ,the evening strats.  My father Ustaad Fateh Ali Khan, Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan and Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, his brothers are my spritual gurus. I am their son, their acolyte. It is my duty to preserve and protect the knowledge the music that they gave me. I do a lot of experiments but the base is classical music. i ambound with ragas. I may road around the world and may acquaint myself with the western instuments I never wander from the central point. from the stage of WOMAD and from the studios of Peter Gabriel, I always emerge depths of my own music.  The musical instuments may be western but my voice never wavers away from my own ragas. it is good to make experiments and I do a lot of them but my thoughts always round the centre and that centre is the tradition of my elders and it is classical music.. the tradition of my elders and it is classical music..