Qawwali is not a new musical form as it is being performed for 800 years. It was invented by Amir Khusrau on the advice of Khwaja Nizamuddin Aulia who wanted to dilute the Sufi genre of ‘Samaa’, which was a difficult form and inaccessible to the ordinary people, so that common people could relish it.
Abu Muhammad Qawwal, who belongs to the Qawwal Bachon ka Gharana, discussed the evolution of Qawwali and its present status at a podcast of Off The School.
He explained that the art of Qawwali encompasses all genres of the Indian classical music as it carries elements of Khayal, Thumri, Dadra and Tarana.
The Qawwal said he was the descendant of Samit Bin Ibrahim who headed a troupe of Qawwals formed by Amir Khusrau to answer in a music form philosophical questions asked by a Hindu man in the court of Sultan Alauddin Khilji. As Samit and other members of the troupe were children at that time, their family came to be called Qawwal Bachon Ka Gharana.
Regarding his training in the art form, he said his father Munshi Raziuddin would make him practice Qawwali singing for 10 to 12 hours a day.
He also discussed the early struggles of his troupe that was founded by his brother Fareed Ayaz stating that the family was financially not stable when his brother decided to form his own Qawwali troupe. At that time, they had no musicians with them who would play the instruments used in Qawwali, and his younger brother started playing the dholak with them when he was just eight years old.
Abu Muhammad sb said that after the fall of the Mughal Empire, their family migrated to Hyderabad Deccan. At the time of Partition, his father was actively involved in a movement trying to prevent Hyderabad Deccan’s annexation with India and had to go into hiding. He later migrated to Pakistan where his family had already shifted while he was hiding.
To a question whether the tradition of Qawwali was on decline, he replied in the negative. He said people still love the art of Qawwali and shower immense respect on the Qawwals.
He said the rise of the internet helped the propagation of Qawwali and many people know about various intricacies of the art today on the basis of the information available on the internet.
When co-host Ebad Ahmed remarked that the Indian films had been ruining the taste for Qawwali, Abu Muhammad Sahab responded that it was not the case that Indians were not interested in Qawwali. “Currently, Indians constitute 80 per cent of our audience globally as they are interested in spiritualism,” he said.
The podcast also included discussion on the Khanqah culture that has historically promoted Qawwali and Abu Muhammad sb’s memories of the Khanqah of Baba Zahin Shah Taji in Karachi.