Saints and Singers

Pakistan is often portrayed in today’s media as “the most dangerous country in the world.”  Yet this state, which unwillingly became a plaything of the great powers in the war against terror, has another face which is less well-known in the West: there is nowhere else in the Islamic world where peaceful, tolerant and joyful Sufism is so strongly the popular religion.  The Sufi saints who emigrated to the land on the Indus from the 11th century onwards preached a message which was markedly different from the version of Islam spread by fire and the sword.  To this day Pakistan is dotted with sacred shrines to which the population make pilgrimages seeking blessings and solutions to their everyday problems.

With his ecstatic voice, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was the first musician to make Qawwali songs known to an international audience.  After his death his nephews Rizwan and Muazzam Ali Khan rose to prominence and were enthusiastically received at all the great world music festivals.  They can now be heard for the first time in Germany at the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum. Their appearance could revive the enthusiasm which characterized Nusrat Fateh Ali’s concerts.

The two other artists to be heard on the same evening are also exceptional talents: Sain Zahoor, a wandering bard from Baluchistan, is a contemporary embodiment of the medieval troubadours.  He has an incomparable mastery of the art of keeping the listener’s rapt attention with just his voice and his ektara – a single-stringed instrument made from a hollowed-out pumpkin covered with goatskin. 

When Pappu Sain first touched a dhol, a traditional barrel drum, at the age of 12, he could hardly lift the instrument.  Now he has been seen playing at the shrine of the Sufi saint Baba Shah Jamal every Thursday for 25 years.  Television stars, artists and intellectuals all flock in droves to witness the breathtaking performances of this master drummer.

The series Century of Song has been produced by the Ruhrtriennale.

In co-operation with Pak-German Council for Culture and Democracy, www.dpg-online.net