It’s rare in modern day’s rapidly paced environment to engage in a heightened mental and spiritual awareness that has been an ancient practice in numerous cultures. On Oct. 9, Duke Performances will provide listeners an opportunity to partake in this kind of extraordinary experience with a performance by the musical group, Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali.
In the tradition of Indo-Persian culture, Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali is a family legacy of Qawwali music (a form of Indo-Persian Sufi devotional music), spanning over five centuries and headed by the two nephews of one of the greatest Pakistani Qawwali singers, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Nephews Rizwan and Muazzam, along with five backup singers, two harmonium players and one tabla player, have been performing together as a group since the late 20th century.
“Qawwali music, such as articulated by the Rizwan-Muazzam ensemble, is fundamentally a rich, ecstatic and devotional genre of music that brings together the love of God, devotion to the Prophet Muhammad and emulation of the great mystical teachers of Islam," Omid Safi, Director of Duke’s Islamic Studies Center (DISC), wrote in an email. "It’s also a thoroughly cosmopolitan genre of music, which typically involves chants in Arabic, poetry written in elegant Persian, and vernacular Urdu and Punjabi poems."
What characterizes Qawwali most immediately is the robust vocal style, sung in soaring incantations and backed sparsely by instrumentals. While Qawwali follows basic musical structures, much of the singing is improvised, dependent on the emotional elation achieved in the present by both the musicians and the audience.
Essentially, Qawwali allows musicians to attain an open and euphoric mentality that brings them closer to God. This strengthened connection is physically represented by sitting on the ground, a tradition that members of Rizwan-Muazzam believe consummate the sanctity of the moment.
“It’s not very often that you get to hear a really great Qawwali group,” Aaron Greenwald, director of Duke Performances, said. “At first, it’s kind of off-the-wall, but...it’s very beautiful, and very moving.”
The music certainly is a testament to the beauty in exalting God, and that devotion is further accentuated by the songs’ content. With Persian poetry, the lyrics are sung to the divine, but often come in the form of a love poem and seem overtly hedonistic.
“It’s almost carnal in nature but the space between spirituality and romantic love is less defined than Western concepts of love and the divine,” Greenwald said.
Love, in Qawwali music, is the “primary means of expressing God,” according to Safi.
“Love is not here merely a sentiment, but the very unleashing of God on to this realm," Safi further elaborated. "It is through love that God creates, through love that God sustains, and through love that God ultimately redeems and delivers us back home.”
In the fullest expression of Qawwali, performances last for about 10 hours, and although the performance by Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali will be much shorter, the emotions invoked will strive to induce a state of hypnosis.
Safi hopes that the performance would not so much be one that “one would clap after, but a sacred experience more akin to the ecstatic experience of African-American gospel tradition."
Whether one is well-versed in Indo-Persian culture or types of ‘world-music,’ Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali is an experience that not only instantly mesmerizes, but also one that invites audiences to witness a rich and magical resurgence of the past.
According to Greenwald, it’s an experience that is unparalleled. “It is totally remarkable kind of happening."
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