Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Bismarck Theater
Such considerations troubled me when I caught Pakistani musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s recent concert at the Bismarck. Ali Khan and his orchestra–with its drums, harmoniums, singers, and clappers–perform a style of Sufi devotional music called qawwali, which plays a very specific role within Sufi culture. Qawwali songs, usually Sufi poetry set to music, are meant to entrance listeners, putting them in a state of ecstasy that the Sufis believe creates a mystical union with Allah. The Sufis are big on ecstasy as an expression of spirituality. The whirling dervishes, who dance themselves into an altered state, are Sufis. Other Sufis achieve a similar state through the hypnotic repetition of mantralike holy names.
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The same writer also compared Ali Khan’s songs to “the tenor sax improvisations” of John Coltrane–an apt description of how his keening sounds to Western ears, but again a description that fails to acknowledge the layers of meaning. For all I knew, Ali Khan was singing the praises of a deity whose will is often used to rationalize practices that I, as a liberal humanist, would consider unjust.
His reward is to be designated flavor of the month for devotees of world music. No surprise that Madonna, Flea, Rosanna Arquette, and Beastie Boy Mike D. all came out to see Ali Khan when he performed in LA.
