qawwali

Faiz Ali Faiz (born 1962 in Sharaqpur, Pakistan) is one of the main singers of qawwali, a devotional musical expression of the Sufis, a mystical offshoot of Islam. Faiz Ali Faiz comes from a family of qawwals from seven generations in Pakistan. He started his professional career in 1978, at age 16, creating at the same time his own qawwali ensemble. Though Faiz is from Lahore, he practices the doaba style from eastern Pakistan. He stated in recent interviews he has been influenced by Sham-Chaurasi, a famous Khayal singing school where Ustad Salamat Ali Khan belongs to.

Read more about Faiz Ali Faiz on Last.fm.

The infamous attempts of the Taliban to eradicate music from the social and cultural landscape of Afghanisatan ended in happy failure, but their puritanical zeal still thrives in the region. All the more reason to celebrate the continued existence of various Pakistani and Afghani musical traditions which all owe their spiritual fire to the Sufi path of Islam. Of these, the music of the qawwali is well known and documented throughout the world, but there is a more obscure breed of 'street' singers who still practise their art at the shrines and festivals of Pakistan and Northern India.