Sufi music singerAbida Parveen in concert at Oslo

Sufi music is a genre of music inspire by Sufism its philosophy, and most importantly by the works of Sufi poets, like Rumi, Hafez, Faiz, Bulleh Shah, Waris Shah and even Kabir.

Qawwali is the most well known form of Sufi music, common in India and Pakistan . However, music is also central to the whirling dervishes and the ceremony of Sema, who use a slow, sedate form of music featuring the Turkish flute, the ney. The West African gnawa is another form, and Sufis from Indonesia to Afghanistan to Morocco have made music central to their practises. Some of the Sufi orders have taken an approach more akin to puritan forms of Islam, declaring music to be unhelpful to the Sufi way.

Sufi love songs, are often performed as ghazals and Kafi, a solo genre accompanied by percussion and harmonium, using a repertoire of songs of Sufi poets.

[edit] Further reading

• Sufi Music Sufi music of India and Pakistan: sound, context, and meaning in qawwali, by Regula Qureshi. Cambridge University Press (CUP) Archive, 1986. ISBN 0521267676.

[edit] External links

• Sufi Music