Among a group of books newly donated to the Thammasat University Libraries is one about the increasingly popular devotional music of the Sufis, worshipers who follow a mystical trend in the Islamic religion. Nocturnal Music in the Land of the Sufis: Unheard Pakistan was generously offered by the Embassy of Pakistan in Bangkok. It will be shelved along with other new acquisitions in the Pakistan Corner of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan Campus. The much-appreciated Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948–1997) helped to make Sufi music internationally famous. He was so esteemed that some fans referred to him as the Elvis of the East. Thai people who may not be aware of his music have heard it in the Hollywood film Dead Man Walking (1995), starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. This film may be seen in the Rewat Buddhinan Media Center in the Pridi Banomyong Library or at the Puey Ungphakorn Library, Rangsit Campus. On the movie’s soundtrack, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s voice is heard along with American folk music. Mustt Mustt, a song performed by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan from a 1990 album, became a hit in dance clubs in the United Kingdom, as the first song in Urdu language to reach the British charts, and was later used in a television advertisement for Coca-Cola. Another internationally celebrated Pakistani group of Sufi music performers are the Sabri Brothers. They brought qawwali music, a type of devotional song with instrumental accompaniment, to Western audiences over 40 years ago, when they performed in Carnegie Hall in New York City. Last year, a prominent member of the group, Amjad Fareed Sabri died in a targeted killing in Karachi, Pakistan. The author of Nocturnal Music in the Land of the Sufis is Jürgen Wasim Frembgen, a German ethnologist who is former chief curator of the Oriental Department at the Museum of Ethnology in Munich, Germany, as well as lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. Specializing in Islamic mysticism in Pakistan, Iran, and India, Professor Frembgen studied ethnology, comparative religious studies, and art history at the universities of Bonn and Heidelberg. He has conducted extensive ethnographic field research in Pakistan for many years, and taught as a guest professor at the Quaid-i-Azam University, a public research university located in Islamabad, Pakistan, as well as the National College of Arts in Lahore. In 2010 he was presented with the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz (Medal of Excellence), an official honor from the State of Pakistan. It is the fourth-highest decoration given to civilians in Pakistan for high achievement, and is also awarded to foreign citizens who have done great service to Pakistan. Professor Frembgen explained to one online interviewer the special qualities of Sufism in Pakistan:

I think Sufism and Islamic mysticism is extremely vivid and colourful in Pakistan. The aspect of devotion is more emphasised here. The amount of emotional appeal is more intense than Afghanistan, Iran or Turkey. There it can be more intellectual, more sober and less colourful. There is also the power of music. We should not forget that the most well-known and most well-respected exponents of Sufi music come from Pakistan – Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Mubarak Ali Khan and of course, Abida Perveen, the biggest and the best Sufi voice. This aspect of music and rendering the verses of the Sufi poets is a message that Pakistan can convey to the outside world. This sort of peaceful, soft approach to religion is really very much embedded here, even if it is contested.

Abida Parveen, the performer last mentioned by Professor Frembgen, was born in 1954 in Larkana, a city in the northwest of the Sindh province of Pakistan. She is sometimes referred to as the Queen of Sufi music and a Global Mystic Sufi Ambassador. In addition to possessing a powerful voice, Abida Parveen is also a trained musician, playing on the organ, keyboard, and sitar. She has performed around the world for almost 25 years. Her fame grew even greater after appearances on television reality shows such as Sur Kshetra, a singing talent show from 2012 in which teams competed from Pakistan and India. She also appeared on such popular shows as Chhote Ustaad, broadcast by Geo Entertainment Television in Pakistan; Pakistan Idol; and Coke Studio, a Pakistani musical television series sponsored by Coca-Cola Pakistan. It features live studio-recorded music performances by performers of different types of music, from pop to qawwali to hip hop. Parveen has been cited among the 500 Most Influential Muslims of the World. To one British interviewer who asked her if it mattered that listeners from overseas may not understand the Urdu language, or other languages in which she sings, she replied that:

the point is to experience the songs rather than to merely understand them. One of the world’s great singers and interpreter of so many beautiful Sufi texts says mere words are limited. As a Sufi saying puts it: “Leave the words on the shore.”

Among the other singers cited by Professor Frembgen is Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, a nephew of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Born in Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan into a family of traditional musicians, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan started singing with his uncle and father at the age of three. By age seven he had begun formal training and performed in public for the first time two years later. By the time he was 15, he was an essential collaborator of his uncle’s, working on the soundtrack of Dead Man Walking as well as such other international films as The Four Feathers (2002) and Apocalypto (2006). Apocalypto, with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s singing featured on the soundtrack, is in the collection of Rewat Buddhinan Media Center in the Pridi Banomyong Library, where it may be seen and heard. His many other distinctions include being the first Pakistani performer to be invited to appear at the Nobel Peace Prize concert, which he did in 2014. On another distinguished occasion last year, Pakistan Day was celebrated for the first time at the United Nations General Assembly Hall. A concert, Sufi Night: Music of Peace was performed by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan as part of the festivities.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)