I had heard of Doctors without Borders and Reporters without Borders, but when I saw a headline in a Pakistani newspaper about Mystics without Borders, it was a first for me and certainly caught my attention.
It turns out a fascinating festival by the name of the “International Mystic Music Sufi Festival” is currently being celebrated in Karachi at the Bara Dari. The festival is being organized by the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, which is also the group that has been responsible for the popular World Performing Arts and Theatre Festival held annually in Lahore.
This Sufi festival is the first of its kind in Karachi and certainly an encouraging sign that people are able to express and share their sentiments, devotion, spirituality and passion in diverse ways. This festival is expected to last until May 7, and with an entrance fee of just Rs 300, it promises a lot of entertainment and education to Karachiites. According to the organizers, performers from over 70 countries have been invited to present their specialties in muslim sufi rituals, including music, songs and dances. There are performers from as far away as Syria which can be a delight to watch.
ATP has written before (here, here, here, here, here and here) on some of the great mystic poets and we wish to join the participants in this festival in spirit.
According to the media report:
Usman Peerzada of the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop said that the group’s main aim had been to bring festivals to Pakistan since 1992 and now, as a result of their efforts, the World Performing Arts Festival had become the largest festival of Asia. “Festivals are living festivals and we aim to make the Sufi festival into just that. So please, own the festival,” he said in his address to the audience.
Daily Times spoke to Faizan Peerzada, the master-mind behind the show, to ask him what his audience could expect out of this festival. “A lot of variety. Some of these performers, like the Syrian performers can alone perform for four hours, but we have condensed it into a performance of 32 minutes so that we can manage 17 performances in one day. We have tried to bring together as many performers here as was possible and each one of them is performing a different Islamic tradition, so there’s a collection of so many aspects, which makes this festival unique.”
and the performances so far seem to have kept up to their high expectations:
The curtain raiser began with a performance by Zain-ul-Abideen Shah also known as Jumman Shah and his troupe of five people who sang a qafi by Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai. Their performance was followed by a mind-blowing performance by Mithoo and Goonga Saeein, who presented an instrumental using dhols while three of their members whirled around, representing the ecstasy so indispensable to the Sufi tradition. The next performance was by an Iranian four-member group called Bidaat, after which Kathak dancer Sheema Kirmani stole the show with her brilliant performance on Ameer Khusro’s aaj rang hai. With her group of two male dancers and two female, she brought the words to life and used the vacuum of the stage as a canvas portraying a beautiful painting that she successfully displayed to an audience that erupted in a round of applause for her.
Another one of the most appreciated performances of the curtain raiser was by Saeein Zahoor who performed a kalaam by Baba Bulleh Shah. Zahoor is a recipient of the BBC World Music Award and performed for an approximate 10 minutes, not a single second of which could be termed as a ‘drag’. A Syrian group called “Sham group of Syrian and Andalusian Music” performed next and recited verses from the Holy Quran.
We hope this Sufi Festival will become a local tradition, and that such art, folk, mystic, music, poetic, dance, and religious festivals will be held regularly in a city that still hosts one of the most diverse and culturally steeped citizenry.
Tina, they say religion is a good thing for good people and a bad thing for bad people. Perhaps Ibrahim is a good person.
*grin*
Instead of replying this accusation, you started typical ‘Rona Dhona’ which was not impressive though.
[quote post=”695″]You don’t like anything that is written here[/quote]
another false accusation. Offcourse I oppose any lame andlunatic post and comments written by authors and contributors. I can’t forget two good posts by Owais on Street Cricket and about Empress Market and those are my two of few favorite posts on ATP. If you are one of those who consider themselves to say any crap and get irked if someone refutes then it’s not my fault. Either don’t say anything or ready to accept comments by others. Now If I read comments like Abida is good because she’sa female singer could force me to laugh on your statment. No doubt, Feminism never fail to amaze me.
Bye bye Pakistaniat.com (from Babar)
Bye Bye dude. Get well soon! *grin* (from Adnan)
So your goondah tactics have driven a reader out of this forum. And you are proud of yourself and gloating. How nice. Do you feel like a big important man now?
I too am fed up and do not understand why anybody debates you. Just because everybody gets sick of it and quits before you do, does not mean you have “won”.
Your rudeness really spoils the blog. It isn’t your ideas; I don’t agree with Ibrahim, but I have not observed him to be rude. Of course you haven’t gone as far as Jabir, who said he would like to twist my ears. You say you have been with the blog from the beginning. Why? You don’t like anything that is written here, and every discussion becomes a useless strife. One wonders what the motivation is.
Adnan, you go ahead and pick on Abida Parveen all you want. She is one of the greats, and other people see this and you cannot do anything to her. You need to go to one of her performances sometimes. I can promise you will feel deeply moved and maybe your heart will be opened. She has a real God-given gift.
From the article it sounds like it was a spectacular evening. Ending on a touching note with the request, by Iraqi singer Farida, for prayers for Baghdad. Wonder why Adnan did not see fit to mention these kinds of moments. I guess he cannot be bothered. Better to pick on Abida Parveen.
Also pleased to see that there was a good representation of female Sufi singers from different countries present. It’s a male dominated field; Abida has been a notable exception.
Ibrahim:
You want me to debate this issue on your premise and by your rules. I disagree and won’t be pulled into it. Largely also because I see no point to debating you on this forum. I am not really learning anything new in this discussion except for rehashing of the old debate between the orthodox and the reformists who tried to infuse principles of critical thinking within the people of this faith many centuries ago. You want to distinguish between Ghazali and others (referring to them as mere ‘tabibs’ of their time). Maybe you feel you need to show more reverence to him than others because the word ‘Imam’ is attached to his name. But I don’t.
Philosophy and religion will remain inter-twined, as long as religions call for and encourage moral, rational and ethical decisions by the followers. Those of us who follow the scientific discourses are constantly reminded of the need for understanding the philosophy of religion, of Islam, especially when ethical considerations are before us. That is how we think about issues such as global warming, stem cell research, genetic engineering, and even more far-fetched ideas like those being studied by Aubrey de Grey on eternal life. The prescriptions in ritual Islam, unfortunately, are not as crystal clear as you or some others may like it to be.
Let me leave you with an extract from a recent essay by Roger Scruton in the Technology Review magazine. You may find it interesting, even if coming from a philosopher: