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G   Ethnographies of Communication Q , , ,   In this chapter I describe performances of Sufi poetry sung to music in sociolinguistic terms, looking at both qawwālī and sufiānā-kalām. Briefly, these are contexts where devotional poetry is sung to music. The speech events may take place in a Sufi shrine, on the outskirts of a shrine during urs celebrations, or in a concert setting. The participants of the events are the musicians, who are the speakers, and their audiences, who are the listeners. Therefore, the discussion here may be perceived in terms of speaking as a cultural system.1 The number of musicians in a qawwālī concert can range from one to twenty or even more depending on the resources of the group leader. The larger groups are led by one or two qawwāls who sit either in the center, as do the Sabri Brothers, or on the right-hand side, as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan did. The key musicians, such as those who play the harmonium, sit in the front row, while those who clap and sing the chorus sit in the back row. The group leader is called the mohri, which means the ‘‘leading chess figure.’’2 The leader orchestrates the performance. The other musicians give their input on the cues that they get from the mohri. As the group sings, an organized system of turn-taking in speech takes place among the musicians. Turn by turn the musicians ‘‘take the floor.’’ Thus, verbal interaction occurs among the qawwāl group in addition to their interaction with the audiences.3 In the shrine setting of the urs at the Nizamuddin Auliya shrine in Delhi, the qawwālī performance is guided by a shaikh or his spiritual representative , and the audience is exclusively male, primarily the associates of the pirzade or the sajjādā-nashīn and his Sufi associates.4 Under the guidance of G     G the shaikh the performance follows a ritualistic order, and the discourse that the qawwāls sing is sacrosanct. During that period, even if the performance is for the grassroots devotees, it is guided by a shaikh and the poetry pays homage to that particular Sufi and his spiritual lineage, including Hazrat Ali, the fourth caliph of Islam, from whom the Chishtiyya trace descent. In the Chishtiyya Sufi shrines in Pakistan, such as Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh Hujwiri in Lahore and Baba Fariduddin Ganj-e Shakar at Pakpattan Sharif, the same ritual in qawwālī discourse is followed. Since this is an exclusively male domain, women’s presence at such performances is rare. Since qawwālī in the subcontinent is associated with the Chishtiyya order (silsilā) of Sufis, an invocation is always made to Ali, the fourth caliph of Islam, from whom the Chishtiyya trace descent. Thus, the ritualistic qaww ālī performance is always initiated with a qaul or saying of the prophet Muhammad, ‘‘Mun kunto Maulā fā Alī-un Maulā,’’ in Arabic. During an urs performance at the Chishtiyya shrines the poetry is focused on Ali, on the saint buried at that particular shrine, and on his spiritual lineage. Also, the poetry in the shrine setting during the time of the urs is based on sacred texts that the Sufis used themselves. The qawwāls frequently use Arabic texts from the Quran and Persian mystic poetry from great Sufi masters such as Amir Khusrau and Rumi in their narratives in order to establish the authenticity of their performances. In short, during an urs performance the qawwāls follow a ritualistic order of discourse.5 Outside the urs context, and particularly in shrines not associated with the Chishtiyya, the qawwālī performance may not necessarily follow a strict ritualistic pattern, as will be seen in the description of the qawwālī performance that I recorded at the Bulle Shah shrine in Kasur. Shrine performances and qawwālī routines may differ from shrine to shrine. Qawwālī performances in concert are a product of the twentieth century , a feature of postcolonial politics when large Muslim populations from South Asia moved to the West, particularly to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, in search of better economic prospects. Later, they moved to the countries of the Middle East for the same reasons. In Pakistan itself, after the partition of , qawwālī was promoted in concert and through the media. This was perhaps through the efforts of the postcolonial statesponsored ministries of culture and the various art councils...

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