Sufi Music and Vernacular Islam in Western India

Kāfī: Music of the Indus Valley

Kāfī is a musical genre named after the kāfī poetic form, which is characterized by the alternation of three or four strophes with a refrain. There are numerous styles of kāfī performance, and kāfī texts were historically composed in Sindhi, Punjabi, Kachchhi, and Siraiki, languages spoken in northern and western India and eastern Pakistan. The Sindhi-language style of kāfī performed in Kachchh today was popularized by Pakistani singers in the 1980s and 1990s, and reached Kachchh through Pakistani cross-border radio and smuggled cassettes. A typical performance in this style features a lead singer, one or two backing singers, a ḍholak accompanist, and a harmonium accompanist. Some singers choose to play harmonium themselves and sing without backing singers. This style of kāfī evinces significant connections with Hindustani music (North Indian art music) in terms of melodic and rhythmic repertoire, but it is not considered “classical music” (shāstriya saṅgīt) by its practitioners or its listeners.

One noteworthy musical feature of this style of kāfī is singers’ inclusion of storytelling and commentary, which provide context for the sung poetic texts. Singers deliver these narrative and explanatory elements in a recitative manner that alternates between singing and normal speech, with occasional melodic flourishes to punctuate phrases. During narrative and explanatory portions of a performance, the accompanists on ḍholak and harmonium play sparsely so as not to overshadow the singer. Their instrumental contributions provide a pleasant musical background over which the singer can narrate a story or explain the Islamic import of a poetic verse, resulting in a pedagogically rich performance that is—for many listeners—more enticing than an unadorned sermon.

The harmonium is a small pump organ that was introduced by Europeans into India beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. The early foot-pumped version was patented by the French inventor Alexandre Debain in 1842 and became popular because of its portability. In India, it was used by European missionaries to accompany hymn-singing, but soon became popular among Indians. In 1875, the instrument maker Dwarkanath Ghose of Calcutta began producing a smaller, hand-pumped harmonium, which would eventually become one of the most widely used instruments in India (Rahaim 2011, 6). Today, the harmonium is used in myriad musical genres in South Asia, from Hindustani music to “light classical” genres such as ghazal and religious devotional genres such as Hindu bhajan, Sikh kirtan, and Sufi qawwāli.

The ḍholak is a small barrel drum with two leather drum heads that are played with the hands. Ḍholak players from the Laṅgā community begin learning from a young age, usually from their fathers or uncles. Laṅgā musicians—who are usually referred to with the respectful title ustād (master, teacher)—also perform on ḍhol, a larger drum played with sticks, and tablā, a set of two upright drums played with the hands. The following example features three sons of the in-demand ḍholak player Faqir “Ustād” Langa practicing a kāfī with their relative on tablā:

Laṅgā Boys Performing a Kāfī:

Although most kāfī performers in Kachchh are Muslim, there are also a handful of Hindu performers who sing Sufi kāfīs in a different style than the examples provided above. These singers typically accompany themselves on a stringed instrument known as tanbūro or rāmsāgar. Most belong to historically “untouchable” Hindu communities, known in India today as Dalit. In the example below, a Hindu man named Mavji Jagariya performs Sufi poetry based on the ‘Umar-Māru’ī story, a tragic tale about a young peasant girl imprisoned by a lustful king that takes place in modern-day southeastern Pakistan. Mavji is playing a tanbūro he obtained from Rajasthan.¹

Mavji Jagariya Performing Poetry Based on the ‘Umar-Māru’ī Story:

Double Meanings: Local Narratives and Islamic Metaphors

The Sindhi romantic narrative known as Nūrī-J̈ām Tamācī, on which the first performance example above is based, is at least partially historical. One of the story’s two main characters is J̈ām Tamācī, a fourteenth-century ruler of Sindh. (“J̈ām” is a title for a ruler.) In this popular narrative, J̈ām Tamācī loses his way while on a hunt. He ends up in a poor fishing community living on the banks of Lake Keenjhar, where he falls in love with a beautiful fisherwoman named Nūrī.

Shāh ‘Abdul Latīf Bhiṭā’ī adapted this story as a Sufi allegory, in which Nūrī’s love for J̈ām Tamācī can be interpreted as a metaphor for the human devotee’s love for God and/or the Muslim’s love for the Prophet Muhammad. Shāh Bhiṭā’ī’s collection of poems based on this narrative theme is called Sur Kāmod̤, which is one of about thirty thematic portions of his poetic compendium Shāh Jo Risālo (see ‘Abd al-Lat̤īf 2018). The title “Kāmod̤” is doubly significant: (1) it is the name of a melody type widely sung and played throughout northern South Asia, and (2) the term refers to a loving woman and is derived from the term kāma (passion), as in the title of the world-famous Indian lovemaking manual, the Kāma Sūtra.

An important dimension of Shāh Bhiṭā’ī’s poetic allegorization of the Nūrī-J̈ām Tamācī story is that Nūrī’s social position is significantly lower than that of J̈ām Tamācī. As a woman from a poor fishing community described in pejorative terms as darkened by the sun, dirty, and stinking of fish, Nūrī views herself as inferior to J̈ām Tamācī, who loves her deeply nonetheless. Seen through a Sufi metaphorical lens, this profoundly unequal relationship—in terms of gender, caste, and class—is analogous to the way in which Muslims view their relationship to God and the Prophet Muhammad. Like other South Asian devotional poets, both Muslim and Hindu, Shāh Bhiṭā’ī composed many of his poetic verses (bait) and song texts (vā’ī, kāfī) in the grammatically feminine voice, a poetic device made possible by the gendered conjugation of verbs in South Asian languages. The adoption of the female voice in Sufi and Hindu bhakti (devotional) poetry is a reflection of the philosophical position that a woman’s love and longing for a male beloved is like a human devotee’s love for God (Abbas 2002; Schimmel 1997, 2003; Petievich 2007).

It is also worth highlighting the localness of this story, which references places, communities, and occupations that are familiar to performers and listeners. For one, the story’s setting of Lake Keenjhar, while located across the border in Sindh, Pakistan, is only about 120 miles from northern areas of Kachchh. In addition, although none of the performing musicians in Kachchh with whom I worked are currently engaged in fishing as an occupation, Kachchh is a coastal region with many fishing communities, and a few singers did work in this occupation earlier in their lives. Thus, kāfī performers and listeners possess regionally specific, vernacular forms of knowledge that help to make this story relevant on multiple levels of understanding.

Now that we have a sense of the philosophical foundations and local significance of Sufi poetry based on the Nūrī-J̈ām Tamācī story, let us return to the first performance example by examining a bait, or verse. Arab sang the following bait as the initial bait of the public performance (0:58 in video) and as the fifth bait in the second example, a private performance that took place on a farm in northern Kachchh (3:45 in audio recording).

This verse depicts a point in the narrative when the fisherpeople welcome J̈ām Tamācī to their settlement, presumably when he has returned to their village to marry Nūrī. To announce and celebrate his arrival, a villager plays the ḍholak, a practice that is still common in South Asia when welcoming honored guests. The women of the settlement have decked themselves out with their finest jewelry. In the last line, Nūrī’s community—referred to here by the term khalq, an Arabic word that denotes humankind or creation—is delighted that a member of their impoverished community is to marry a king from the higher-status Samo community. According to Arab Jat, this bait is an allusion to either the Prophet Muhammad’s entrance into Madina after fleeing Mecca, or to his triumphant return to Mecca. Arab explained that this verse may also allude to the way in which creation celebrated the arrival of the Prophet Muhammad on earth, whose role as the last prophet had been predicted by the 124,000 prophets who preceded him (Arab Jat, personal communication, May 21, 2020).

At about the 2:50 mark in the public performance, Arab Jat interjects prosaic speech to frame the Nūrī-J̈ām Tamācī story in Islamic metaphorical terms. Arab’s discourse here goes beyond simply proclaiming love for the Prophet to make a historical claim about the high respect for women in Islam. Speaking in reverent terms about the Prophet Muhammad, he relates how, prior to when the Prophet spread the message of Islam, “there were many infidels and, because of this, men would bury their daughters alive.” Continuing, he says that “after the Prophet came, women were given a place of honor.” After completing this short discourse, which he delivers in a mostly spoken tone, Arab sings the refrain of a kāfī composition by the poet Fateh Ali. The refrain roughly translates to: “How good that J̈ām was born and came to the banks of Lake Keenjhar / All the fisherwomen boasted that he had removed their sorrows and worries.” According to Arab’s interpretive discourse, Lake Keenjhar here is a symbol for a pre-Islamic world of ignorance in which females did not receive the respect due to them, and J̈ām Tamācī is a symbol for the Prophet Muhammad, who raised women’s status in society. Arab’s discourse may be surprising to many non-Muslims in the Western world, where Islam is popularly associated with the oppression of women. For his Muslim listeners, though, Arab’s interpretation of the Islamic meaning of this metaphorical poetry serves as an affirmation of the moral rightness of the Islamic faith.

Kāfī Performance Contexts

An important context for kāfī performance in Kachchh is the occasion of the 'urs meṛo, or “death anniversary festival.” The Arabic term 'urs—the literal meaning of which is “wedding”—is widely used throughout South Asia to refer to celebrations of a Sufi holy person’s death anniversary. A holy person’s death is akin to a “wedding” because it is the day on which he or she is spiritually reunited with his or her beloved, God. An ‘urs festival typically takes place on the grounds of the tomb-shrine (dargāh) where the holy person is buried, and where he or she is believed to remain spiritually present and capable of delivering a petitioner’s prayers to God. When Sufi music is featured at an ‘urs festival in Kachchh, the performance usually takes place between about 11 pm and 4 am, so as not to interfere with prayer times. At most performances, males and females are segregated, with males occupying the main audience area and females blocked off from view by a wall or curtain. Prior to a performance, Islamic teachers (maulānā) often give sermons, and reciters sometimes melodically recite poetic compositions in praise of the Prophet Muhammad (n‘at), a practice not considered “singing” in Islamic terms. ‘Urs festivals also attract food and beverage vendors, and vendors of clothing, hats, and trinkets. The atmosphere of an ‘urs festival is not a somber one, but rather an opportunity for devotees to enjoy various forms of entertainment while also taking time to ask the buried Sufi to appeal to God on their behalf in the hopes that their prayers may be answered.

The main performance example discussed above took place at a different sort of event, namely a commemorative musical program in honor of the late kāfī singer Abdullah Turk (1950-2015), who, as I mentioned earlier, was a mentor to many kāfī singers in Kachchh. As is evident in the video, audience members at kāfī performances participate by showering the performers with small bills while they are playing and singing. This is known as gor, a term that refers to the circular motion that individuals make when they are giving the money. Money received from gor goes to different destinations depending on the nature of the event. At ‘urs festivals, the money goes to the custodian of the tomb-shrine, who gives a portion to the musicians and reserves the rest for the upkeep of the shrine and the various activities the shrine committee undertakes throughout the year.

Weddings are another important venue for kāfī performance in Kachchh. Music is typically featured on the night before the actual marriage. In the past couple of decades, however, many Muslim families have stopped hiring kāfī singers for weddings out of concern that music is “forbidden” (ḥarām) in Islam. This concern has grown in Kachchh as Islamic reformers and missionaries have increasingly disseminated their teachings, especially in the aftermath of the earthquake in 2001, which ushered in many social changes in the region (see Simpson 2014). However, the Laṅgā hereditary musician community—which consists of about 200 families spread throughout the region—continues to ask amateur Muslim singers to perform at the weddings of their sons and daughters. Singers perform for free at Laṅgā weddings because Laṅgā musicians serve as their accompanists at performances throughout the year. Unlike many other Kachchhi Muslim communities, the Laṅgā community does not practice strict gender segregation at weddings, but female audience members typically sit together behind the male section of the audience members.

The music portion of a Laṅgā wedding begins with Laṅgā men taking turns performing on two ḍhol drums (large barrel drum played with sticks) and soṇā’īṅ (shenā’ī in Hindi and Urdu, a double-reed instrument). These performances share many commonalities with Hindustani music performance elsewhere in South Asia, although the ḍhol is not commonly used in Hindustani music performance outside of Kachchh. A Kachchhi ḍhol-soṇā’īṅ performance begins with the lead soṇā’īṅ player performing a brief exposition (ālāp) of the melody type (rāg). He is backed by another soṇā’īṅ player who plays a continuous drone note. The lead soṇā’īṅ player then performs a melody to keep time while the two ḍhol players engage in a friendly rhythmic competition known as a muqāblo. The soṇā’īṅ player may intermittently take a brief improvisatory solo. This portion of the program, during which numerous Laṅgā musicians take turns on the stage, can last an hour or more before giving way to the kāfī portion of the night. Throughout the entire musical program, the money that guests shower on the musicians serves as a form of gift-giving to the bride or groom.

Performance on Two Ḍhols and a Soṇā’īṅ:

In earlier times, Laṅgā women were also performing musicians. Before India’s independence, Laṅgā women performed for the women of Kachchh’s royal family at the palace in Bhuj. In villages and small towns, Laṅgā women also provided musical entertainment for women at Hindu and Muslim weddings. Some older Laṅgā women still accompany themselves on ḍhol while singing Islamic devotional songs to local saints, a genre known as jakarī. This ḍhol-accompanied style of jakarī has fallen out of favor and is now rare. In contemporary Kachchh, it is more common for Muslim women from a variety of communities to melodically recite jakarī in groups without accompaniment, a practice that is not considered “music” in Islamic terms. In the following example, Sharifa Langa sings a jakarī while accompanying herself on the ḍhol:

Sharifa Langa Performs a Jakarī:

The musical culture of Muslim Kachchh is rich and varied, encompassing metaphorical Sufi poetry performance that serves an Islamic pedagogical purpose as well as virtuosic instrumental music that demonstrates the skill and knowledge of the Laṅgā hereditary musician community. After reviewing the above performance examples again, consider the following questions individually or in small groups:

1. Why do you think Sufi poets employed local romantic stories to transmit Islamic teachings through metaphors and allegories rather than doing so in more literal terms?
2. Can you think of other examples of musical genres or practices that convey religious or moral teachings in contexts outside of places of worship? Discuss how these genres or practices accomplish this conveyance.
3. Compared with other modes of transmitting moral or religious teachings, such as books or sermons, what qualities or traits make musical performance well-suited to this task?
4. The harmonium was introduced into India by European Christian missionaries and subsequently became integral to numerous non-Christian devotional music traditions in South Asia. Can you think of other musical traditions that have similarly integrated the instruments of colonizing peoples?
5. Why has the Laṅgā community continued to feature kāfī performers and instrumental music at their weddings while many other Muslim communities in Kachchh have refrained from doing so in recent decades?
6. A Laṅgā wedding is an opportunity for the entire community to gather. Can you think of some purposes that the competitive aspect of ḍhol-soṇā’īṅ performances might serve in this context?

Questions for Music Majors

1. Listen closely to the melodic content of the first and second performance examples. Can you discern the pitch class set (basic scale/mode) and identify any prominent or recurring melodic motifs?
2. Contrast the solo kāfī performance by Mavji Jagariya with the first and second examples: how do they differ in terms of timbre, texture, tempo, and rhythm?
3. Listen to the ḍholak playing in the first two kāfī performance examples and compare it with the ḍhol playing in the ḍhol-soṇā’īṅ performance example. Can you identify parallels or differences between the two playing styles?
4. The ḍhol solos in the ḍhol-soṇā’īṅ performance example unfold over a set number of beats that makes up the rhythmic cycle, or tāl. Can you identify the number of beats in this tāl? Start by listening to the point at which the ḍhol players accompany the soṇā’īṅ player’s improvisation (2:12–2:35). Hint: The soṇā’īṅ player’s improvisation lasts for two cycles of the tāl.

Glossary

Open Access Resources for Information on Shāh ‘Abdul Latīf Bhiṭā’ī

Bibliography

Bibliography of Complementary Open Access Resources