Qawwali (Qawwali dance)

Understand

Where Qawwali (Qawwali dance) comes from

Qawwali is the Sufi devotional-song tradition of the dargahs of Delhi (the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, the dargah of Hazrat Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, the dargah of Hazrat Bahauddin Zakariya in Mehrauli) and of the wider Indo-Islamic world. The form has its roots in the 12th-13th century Sufi traditions of the Chishti silsila of Delhi and of the parallel Sufi orders. The Qawwali is performed by the Qawwal-bachchas (the hereditary musicians of the dargahs) at the Urs of the saints and at the central ceremonies. The tradition has been documented as one of the most distinctive regional devotional-music-dance forms of Delhi. The famous Qawwal Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a 20th-century exponent of the Qawwali tradition of the region (with roots in the Punjab rather than the Delhi dargah), but the dargah Qawwali is the central Qawwali tradition of Delhi.

How it's practiced

Qawwali is performed by a group of men (the Qawwals and their accompanists) seated in a semi-circle at the courtyard of the dargah, singing the Sufi qawwali song-cycle (the verses of Amir Khusrau, the central poet of the Chishti silsila) and clapping in heavy rhythm to the dholak. The tradition is sung in Persian, Urdu and Punjabi, with the dance being the rhythmic-clapping motion of the hands (the taali) and the slight body-sway of the singers. The dance builds to a devotional-climactic moment at the peak of the song. Costume is the dargah dress of the Qawwals — the kurta, the pyjama, the small regional cap and the shalwar. Performances are at the dargah of Delhi particularly at the Urs of the saints.