The Colby Echo

Issue date: 2/11/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: colby.edu

Dhruv Sangari, a talented qawwali singer, has performed his brand of Indian classical music internationally and has collaborated with many other international artists from countries as disparate as Mexico and Russia. As this semester's Artist in Residence, Sangari will be teaching a class on North Indian Classical music and is scheduled to perform two concerts this spring. According to Steven Nuss, Chair of the Music department, Sangari was appointed because "his voice blew everyone away and his mastery of an Islamic musical tradition would be especially timely and relevant to campus discourse."

Sangari's evident talent is complemented by his deeply intellectual and passionate understanding of the music and also by the movement which informs it. Briefly put, qawwali is the type of vocal Sufi devotional music sung in India. Sangari has had musical training since he was very young and became "obsessed" with qawwali as a teenager. To understand why Sangari became so interested in qawwali it is necessary to explore what Sufism and its music mean.

Sufism has its foundations in Islam, but Sangari notes that Sufism is not a religion. "Sufism is a movement within an orthodox framework that speaks about God as a lover rather than a judge." And while it is based in Islam, the roles of music within Islam and Sufism differ vastly. In Islam music is haraam (forbidden by the religion) while it is central to Sufism. Sangari describes music as "the true expression of godliness, the true expression of the power of whoever it is God, Allah, Bhagvana on this Earth."

Sangari attributes the appeal of Sufism and his resultant obsession with and love of the music to the movement's message of "tolerance, spiritual unity and love," a message that transcends religious differences.

"I gradually came to understand that Sufism represented something bigger than the narrow-mindedness and biases of people. It doesn't matter what kind of politics or religious background or ideology a person has, they always end up enjoying the music and understanding its message. Sufism represents an alternative using poetry and music as its vehicle, rather than preaching from a pulpit," he said.

"Qawwali has its origins in seventh century Arabia to a musical form called qaul, in which people would get together and sing," Sangari explained. In India, qawwali is the principal form of Sufi music and it is the amalgamation of several musical traditions including Vedic and folk traditions of India and genres of music from Persia, Arabia and Turkey, just like North Indian culture is the confluence of all these things." It consists of several genres of songs which are either overtly religious or use secular metaphors to describe something religious including the hamd, naat and ghazal. The troupe consists of a chorus, one or two vocal soloists, and instruments such as tabla, dholuk, harmonium and sarangi.

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