The Sabri Brothers: A Beginner's Guide

The Sabri Brothers were South Asia’s best-loved qawwals, that is, performers of qawwali, the music of Sufis (or Islamic mystics). Qawwals are probably the only musicians in the world with an actual job description: to raise spiritual awareness in their listeners so that, in performing qawwali, they are fulfilling a religious duty to convey the messages of love, peace and unity. Attending a qawwali is, by itself, the chief communal devotional ritual of Sufis. Although dozens of qawwali groups had been performing in the sub-continent for centuries, it was Pakistan’s Ghulam Farid Sabri (d1994) and his younger brother Maqbool Ahmed Sabri (d2011), who first introduced this music to the Western world when they performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1975.

Reviews of that historic performance never fail to mention that the audience appeared to be in a state of unabashed ecstasy with many of the Indian and Pakistani diaspora going up to the stage with offerings of money and at least one man going as far as drawing blood from his head by banging it against the stage. Such scenes would be completely normal when qawwali is performed in its original setting, that is, at the tomb of a Sufi master, but the fact that it also happened in a concert hall setting, says a great deal about the mystical powers of qawwali and the prowess of the Sabri Brothers, who were able to communicate that spiritual ecstasy outside of its normal context.

In the decades that followed, another musician of the same genre, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (d1997), took the world by storm as he shot to fame in places as far apart as Berlin and Tokyo. But it was the Sabris who had paved the way for Khan and others to perform in packed concert halls the world over. In the inevitable comparisons, many aficionados maintain that the Sabris were the real thing, as their fan base was largely in the home market (including the South Asian diaspora) while Khan, who collaborated with musicians of many other traditions, was the one who appealed more to ‘foreigners.’

Ghulam Farid gave his first public performance in 1946, in Kalyana, eastern Punjab, which is now in India, but the family migrated to newly formed Pakistan after partition. The group was initially formed by the younger brother Maqbool Sabri in 1956 while he was still only 11 and known as Bachche qawwal, literally ‘child-qawwal’, with older brother Ghulam Farid eventually joining him.

A strictly all-male hereditary business, qawwals are required to initially train in Indian classical music. This process begins in childhood followed by subsequent training in percussion and vocal techniques specific to qawwali, including memorising thousands of verses of mystical poetry in Farsi (Persian), old literary Hindi and Arabic as well as more modern contemporary poems in Urdu. Qawwali was invented in the 13th century in Delhi by the polyglot mystic poet-musician-musicologist Amir Khusrau (d1325) and many qawwals are said to be direct descendants of musicians originally trained by Khusrau himself. The Sabris also claim direct descent from the legendary Tansen, a 16th-century court musician at the time of the Mughal emperor Akbar.

A chorus of voices, claps and pounding, syncopated rhythms distinguish qawwali from other forms of Indian classical music. There is always a leader or principal vocalist to establish the melody line with a secondary vocalist echoing the line in a higher register, eventually joined by a chorus and percussion. Ghulam Farid and Maqbool Ahmed were the principal and secondary vocalists respectively in the Sabris. They had entirely different tonal qualities, but their voices complemented one another perfectly. Added to that, Ghulam Farid had a unique touch of punctuating certain catchphrases with the single word ‘Allah,’ delivered in an extra-low pitch which, by itself, sent fans into a frenzy, and even though Maqbool Ahmed was the secondary vocalist, it could be argued that he had one of the finest qawwali voices of all time. The group also stood out for their highly inventive percussion and the brothers’ talent for spontaneously launching into anecdotes mid-song, without losing sight of melody or rhythm.

Initially only performing at Sufi tombs and small private gatherings, the early 1970s marked the rise of their fame with regular appearances on Pakistan’s national television service and some of their early 1950s hits, including ‘Tajdar-e-Haram’, ‘Mera Koi Nahin Tere Siwa’ and their most-enduring qawwali song ‘Bhar do Jholi Meri Ya Muhammad’, making their way into Pakistani films of the time, with the latter song featuring in a crucial sequence of an Indian film as recently as 2015.

While the 1970s saw them at their zenith, towards the end of that decade, Pakistan had fallen into one of its most repressive military dictatorships headed by General Zia-ul-Haq which took the country from its secular constitution to one that enforced orthodox Islamic sharia, which stands opposed to Sufis in general and their music in particular. While lesser musicians were forced to seek alternative employment, the Sabris, fortunately, had already made a name for themselves abroad and continued to perform in packed concert halls and private gatherings around the world.

While preparing to set off for a major European tour in April 1994, Ghulam Farid died unexpectedly. Maqbool Ahmed continued to perform, alongside his youngest brother Mehmood Sabri until Maqbool, who had all but relocated to South Africa, also died in 2011.

Many consider the Sabri Brothers’ halcyon days to have ended with the death of both brothers although younger family members went on to perform in various qawwali groups of their own. Tragedy hit the family again when Amjad Sabri, son of Ghulam Farid and the only descendent who went on to have a glittering independent career, was assassinated in Pakistan in 2016. Two distinct factions claimed responsibility, citing ‘blasphemy’ as the reason for his murder.

The Sabri Brothers have left a vast treasury of qawwali, but some of their best performances can only be found on private recordings of the 70s and 80s – usually on very poor quality video tape with equally dire audio to match. The YouTube age has made most of this material freely accessible, including a performance of their huge hit ‘Tajdar-e-Haram’ from 1988 in Dubai with an extra-long percussive intro.

JAMI, a recording of Ghulam Farid and Amjad Sabri, is being reissued on vinyl by Piranha with edited and remastered versions of the original tracks. ‘Tanam Farsuda Jan’ features on this issue’s compilation

This article originally appeared in the May 2024 issue of Songlines. Never miss an issue – subscribe to Songlines today