In the songs of intoxication, "wine" represents "knowledge of the Divine", the "cupbearer" (saaqi) is God or a spiritual guide, the "tavern" is the metaphorical place where the soul may (or may not) be fortunate enough to attain spiritual enlightenment. But in the context of qawwali, these songs of intoxication and yearning use secular metaphors to poignantly express the soul's longing for union with the Divine, and its joy in loving the Divine. In the context of that genre, the songs are usually taken at face value, and no deeper meaning is necessarily implied. In fact, in Pakistan and India, ghazal is also a separate, distinct musical genre in which many of the same songs are performed in a different musical style, and in a secular context. These songs feature exquisite poetry, and can certainly be taken at face value, and enjoyed at that level. There are two extended metaphors that run through ghazals-the joys of drinking and the agony of separation from the beloved.
A naat (نعت), Arabic for description, is a song in praise of Muhammad.Traditionally, a qawwali performance starts with a hamd. A hamd (حمد), Arabic for praise, is a song in praise of Allah.Qawwalis are classified by their content into several categories: The central themes of qawwali are love, devotion and longing (of man for the Divine). The poetry is implicitly understood to be spiritual in its meaning, even though the lyrics can sometimes sound wildly secular, or outright hedonistic. This is certainly true of Chhote Babu Qawwal, whose style of singing is much closer to Baul music than to the qawwali of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, for example. Also, the sound of the regional language qawwali can be totally different from that of mainstream qawwali. There is also qawwali in some regional languages but the regional language tradition is relatively obscure. There are some in Persian from the Mughal era, and a smattering in Saraiki and dialects of north India like Brajbhasha and Awadhi. The songs which constitute the qawwali repertoire are primarily in Urdu and Punjabi.
Song content Music of PakistanĪ Lady Playing the Tanpura, ca. Qaul (Arabic: قَوْل) is an "utterance (of the prophet)", Qawwāl is someone who often repeats (sings) a Qaul, Qawwāli is what a Qawwāl sings. The word Sama is often still used in Central Asia and Turkey to refer to forms very similar to Qawwali, and in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the formal name used for a session of Qawwali is Mehfil-e-Sama. Friday evening Qawali at Dargah Salim Chisti at Fatehpur Sikri, near Agra, UP, Indiaĭelhi's Sufi saint Amir Khusro Dehlavi of the Chisti order of Sufis is credited with fusing the Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Indian musical traditions to create Qawwali as we know it today in the late 13th century in India.