Origin Of Sufi Music-Curve Asia - South Asian Arts & Entertainment

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Many of you may have been soothed by the familiar strains of spiritually connected Sufi music at a lounge bar or friend’s party without even realizing what its all about.

That’s not such a surprise considering modern music has incorporated within it many forms of this essentially devotional music, e.g. Sufi-Trance, Sufi-Pop, Sufi-Experimental Electronic besides a

host of other sub-genres that have appeared in the last 25 years to further inspire bewildered awe about this traditionally sacred chant form of Islamic poetry, usually in praise of the Divine and put to music by wandering seers and bards who mostly sang at places of religious worship.

This is why the Fakirs (wandering minstrels, usually spiritually inclined) were attributed with the mass spread of Sufi music in the olden days, as they travelled to various parts of their country (sometimes outside of it too) with the gift of picking up local tones and styles in regions they visited and thus, giving birth to new forms within their traditional style, too – which mesmerized as many listeners in pre-electronic age as much as it does today.

The only exception is the wider reach of Sufi music being made available to interested listeners thanks to the growth and advancements in music and communications technology in modern times that has enabled singers and musicians to build a wider range and global audience for their talent, message specialization as compared to the ones they were able to physically contact in days of yore.

So, while the origin of Sufi Music Iran is recorded in history as early as the pre-Islamic times, with Persian literary works chiefly mentioning various examples of verses steeped in religious poetry and praise, it gained extensive recognition after the typical accompanying form of Oriental music as offered by the Persian frame drum, brought to various parts of Iran a flamboyant and melodious charm that is still preferred to other accompanying instruments by the traditionalists today.

This Persian frame drum is commonly called the ‘Daf’ and primarily regarded as a spiritual musical instrument usually played in the Khanghahs region (Kurdistan) of Iran. As the years passed, other frame drums with the same name were used by Sufi musicians with the aim of bringing a more upbeat sound to the music, like the ones used in Uyghuristan (China) and other Arab countries besides parts of India and some parts of Turkey that have local shapes and sound enhancement emphasis laid to their formation for their styles of Sufi singing.

However, besides the drum beats of the frame drum having a strong, resonant and clear sound that adds the typical traditional flavour to Sufi music still preferred by its followers in Iran today, for choral and solo presentations of Sufi music, other accompanying instruments have entered the realm of this mystical, spiritually connected music today, which are just as pleasing to the ear as the single-stringed ektara and the frame drum were.

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