A Mystical Journey

Jump to Comments

This past Saturday I attended a concert entitled A Mystical Journey: Sufi music and other Expressions of Devotion from the Muslim world. The concert included a variety of artists from different countries, including Salman Ahmed, member of a popular Pakistani rock band Junoon, who undoubtedly was the crowd favorite to Choir Hazreti Hamza, a Sufi Bosnian group that was founded during the civil war in Yugoslavia to a group of American Ismaili men and women that recited devotional “songs” called ginans. While each performer came from a different tradition of Islam, what they all had in common was their ability to find spirituality through music and dance. As well as the ability to spread this spirituality throughout the audience. It was not in what they were saying, but in how they said it, in their body language that demonstrated what they felt about their faith and God (I recall my mom saying after a performance by Houria Aichi, an Algerian woman, that she did not understand what Houria said, as it was in Arabic, but was truly touched by it). I too was touched by the performances like my mom, however, there were two performances that really mesmerized me. The first was a group from Syria called Tahleelah which was headed by Sheikh Hamza Chakour and included four whirling dervishes. This was my first time seeing whirling dervishes and I was truly taken aback by their performance. Their ability to spin, thinking only of God, and letting go of what was around them was truly amazing. The second was the performance by a man named Sain Zahoor who came from a small village in Punjab, Pakistan who could not read nor write and would memorize his songs by drawing them out. He began his journey after he received, what he felt, a calling from God to bring forth his talent and use it to sing about his faith. There was something in him and his songs that really made me feel spiritual that I still cannot understand. What the concert was attempting to demonstrate, and what I felt to be most important, was how different traditions of Islam ”manifest their beliefs through diverse forms of devotion.” It is not only in traditional prayer and solace that we find God, but through songs, dances and other forms of devotion that God can be remembered.

2 Comments

Filed under tanyaghaziani