Tahir Hussain Faridi's Sufi Qawwali - A Soothing Balm of Hope!
We are living through a time when religious extremism, terrorism, narrow-minded thinking and generally a focus on negative feelings and emotions are fanned out. In this environment, there are still a few people who are applying a balm of tolerance, kindness and compassion on the burnt skin of sensibilities. These are the Sufis.
"Sufism is a school for the actualization of divine ethics. It involves an enlightened inner being, not intellectual proof; revelation and witnessing, not logic. By divine ethics, we are referring to ethics that transcend mere social convention, a way of being that is the actualization of the attributes of God.The sufi is a lover of God, and like any other lover, he proves his love by constant remembrance of his Beloved. This constant attention to God has two effects: One outward and the other inward. The Sufi poems communicate through symbolic expressions the depth of sufi spirituality, the inner states of mystical love, and the Unity of Being. They reveal aspects of Sufism and of traveling the sufi path that are not accessible in prose writings". (See: http://www.nimatullahi.org/what-is-sufism/)
One of the Sufi musician based in Byron Bay, Australia is Tahir Hussain Faridi, who has made a mark with his re-interpretation of the sufi music in a modern format.
Canadian-born Qawwali singer Tahir left his home at the age of 16 to live the life of a yogi, a practitioner of meditation in India. After travelling across the sub-continent for years, Tahir found himself immersed into Indian classical and Qawwali, a form of devotional music with its roots in the Sufi traditions.
Today, Tahir is based in Byron Bay and spends most of his time touring around the world with his Qawwali ensemble Fanna-Fi-Allah, performing at various festivals, concerts and shrines. When he is not touring, Tahir teaches traditions of vocal music of India and Pakistan in his Byron Bay studio. By playing and promoting centuries-old Sufi devotional music from Indian sub-continent, Tahir aims to get people close to each other.
Tahir recently performed at Western Sydney University’s Harmony Day function organised by (WAACI) We Australians are Creative Inc. He has also produced a documentary on Qawwali music currently under-production - ‘Qawwali – The Music of the Mystics’.
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