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Two Giants of Urdu: Zia Mohiyeddin Reads Faiz Ahme.The Scion and the Sychophant: Asad Amanat Ali Khan.
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Dues Been Paid in Full: Charles Bradley.(source: Adam Nayyar’s treatise on Qawwali, Lok Virsa Research Centre, Islamabad. For an audience that cannot understand the content of the qawwali, the use of rhythm is the basic matrix through which the variation and pitch of the voice runs like a coloured thread. It can also be experienced directly and the qawwali is one such opportunity for direct experience. When asked, the qawwal explain that the message of ma’rifat does not necessarily need words to convey this deep secret. The reason for the sudden recent popularity of qawwali beyond the borders of South Asia is this ability to alter the consciousness of the audience in a display of virtuosity. This they do with a high degree of success, the ecstatic reaction of an American audience in Carnegie Hall bearing ample witness to this fact. In areas where the qawwa l do not speak the language with any great facility, they must rely heavily on the musical form and rhythm to convey the concepts, achieve a trance and induce ecstasy. No stigma is attached to this state and after recovery, the individual carries on as if nothing had happened. The society around the individual accepts this ritualised loss of control and it is not uncommon in qawwali sessions for members of an audience to tolerantly embrace and hold an individual concerned spasmodically in a state of hal. The thoughts of the person experiencing hal go beyond the rational plane. The skill of the qawwal is severely tested before an audience not familiar with these concepts, but a master is able to move entire audiences to a hal, even if they do not understand a single word. This musically induced state of ecstasy is closely watched by the qawwal, who find the combination of music and content responsible for the state, repeating it with increasing intensity until a climax is reached, often creating enough resonance to pull in other members of the audience. This ecstasy can range from rhythmic moving of the head, dreamy dancing to such extremes as violent convulsions of the body, depending on the person affected. The external manifestation of this transportation is the has, literally meaning "state of mind", often used to denote musically induced ecstasy. They feel as if they are travelling to another domain or plane. Regular attendees of qawwali sessions often use the concept of travel when they speak of their experience during a qawwali. Like other forms of Islamic vocal meditation, qawwali transports the audience into another plane of consciousness, bringing to the common people the complex and elusive ma’rifat. A spinning wheel thus changes from a household instrument into the wheel of life or the wheel of hope depending on the shift of emphasis in one sentence. The qawwal often dwell on one phrase or sentence, indicating both the obvious and hidden content by emphasizing and repeating various words and syllables, taking the audience into the discovery of hitherto not obvious meanings. One of these practices accepted by certain schools such as the Chishtiya Sufic order is Qawwali, which is considered to be a mode which brings one closer to the experience of this inner truth by presenting the words ( kalam ) in the vehicle of music, thus providing an intangible interplay between form and content, dwelling on certain words to give them a wider context, creating great depth in the apparently simple language of certain Sufic texts. Islamic mystical tradition indicates several different paths to ma’rifat, which is arrived at by meditation and other practices. Approximating closely to the Greek concept of gnosis, it indicates an inner knowledge not attainable by normal means. One of the concepts that defies easy definition is ma’rifat.