Selling Sufism: Qawwali and Coke Studio in Pakistan
Is Pakistan’s Coke Studio promoting Sufism or trading in Sufism Inc.?
Fareed Ayaz, Abu Muhammad Qawwal and Brothers featured in Coke Studio. Source: last.fm
Last year, Coke Studio, a music program sponsored by the Coca-Cola Company, aired the qawwali “Piya Ghar Aaya,” or “My Beloved Has Come Home”, by Fareed Ayaz, Abu Muhammad Qawwal, and Brothers. The music video begins with the bright red Coke Studio logo flashing on the screen for several seconds, with the phrase “Sound of the Nation” in bold letters written underneath.
As the camera pans out, the entire set becomes visible, from the overhead lights to the neon outline of a life-sized Coke bottle displayed on the wall, glowing red and orange. The frames change frequently, the tempo switches from slow to fast, and the qawwali singers’ volume shifts from low to high. The Coke Studio logo, however, remains fixed in the upper right corner of the screen from the song’s beginning to the end.
In the performance, Ayaz sings:
Majnoon ko sab mil kay pagal samajhtay hai
Aur akela Majnun sab ko pagal samajhta hai
Everyone thinks that Majnun is crazy
But Majnun thinks everyone (but him) is crazy
Majnun is a character from the popular romance Layla Majnun, someone said to represent a crazed Sufi, abandoning the physical world in his quest for spiritual love. The song’s lyrics were composed by Bulleh Shah, a Sufi poet and philosopher who uses simple and vernacular language to speak against material possessions, worldly knowledge, and arrogance. Instead, he encourages the individual to fight their ego and obsession with this world in order to seek union with the Divine.“Piya Ghar Aaya” is one of several qawwalis aired by Coke Studio, all of which invoke similar ideas.
Coke Studio has become one of the largest music platforms in Pakistan, airing seasons for over 10 years. Source: Pakistan Today
Sufi practices like qawwali are widely performed and venerated in Pakistan, making them an ideal avenue for Coca-Cola to promote itself. The irony is that the principles of self-interest and profit-maximizing that lie at the center of capitalist companies like Coca-Cola contradict the very values of humility and asceticism that Sufism and qawwali seek to promote. But the co-opting of Sufism for more nefarious, even anti-Sufi, ends did not begin with Coca-Cola.
Sufism as oriental construct?
Sufism, a tradition of Islam that emphasizes love for God, is often seen as a form of “Islamic mysticism.” But this interpretation of Sufism, which separates it from so-called “orthodox” traditions of Islam, is actually rooted in orientalism. It describes Sufism as a pacifist and moderate version of Islam, insinuating that “orthodox” Islam is intrinsically oppressive, violent and incompatible with modernity. One of the first European articles written about Sufism explicitly praised the tradition for its rationality and disregard for Islamic rituals and law. Sufism was presented as a Westernized Islam that was not fully Islamic, and closer to the American beliefs of individualism, liberalism, and capitalism. These sorts of oriental constructions of the “good Muslim, bad Muslim” justified various colonial adventures in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
After 9/11, Western constructions of Sufism emphasized even more so its tolerance and universalism, in contrast to “orthodox” Islam. The reason behind such discourse was to produce an “Americanized” Islam that is docile enough to not challenge the West, an Islam that freely complies with Western capitalism and even legitimizes imperialist adventures against those “Islamic extremists” construed as the “bad Muslims”. As per Western projections, “orthodox” or normative Islam itself is the threat that Sufism is meant to neutralize.
“As per Western projections, ‘orthodox’ or normative Islam itself is the threat that Sufism is meant to neutralize.”
Today, it is even a common misconception that one can be Sufi without being Muslim at all. In fact, the most popular forms of Sufism in the West are those that minimize any form of Islamic identity. Coleman Barks’ translations of Rumi exemplify how “un-Islamic” Sufism sells – his books, which extricate Rumi from his Islamic context, are the most widely read translations of the poet.
Establishing Sufism as a peaceful way of life ignores the complexities within Sufism, such as its use in Islamic empire-building. According to Mark Woodward and Muhammad Sani Umar, pre-colonial West African leaders used institutional Sufism to establish theocracies. In the 1880s, Western colonial regimes ended several of these theocracies and consolidated the rest within their empires. By the end of colonial rule, the long history of Sufism in empire-building was reduced to an image of the docile and passive Sufi.
In post-9/11 Pakistan, political leaders – mirroring their colonial and imperial counterparts – have also wielded Sufism as an alternative to “radical Islam,” further cloaking the existence of institutional Sufism. Pervez Musharraf’s regime was particularly instrumental in promoting Sufism in order to create a tolerant image of Pakistan. A popular mode of upholding Sufi values and a useful tool in the Musharraf regime’s efforts has been the art of qawwali.
The origins of qawwali
Sufi poets and musicians from Bulleh Shah to Abida Parveen have used qawwali, a fusion of Indian music and Sufi poetry, as a political tool to challenge the establishment for centuries. Earlier poets composed their work in local tongues such as Sindhi and Saraiki to bring Sufi Islam to local audiences and to challenge the elitist usage of Persian and Arabic.
During General Zia ul Haq’s regime, qawwals would use Sufi poetry as a means of resistance. In fact, Abida Parveen once performed a concert at the Lahore Al-Hamra for General Zia ul Haq during his dictatorship. She was told to stop while singing Bulleh Shah’s poetry, and the concert was soon terminated.
Qawwali entered the global stage in the 1980s when Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan collaborated with Peter Gabriel, a famous “world music” producer whose efforts to showcase non-Western music profited record companies immensely. Together, they produced the neo-qawwali track “Mustt Mustt,” which was praised by music critic Ron Givens of Entertainment Weekly for sounding “relaxed and more secular” than traditional qawwali. The song proved to be so popular that it featured in a Coca Cola commercial during the 1990s.
Abida Parveen, one of Pakistan’s most popular Qawwals, at The Hindu Friday Review November Fest in 2009. Image: S.R. Raghunathan via The Hindu
Commodifying qawwali
After entering the global stage, qawwali began being played at Sufi music festivals all over the world, creating new genres and groups of professional Sufi musicians. It has taken a particular foothold in Pakistan, present everywhere from corporate-sponsored music shows like Coke Studio to wedding celebrations and university “culture nights.”
What happened to qawwali in this process? It was unmoored from its deeper spiritual significance and repackaged as a cultural item, all so that it could be more easily commodified for a global audience.
The distinction of Sufism versus normative or “orthodox” Islam played a significant role in this transformation. The Musharraf regime’s solution to promoting a moderate image of the nation while simultaneously staying true to its Islamic heritage was Sufism, an “Islam of peace”. Projecting a peaceful Pakistan had to be done in a visible way, and thus Sufi practices were turned into forms of cultural tourism.
“The Musharraf regime’s solution to promoting a moderate image of the nation while simultaneously staying true to its Islamic heritage was Sufism”
Efforts to “culturalize” Sufism in a capitalist society was part of a strategy to transform Sufism into a commodity. During the Musharraf regime, efforts were made to elevate Sufi music and poetry by spreading the works of Sufi poets and renowned qawwals into music CDs, TV shows, radio programs, and Sufi music festivals. Corporate-sponsored shows like Coke Studio turned the Sufi music into a commodity and part of the company’s wider marketing strategy.
Peter Gabriel (R) is credited with introducing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (L) to Western audiences. After working together on the soundrack for the film The Last Temptation of Christ, Khan went on to release five qawwali albums through Gabriel’s Real World Label. Image: last.fm
With the help of Musharraf, socialite and ex-politician Yousuf Salahuddin, known for throwing qawwali nights in his mansion and sponsoring Sufi music festivals, created a National Sufi Council in 2006 that was responsible for promoting Sufi philosophy, poetry, and music. “I have always thought”, Salahuddin once said, “that in today's world where every culture is being promoted by governments, the things that Pakistan can sell are Sufi music and Sufism”.
Recall that much of the Sufi poetry being circulated by both corporations and the Pakistani government originate from a history of political resistance. It is written by poets who, true to their Sufism, were against material consumption, selfishness and vanity. For example, consider the poetry of Sultan Bahu:
Parh parh ilm hazar kitaban
They read books, thousands of them
Alim ho sare hu
They think they are scholars
Ik harf ishq da na parh janan
Not a word of love they know
Bhulan phiran bichare hu
Poor, lost souls
The 17th-century Sufi poet Sultan Bahu. Image: Book Cover of Hazrat Sultan Bahu by Prof. Hameedullah Shah Hashmi
The Pakistani government’s reduction of centuries old Sufi poetry and music into a commodity contradicts the art’s originally defiant spirit. The intentions of the government and corporations like Coca Cola, in spreading qawwali and Sufi music, are certainly questionable. By becoming commodified and “cultural-ized,” qawwali is separated from its spiritual beginnings.
Anthropologists Farid Al Asri and Anne-Marie Vuillemenot believe that the entrance of Sufi music into mass culture benefits Islam’s image. While performances in front of a global audience risks a loss of identity, they say popularizing Sufi music may give Islam a gentler image of beauty and surpasses any risk of losing authenticity. Sufi music purportedly presents its commitment to beauty and spirituality, while affirming that Islam is against violence.
It would be remarkable if Islam is successfully given a peaceful image, but this cannot be possible. Qawwali is rarely marketed as Islamic music because to do so would risk turning away consumers, as Islam purportedly does not share the same peaceful values as Sufism. Considering Sufism’s track record in Western markets, this widespread attitude has the potential to distance qawwali music from Islam and further present Sufism as the new-and-improved Americanized Islam.
Searching for authenticity
There is also the issue of authenticity. Is it permissible to listen to qawwali outside of its spiritual contexts? Do we dishonor its origins by listening to establishment-sponsored qawwali? Clearly, the answer lies in the words of Bulleh Shah and Sultan Bahu.
“The transformation of qawwali into a commodity is perhaps unavoidable in our current era of neoliberalism”
By erasing qawwali’s history in resistance and Islam, qawwalis market value shoots up. Sufism becomes a game for profit in which people outside of the Sufi tradition can also play, including people who enjoy more “secular” sounds like music critic Ron Givens. The transformation of qawwali into a commodity is perhaps unavoidable in our current era of neoliberalism, where everything from our land, air, knowledge and even personalities has been commodified. Until this changes, we have no choice but to watch qawwals sing the radical preachings of Sufi poets against the background of giant neon Coke bottles.
Aliza Amin is a Pakistani-American studying English and South Asia Studies at Wellesley College. She is currently writing her senior thesis on nationalist identities and the Bengal Renaissance. You can find her on Twitter @aliza_sukhera.