Kashmiri Sufiana Musiqui: A Classical Tradition

Her tari ragum chi kushnawayi dared

Her taar Juda Juda sada mai goyed

—Khawaja Habibiullah Naushari Hubi

The archeological evidence points to the existence of singing and dancing in Kashmir from ancient times. King Harsha who ruled Kashmir between 1089 and 1101 is said to have been an ardent lover of music and its patron, among many other art forms. Music was present in the Buddhist viharas in Jalauka. Soamnath Dhar writes,“Music was a must at religious ceremonies, particularly those connected with tantric worship. Indulged in at bedtime, the music of the lute and flute was a luxury of kings and high nobles. King Kalasa, mentioned earlier on, popularised light operatic (upanga-gita) songs, and his son, Harsha, would amuse his father in public with songs.”

 Fig. 1. Sāz-i-Kashmir. 

In ancient Kashmir, the drum, lute and flute were in vogue including the conch and cymbals which were used in the temple ceremonies. Kalhana in his Rajtarangni mentions a bagpipe-like instrument called hudukka. King Bhikescra’s time saw the usage of brass, and earthen pots for entertainment. Amin Kamil says that Banaswara Vadh is what one would call an opera. Much later, Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin patronised local musicians, including Karnataka musicians who specialised in various ragas. His atelier included Mullah Awadh, Mullah Jameel, Soam Pandit and Yodi Bhat. Mullah Oudh, as he was called due to his mastery over playing Oudh was from Khurasan and so was Jameel. Soam Pandit was an important part of the court.

Both his and Yodi Bhat's books on music were lost to history, notes Motilal Saki. During his reign, dancers or hafizas would sing beautiful songs in the royal gardens. Shrivar Pandit, who was Zain-ul-Abidin's court historian, was a music lover and a master sitar player. In his work Zaina Rajtarangni, he writes that during Sultan Hassan Shah’s reign (1472-84), there was greater patronage of music. Shrivar writes that he constituted a department for music under the former's supervision. Oftentimes, the hafizas would sing sufiana kalam with santoor, tabla and soz. The saz-i-Kashmir, or Kashmiri sitar, is a bowed musical instrument, played with a mizrab and the dukra is a percussion instrument. The poetess-queen Habba Khatun, the wife of Yusuf Chak(1579-1586), is said to have introduced a new maqam called Rast-e-Kashmir.

During the Mughal era, Khawaja Habibiullah Naushari Hubi(1556-1617) and Mirza Akmauluddin Beg Khan Badakshi had considerable influence on Sufi poetry that was composed as well. Soamnath Dhar while writing about the Sufi influence on Kashmiri music writes:

“…insofar as the advent of Islam in Kashmir was not in a fanatic or puritanic form. The synthesising cult of Sufism favoured dance and music, and thus the classical dance forms prevalent in Kashmir absorbed the influences from the dance techniques of Persia and Central Asia. In the process, Kashmiri music developed affinities with both Indian and Persian prototypes, and evolved Sufiana kalam with fifty-four magams (modes) which have Indian as well as Persian names.”

Sufi Musiqui is a vocal art performed by a group of four to seven, out of which one is generally the lead singer, singing kalam in Farsi and Kashmiri in a melfil setting. These are often sung by Sufi singers, especially those written by Sufi poets like Hafiz Shirazi, Jalaluddin Rumi, Jami, Omar Khayyam, Amir Khusro, Rasul Mir, Ahad Zargar, Neame Seab, and others.

choon meslihet andaishi dour ast ze durwaishi

Hum seena pur Aatesh bai hum deedeh pur aab aula

Mun haal-i-zahid  ba khalaq na khahum guft

Ein qissa ager goyem ba chang-o- rabab aula.

—Hafiz Shirazi

Jozef Pacholczyk gives a detailed description of the mehfils:

“There are two kinds of mehfils, a religious Sufi meeting in which Sufyana is an integral part of the event, and a secular meeting, in which the Sufyana lovers gather expressly to listen to the music. The latter are now extremely rare. The Sufi mehfils are organised in private houses of the well-to-do Sufis. The event can begin toward the evening, usually after 6:00 p.m., and last until early morning, around 5:30 a.m. sit cross-legged or squat along the walls of the room. At one end of the room, along the walls of the room, there is a place for the Sufi Master. If the room is too small, some latecomers will sit in the middle of the room facing the Master. The orchestra is placed in one of the corners of the room, not far from the Master. During the meeting, the musicians perform several maqams appropriate for the time of night. Performance of a single maqam can last from twenty minutes to an hour and a half. Between the maqams, there are long breaks. During the main break, around 10:00 p.m., the full Kashmiri dinner is served, consisting of several courses. It is served on large plates set on a roll of white cloth spread around the room. The servants walk around, taking care that the plates are always full of rice and meat. During other breaks, various kinds of tea brewed in samovars are served.”

Sheikh Abdul Aziz in his book Koshur Sargam explains the theory behind the Kashmiri Sufiana Musiqui. Basic notes are derived from the classic Hindustani music; Sa, re, ga, ma, pa, da, ni. There are however, no verbalised microtones although they are used in some of the maqams. The only instrument that can produce them is the saaz-i-Kashmir, although they are no longer played on any instrument. The system has six ahangas or “maqam families” as Pacholczyk called them.

Salmak, Dur Gardanya, Navruz-e-asal, Kawisht, Mawisht and Shahna. Two shu'bas are derived from each maqam. Pacholczyk observes that nowadays most of the musicians do not distinguish between the maqams and shu'bas. Gulan Rasool Bhat explains that each maqam is associated with an animal’s sound. For instance: Maqam Rast with the elephant, Isfahan with a lamb, Ishaaq with a rooster, Nawa with a Bulbul, Hosaini with a horse and Bosleikh with a lioness.

Fig. 2. Ghulam Mohammad Saznawaz, Kashmiri Sufiyana musician. Source: Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons.

It is said that that the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir would send his Kontal Gur (horse) to bring maestro Sultan Joo to his court for a performance.Muhammad Abdullah Tibetbaqal, Abdul Khaliq, Ramzan Joo, Ghulam Muhammad Saznavaz, Ghulam Muhammad Kalinbaft, Shaikh Abdul Aziz, and Kamal Butt were amongst the few who mastered the art of sufiana music, with hardly any proteges with the same level of expertise. They mostly played in private mehfils and occasionally for radio as well. Out of all these Tibetbaqal was a salaried staff member of Radio Kashmir. Many of the sazandar families did little to encourage their children to take up this profession which, according to Pacholczyk, was due to a growing awareness of their modest economic circumstances.

The remaining experts are the last custodians of this tradition, as many maqams have been forgotten and their methods of performance lost over time. As Bhajan Sopori puts it, “the decline of Sufiana Mausiqi is actually due to the loss of patronage and low economic incentive. People did not want to take risks to let their children learn an art form that doesn’t provide economic security. As a result of this very few people learned Sufiana and it remained limited to a few people.”

Makam	Time Played
Araq	Before sunrise
Asawari (Navruz-e-khara)	Noon
Ashiran	4:30 p.m.
Bahar (Ushshaq)	Evening
Bayati	4:00 p.m.
Behbas
Bharvi
Bihag (Hijaz)	2:00–3:00 a.m.
Bihagar
Bilawal
Buzurg
Chargah	Before sunrise
Devgandhar
Devkari
Dhanasri (Buslik)	5:00 p.m.
Dugah	Before sunrise
Gabri (Hisar)	6:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m.
Husayni (Zarkash)	Before noon
Jaijawanti
Jangla
Jinjoti (Manj, Majiri)	Sunrise until noon
Jog
Kalyan (Kuchuk)
Kanara
Khamacha (Ishahan)	4:00 a.m.
Kuhi (Mubaraqa)	After sunset
Lachari
Lalit
Malhar (Nihuft)	10:00 p.m.
Navruz-e-Ajam
Navruz-e-Arab
Navruz-e-Saba (Saba)	After sunrise
Nawa	2:00 p.m.
Nayriz	2:00 a.m.
Pahlawi (Pahalwi, Zawal)	Early evening, sunset
Paraj
Purbi (Zalab)	Right after sunset
Rahawi (Bastanegar)	5:00–6:00 p.m.
Ramkali
Rast (Rast-e-Kashmiri)	Midnight
Rast-e-Farsi (Panjgah)	11:00 p.m.
Sarang
Segah	After sunset
Senduri
Shahnaz (Nihawand, Zengola)	Early evening
Soorath
Suhani (Nishaporak)	Sunset
Tilang (Mahur)	4:00 p.m.
Todi
Udasi (Maghlub)	Shortly after sunset
Uzzal

References

• Dhar, Somnath. Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi: National Book Trust, India, 1999. 

• Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages. Shiraza: Sufiana Mousiqui aur Kashmir. Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, March 1997.

• Pacholczyk, Józef. “Sufyana Kalam, the Classical Music of Kashmir.” Asian Music 10, no. 1 (1978): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/834122

• Chandrakausika, Ram. “On Sufiana Mousiqee.” A World’s Heritage of Native Music, January 22, 2013.https://saxonianfolkways.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/on-sufiana-mousiqee/.

• Mir, Shabir Ahmad. “Sufiana Mausiqi—Kashmir’s Forgotten Classical Music.” Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities 7 (2013).

Illustrations

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sāz-ī-Kāshmīr. Mid to late 19th century. Walnut, iron, metal, plastic, skin, cloth. Object no. 2015.482. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/506064(accessed May 5, 2026).

• Wikimedia Commons contributors. “Ghulam Mohammad Saznawaz.” Wikipedia. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghulam_Mohammad_Saznawaz.