‘I want my Sufi concerts to heal people’

The reception [of these Sufi songs] wasn’t just from one community, but everybody realised the true sense of spirituality in the song. AR RAHMAN, COMPOSER

Composer, singersongwriter and music producer AR Rahman’s connect with Sufi music isn’t new. Recollecting how his tryst with this music genre began, he says, “Initially, I was just doing Sufi songs as a passion. I started my studio with Tamil Sufi songs in 1989; that was the first album I did. And then in Hindi, the first [song] was Piya Haji Ali (from Fiza; 2000).”

But Rahman singing his first Hindi Sufi song for a film has a lesser-known tale behind it. He says, “Khalid Mohamed (director of Fiza) wanted a Muqabala kind of song. I asked if there was any other song? He said: ‘Yeah, there is a qawwali, and Khayam saab’s gonna do it’. So I asked him if I could do the qawwali and give the Muqabala song to him? So he said, ‘Yeah, sure, if you want to try Piya Haji Ali’. And, so many people loved it.”

Reminiscing about the success of his first Sufi song, Rahman says, “The reception [of these Sufi songs] wasn’t just from one community, but everybody realised the true sense of spirituality in the song. And then there were enough songs for us. I had these little sections in my concerts with qawwalis. Some people said, ‘Why do we have little sections, let’s have a whole concert’. But I didn’t know whether people would turn up for such a concert.”

However, Rahman eventually held his first Sufi concert in 2014, in Dubai. “But, after that we could never do it. I wanted to do it for causes; like a healing process. So when the chance for a Sufi concert came, I said it’s perfect. And, we are now in the time when we are healing, all of us, myself first.”