Girls Help Preserve Kashmir's Customs

    • admin@nie.com
    • Publish Date: Apr 5 2017 10:42AM
    • |
    • Updated Date: Apr 5 2017 10:48AM
Girls Help Preserve Kashmir's Customs

When Kashmiri teenager Shabnam Bashir first took up classical Sufi music three years ago, she had to practise singing in secret because all the men in her Muslim family opposed her new passion.


Now the 14-year-old is a proud member of what her teacher Mohammad Yaqoob Sheikh says is the first mixed Sufi singing ensemble in Indian-administered Kashmir, where the music has for generations been a male preserve. "It took me two months to convince them all," said Bashir as she joins four other girls -- and one 13-year-old boy -- for singing practice. "My father finally gave me permission on condition that it did not affect my regular studies."

Thousands of people in the Muslim-majority region follow Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam whose adherents seek spiritual communion through music and dance at the shrines of their saints. The songs, which use the lyrics of old Kashmiri- and Persian-language devotional poetry, date back to the 15th century. But they have evolved as a uniquely male tradition, sung by men and handed down through the male line of the family. Sheikh is the exception -- he learned the art from his maternal grandfather, Ghulam Mohammad Qaleenbaf, one of the region's best known Sufi singers.

"The earlier masters wouldn't even pass it on to sons of their daughters, only sons or sons of sons," Sheikh told AFP at his home in the outskirts of the main city of Srinagar. Sheikh began teaching young Kashmiris in a bid to preserve the Sufi musical tradition of the picturesque Himalayan region, which has been divided between India and Pakistan since partition but is claimed by both countries. He said young Kashmiris were turning away from classical music and towards protest rap songs inspired by the tense politics of the heavily militarised region, where dozens of protesters were killed last year in clashes with government forces. "Teaching young boys and girls in a disciplined manner is the surest way to preserve this heritage," said Sheikh. But doing so has not been easy.

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