Sufi Music

Sufi music is the devotional music of Sufism, the mystical tradition within Islam, performed to induce remembrance of God and, in many orders, spiritual ecstasy. Its best-known form is qawwali, the song tradition of South Asian shrines, built on harmonium, tabla and handclaps beneath a lead singer's escalating improvisation; elsewhere it includes Turkish Mevlevi ceremony music for ney and voice, Persian sung poetry and Sindhi and Punjabi folk devotion. Texts draw on poets such as *Rumi*, *Bulleh Shah* and *Amir Khusrau*, and repetition, rhythmic cycles and collective singing are its engines.