New-age Sufism disappoints clerics

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New Delhi: Sufism, the devotional path to the soul's realization of an all-pervasive reality has today become a fashion statement, much to the disappointment of the Islamic clerics.

"You can't sell everything. Some of these songs defy the basic tenets of Sufism and Sufi music," Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah Peer Zaada Hasan Sani Nizami says.

While classic Sufi poets Jallaluddin Rumi and Hafiz Shiraz continue to be the original brand ambassadors of Islamic mysticism, musicians like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Abida Perveen, Rabbi Shergill and Junoon are the ones who revamped original sufi tunes.

But leaving apart some famous and credible names, there are few who understand the true meaning of Sufism. In fact for many, it is just another formula that sells.

"I rejoice the presence of the lord within me, I rejoice in the fact that I'm alive and there are other people around me and Sufism primarily gives me that expression, the freedom to express myself," says Vikrant, group member of Delhi-based rock band Manthan.

A faith that began in India in 1190 with Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti is now no longer just the sole inheritance of the peer zadas. There are thousands others who have decided to take the legacy forward and call it their own.

Twenty-six-year-old student Druv, decided to take up Sufi music professionally after studying it in Chicago. A Hindu by birth and a qawwal by choice, the religious aspects of qawwali don't bother him.

"I'm not a practicing Hindu and I certainly don't consider myself belonging to any religion in particular so it did not really have any influence over my natural inclination towards music and Sufi music in particular," he says.

New sounds, new definitions a celebration of life or a recipe for success, Sufism sells. But it's not all new age. The original qawwalis continue to be a major attraction for believers of Sufism.