Images: Sufi Music from India: The Chishty Sufi Sama Ensemble

The Chishty Sufi Sama Ensemble performs Sufi music in the Meyer Auditorium of the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, on April 30, 2011. The ensemble is based at Ajmer Sharif, the largest shrine of the Chishty Sufi order, located in Rajasthan, India, where it performs regularly. The town of Ajmer is where the Chishty order was founded in the thirteenth century.

From left to right are Amjad Hussain, solo vocalist; Sabir, tabla; Aslam Hussain, vocals and harmonium; Akhtar Hussain, chorus and clapping; Ashraf Hussain, dholak (percussion); and Pir Syed Riyazzuddin Chishty. The ensemble had appeared at the Fez Festival of Sacred Music in Morocco in 2010.

The musicians on this recording are members of the Chishty order, the oldest Sufi brotherhood in India, founded in the early thirteenth century. In the allegorical painting on the left, from about 1615, the emperor Jahangir visits with the head of the Chisty order, Shaikh Husain Ajmeri, while the Ottoman sultan, King James I of England, and the painter Bichitr wait their turn. A Persian inscription in the painting’s border relates that, although kings stand waiting before him, the emperor turns to religious men for guidance. From 1613–16, Jahangir lived in Ajmer, where he commissioned marble buildings at the Sufi shrine in gratitude to the Chishty Sufis as his father, the emperor Akbar, had done. Ajmer is still the site of the principal Chishty shrine, where the featured musicians are based.

In the image on the right, from about 1635, the emperor Shahjahan’s eldest son, Dara-Shikouh (in orange), sits with Sufi master Mian Mir (in white), about whom the prince wrote a biography. In black is Mulla Shah, spiritual adviser to the prince, whose mother is buried in the Taj Mahal.

(left) Detail, Emperor Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings from the St. Petersburg Album; Bichitr; borders by Muhammad Sadiq; India, Mughal dynasty, 1615–18; opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper; purchase, F1942.15a

(right) Detail, Dara-Shikouh with Mian Mir and Mulla Shah (d. 1661); India, Mughal period, ca. 1635; opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper; purchase—Smithsonian Unrestricted Trust Funds, Smithsonian Collections Acquisition Program, and Dr. Arthur M. Sackler, S1986.432

The performers on this recording are members of the Chishty Sufi order, which was established in Rajasthan in the early thirteenth century. It spread widely through the preaching of mendicant ascetics, who taught a love of God and one’s neighbor. The order’s founder, Shaikh Mu’inuddin Chishty (1141–1230), preached that Sufis should possess “a generosity like that of the ocean, a mildness like that of the sun, and a modesty like that of the earth.” This seventeenth-century painting represents a Sufi ascetic; his humble garb reveals that he has renounced material trappings to seek spiritual wisdom.

An Ascetic; India, Deccan, 17th century; opaque watercolor and gold on paper; gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1907.762

Solo vocalist Amjad Hussain (in white) performs Sufi qawwali music from India with the Chishty Sufi Sama Ensemble at the Freer Gallery on April 30, 2011. To his left are vocalist Aslam Hussain (also playing harmonium, a pump organ) and Akhtar Hussain (chorus and clapping). Amjad Hussain is heard on tracks 1–3 on this recording.

Vocalist Dhruv Bilal Sangari Chishty accompanies himself on harmonium (pump organ) during the Chishty Sufi Sama Ensemble’s 2011 performance at the Freer. He began training in Hindustani (north Indian classical) music at the age of seven and in Sufi qawwali music when he was twelve. From 1994–97, he studied with the late Pakistani qawwali legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He is heard on tracks 4–6 on this recording. To his left are vocalist Aslam Hussain (also playing harmonium) and Akhtar Hussain (chorus and clapping). At rear are percussionists Sabir, dholak, and Ashraf Hussain, tabla.