Question

Qawwali is a/an ………………………….
(A) European style of chorus singing
(B) Indian style of chorus singing
(C) South Indian style of chorus singing
(D) Persian style of chorus singing

Answer 1

Hint Qawl is “utterance (prophet)”, Qawwal is a person Qawwali repeats (sings) many times, Qawwali is what Qawwal is singing. Qawwali is a form of Sufi- Islamic devotional chant originating from the Indian subcontinent and is very popular in the Punjab and Sindh regions of Pakistan; in Delhi and Hyderabad and other parts of India.

Complete answer:
Qawwali is a chorus of hand clapping qawwals. Delhi’s Sufi saint Amir Khusrow of the chisti Sufi order is credited with combining Persian, Arabic, Turkish And Indian traditions in India in the late $13$ th century to create the Qawwali as we know it. The word sama is still widely used in central Asia and Turkey to denote forms very similar to Qawwali, and in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the official name for the Qawwali session is Mehfil-e- sama.

Composition of Qawwali party: A group of qawwali musicians called a party (or Humnawa in Urdu) usually consists of eight or nine men, including a lead singer, one or two side singers, one or two harmonium (which comes from the lead singer, side singer or others) and drums. If there is only one drummer, he will play backgammon and dholak, usually backgammon with the dominant hand and dholak with the other.

Thus, the option (B) is correct

Note: musical structure of Qawwali, the songs are usually between $15$ and $30$ minutes long. However , the longest commercial qawwali takes just over $115$ minutes ( Hashr Ke Roz Yeh Poochhunga by Aziz Mian Qawwal). Qawwali maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has at least two songs that are more than $60$ minutes long.