Faani Here Baaqi There

Sadness swept the continuum as news of Nusrat's departure was announced. You see, out here in the continuum, his was the only music that gave us hope that there was a way to end our journey and escape the relentless ceaselessness of our home : the continuum.
Unlike those who began to admire Nusrat after he was blessed by the Rock and Roll musicians, the continuumwalas have cherished his music and vocals forever. Let me tell you why. And please feel free to think. Consider this an invitation.
Over one thousand years ago, between 858 and 921 a sufi by the name of Al-Hallaj was tortured, maimed, mutilated and then burnt. His crime was that in the state of ecstasy he exclaimed Ana-al-Haqq Ana-al-Haqq (I am the true one I am the true one). The caliph of the time and other sages concluded that Al Hallaj was suggesting that he was Allah and therefore deserved to die. Who are we to argue.
 It was in the century that Al-Hallaj was executed that the Qawwali was born.
 
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Taus Ahmed al-Tusi al-Shaifi, otherwise known as Al-Ghazali was born 200 years after the material annihilation of Al-Hallaj. Ghazali was a great philosopher and scientist, though himself he was highly orthodox he still exonerated Al-Hallaj of his crime and attributed it to a super-spiritual state where time and reason collapsed and Al-Hallaj actually felt that he had annihilated (fana) his human self and connected with the creator. In his writings Al-Ghazali went on to define this ultimate state for a person, It is the state that could only be achieved by disassociating ones self from the mundane, by purifying the inner self so much that the real self begins to communicate with Allah : simply stated, Allah becomes an experiential reality and love acquires a new meaning, a meaning above and beyond family, friends and the beloved.
Over the next few hundred years one of the ways to reach this state of pure unbounded ecstasy was by the practice of Qawwali. It started with the Chisti order of Sufis and was eventually spread in India by Khawaja Mueen-Ud-Din Chisti in the fourteenth century. Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948-1997) was a master of this art and had an ancestry that goes back over 600 years.
It is in this backdrop that the occupants of the continuum cherished Nusrat. It is a pity that his passion was rarely recognized until he was seen standing next to Mick Jagger and Peter Gabriel. It would be a pity if he is now remembered only for that. Don't you get it, Nusrat was only the instrument that conveyed the passion that one needs to purify the inner self. Don't you get it, his music was not just a voice and a few instruments - there were a thousand years of mysticism that leapt through his voice. Don't you get it, in those verses there were the raptures of Al-Hallaj, there was the wisdom of Tahafut al Falsifa and the challenge of Tahafut al Tahafut. Don't you get it, his voice was a metaphor for the vehicle you could use to annihilate your mundane self and be one with Allah. Today that he is no more, the message is still there. If he has succeeded then there will be many more Nusrat's that will be born and they will be recognized before a review by Rolling Stones magazine and CNN.
 (The lover is he that is fani in his own attributes and baqi in the attributes of his beloved. A sufi is he who is fani in himself but baqi in Allah. Hijwari) - Fani Effacement of the soul; Baqi Permanency.