Music: Junaid Jamshed: Naats

Artists: Junaid Jamshed

Junaid Jamshed: Naats *
www.SaminHaqqi.com

Are you surprised? Not me. Was wondering when would something so obviously obnoxious and ridiculous would arrive from pop-star-turned-pop-crescent, Junaid Jamshed.
Too bad another reborn recruit, Najam Shiraz, beat him to it with an exclusive naat album, but JJ’s divine efforts are slightly different. They were recorded in the presence of a live audiance. And by the sounds of it, it seems it was an all-male gathering. No screaming teenyboppers or
drooling bimbos here ... the likes JJ would so gleefully enjoy at those massive Vital Signs concerts and while filming all those namharam Pepsi commercials. Here you can just hear males (definitely bearded and presumably heaven-bound), going “wah, wah, wah” every time JJ turned the prophet Mohammad into something naats usually turn him into, i.e: Something he was actually horrified to be turned into!
In fact, these naats actually end up caricaturing him as some heavly bearded jirga elder somewhere in North Waziristan or a warden of an orphanage somewhere in Landhi or Mandi Bhaodin. Or worse, an itar-drenched demigod!
Forget the professional naat khwans ( fortunately a rather easy thing to do), but really, what exactly is the point being made here by holy popers such as JJ and Najam? How is their beloved religion being served here? For years they pushed tales of teeny romantic escapades, branded colas and tea bags and now this: Hairy, over-the-top odes to the prophet almost as absurd as the frightening sight of those redneck Christian faith healers who portray Jesus as someone who bought spiritual healing by constant weeping and trembling (as if doing the bhangra in fast-forward).
Matter like naats are the kind of stuff which sentimentalize the cold, calculated and dispassionate harshness of organized relegion. Perhaps they came about in an attempt to revive the early romantism of revolutionary 7th century Islam, or it was (in fact most probably is) a way devised by sub continental Muslims to eulogize and romanticize a Mohammedan cult to neutralize the ambitions of mullahs influenced by the dry Wahabi/Deobandi Puritanism.
The interesting thing is, born-agains like Najam and JJ were part of scores of urban middle-class Pakistanis who a few years ago suddenly started attending lectures by newfound Islamic “scholars”who in turn (at least mostly) represented the Deobandi school of thought. Actually so did/do militant movements like those led by the Taleban and sectarian parties such as Sipah Sehaba and Lashker Taiba.
So what then are JJ and Najam now doing spouting naats? Contemplating their professional futures.
Just the way they jumped from poverty-stricken art of pop music to the lucrative pastures of corporate pop, they are now cuing themselves for entering (corrupting?) the naat market which is bigger and more consumer-friendly than pop. And who knows, just like some shia devotees introduced the drum-machine to replace maatham sounds on the big selling mersia albums, JJ and Najam would do the same for the naat by introducing the violen to enhance the weeping sounds which otherwise they are acting out (yes, acting out) themselves while delivering their glorified (nay, crudely garlanded) odes to the prophet.
My guess is, Mohammad would have certainly hated the very sound and sights of such warped maska-polish.
This doesn’t make JJ and Najam better muslims. In fact, some (Muslims) would argue this doesn’t make them Muslims at all. Just like blowing up people doesn’t make Osama Mohammad’s greatest
living follower, now does it?