KARACHI, April 5: The Sabri Brothers cast a spell over the audience at the Arts Council on Thursday night by singing one entrancing Qawwali after another from their wide repertoire of classical pieces.

The function was organized by Mahmood Sabri and Ms Amatullah Armstrong, who embraced Islam 18 years ago, in collaboration with the Arts Council of Pakistan, to do homage to Hazrat Baba Fariduddin Ganj Shakar as part of his 759th Urs celebrations.

Baba Farid belonged to the Chishtia order of dervishes and was also a great scholar and accomplished poet, who wrote in Persian, Urdu and Punjabi.

Haji Maqbool Ahmed Sabri and Mahmood Ahmed Sabri set the ball rolling with a Naat which also made a detour to describe the events of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imam Hussain.

The Sabri Brothers were accompanied by Mohammad Anwer at the Tabla as well as Abdul Ghani, Fazal Islam, Lala, Zafar Sabri, Abdul Aziz, and Masood Sabri who sang and clapped in chorus. The keyboard was played by Maqbool Sabri’s son, Shumail Sabri.

The first ecstatic Qawwali of the night — Hum Mustafawi, Mustafawi, Mustafawi hain — made the audience go berserk. As slogans paying homage to the souls of various Muslim saints rent the air, people flung out their hands to shower daad upon the Qawwals who, thus emboldened, made greater efforts to sing the Qawwali more evocatively.

Off and on, Haji Maqbool Sabri uttered “Allah” a la his elder brother, Haji Ghulam Farid Sabri, who passed away in 1994.

The Sabri brothers sang a comparatively muted Qawwali called Ajmer ka yeh chaman lajawab hey which was a tribute to Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti.

In addition to Tajdar-i-Haram ek nigah-i-Karam, which was greeted with loud cries of appreciation, the tour de force of the Sabri Brothers was Bhar do jholi which made the audience go absolutely crazy.

Ms Armstrong, who pleaded with this reporter not to pester her with questions during the performance, said afterwards that she had embraced Islam in 1984 after an emotional visit to the Sahara desert where she had been moved by the sight of a Muslim man saying his prayers in the vast desert, with the sun beating down on his head. Ms Armstrong, who is an Australian national, is author of four books on the Sufi tradition of Islam.