WITH the passing of Maqbool Sabri (1941-2011), an entire era of excellence in traditional qawwali singing has come to an end. He belonged to a generation that was steeped in the Amir Khusrau tradition of music, devotion to Sufi saints and the shrine culture harking back to the 13th century. The demise earlier in 1994 of his elder brother, Ghulam Farid Sabri, who together with him formed their troupe in 1956, had left the younger Sabri as the beacon of this receding tradition — especially as the rise of a fundamentalist version of Islam redefined devotional values. The Sabris were amongst the most sought-after qawwals . They won the President's Pride of Performance Award in 1970. They also had the distinction of being the first qawwals from Pakistan to have introduced the genre to western audiences in New York in 1975. The trend they set of seeking foreign audiences was followed by Aziz Mian (d. 2000), and taken to new heights of popularity by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (d. 1997), and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan after him. Amjad Sabri, a scion of the Sabri family, today is amongst the top-notch qawwals who have stuck to rendering the genre in the traditional mode. Modern qawwali , with fusion music, remains another genre altogether.

The Sabris had opted for Pakistan at Independence leaving their ancestral home at Kalyana (now in Haryana, India), where their entire generations had been honed in classical and qawwali singing by ancestors who proudly traced their lineage to the 16th-century Mughal court's legendary singer Taan Sen. Their vast repertoire of qawwalis rendered in mystic verses in Urdu, Persian and Arabic will remain as the finest specimens of the genre as sung in the traditional mode. They contain immortal numbers like Bhar do jholi meri ya Muhammad, Sar-i-lamakaan se talab hui , and many, many more that will live on.