Today’s Enlightening Entertainment will be presented in Urdu and English, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

If a song has light and color, then the music of Pakistan is a beautiful jewel shining in the midst of the world’s musical treasure chest. As an expression of culture, the music of Pakistan has embraced the diverse styles and traditions, originated from South Asia, Central Asia, the Arab world and the modern West.

In today’s Enlightening Entertainment, we have a rare chance to enjoy the living history of Pakistani Sufi music with Ms. Riffat Sultana, renowned Pakistani singer and her widely loved acoustic band called The Party. With her memorable voice, Riffat Sultana sings aloud the musical wisdom that has nourished eleven generations of famed family musicians in Pakistan and India.

It is first dawn at the riverbank,
It is first dawn at the riverbank,
The playful Sham is teasing me.
It is first dawn at the riverbank,
It is first dawn at the riverbank,
The playful Sham is teasing me.
My shawl keeps getting tangled,
I feel helpless, what do I do, Ram.
It is first dawn at the riverbank,
It is first dawn at the riverbank.

Both Riffat’s father Ustad Salamat Ali Khan and her uncle Nazakat Ali Khan were respected Pakistani master musicians. Having started their musical training in India at age 7 and 9 respectively, they later established their own school of music, Sham Churasi Gharana, after moving to Pakistan’s town of Multan around the mid-20th century.

So they started Multani Kafi over there, and they became very famous for this Multani Saraiki language singing. Mostly my father sang Khayal style. Before, our ancestors, my great-great grandfather, they started with the musical Dhrupad. Dhrupad is like a very slow mellow style music, they do like They take so long [for] one note, and stay over there, and every note is so beautiful, like a pearl, Dhrupad is kind of like that.

Then, Ms. Sultana’s father Ustad Salamat Ali Khan introduced a new style into the music, called Khayal. Khayal is more like…

something like that,

making like a different kind of a voice, phrase. So kind of like a modern style. So my father started Khayal. They became like a very, like a legend in Pakistan and India, they performed all over the world with my uncle, my father.

Khayal and Tu meri are two modern genres of classical singing in India and Pakistan. A creator of Khayal as well as a songwriter in Tu meri, Ustad Salamat Ali Khan brought greater freedom and imagination to classical music. Aspiring singers from India and abroad came to stay at the house to study music with him.

Following the family tradition, the vocal teacher trained his four sons to be experts in classical music enriched with a wide scope of improvisation. We are four brothers, four sisters. So all brothers do sing, and all my uncles, my mum’s side, my father’s side, everybody is a singer. We don’t have any other work or any job, it is full time, everybody has this. So this is our business, and they want to do this because they are born for that.

Riffat Sultana is nevertheless the first woman in her family history to sing for the public. In fact, she did not receive classical music training before she became a singer. She learned to sing by pure will and by listening to his father and brothers during their courses. Her family and the students who stayed at their home all recognized her gifted voice.

I say I want to sing, I want to sing some day. So even I am cooking, I am singing. I am cleaning, I am singing, I am making chapatti, I’m singing, just singing, singing, singing. Sleeping time, singing. Even I am in the shower I am singing so loud, every whole neighbor listening to me. .

If sometime it’s like some guys standing outside of my home. They are falling in love with me because I am singing. This singing is my spirit.

If I am not on the hill, he comes into my house.
I tell him off to leave me alone, and do not open the door.
While I try to sleep, he wakes me with the throw of a stone.
It is first dawn at the riverbank,
It is first dawn at the riverbank.
The playful Sham is teasing me.
It is first dawn at the riverbank,
The playful Sham is teasing me.
My shawl keeps getting tangled,
I feel helpless, what do I do, Ram.
It is first dawn at the riverbank,
It is first dawn at the riverbank,
It is first dawn at the riverbank.

This beautiful song we just enjoyed is a prayer song for Rama and Krishna in the classical genre of Bhajan. We will be back with more of Riffat Sultana’s enchanting singing when we return. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Thanks for joining us again on Enlightening Entertainment, getting to know the acclaimed Pakistani musician and singer, Riffat Sultana.

Specializing in devotional Sufi songs, Riffat Sultana’s singing also voices her mother’s musical legacy. A gifted vocalist from India, Riffat’s mother Razia descended from a line of top Punjabi classical musicians who belonged to the prominent group of Hindustani artists called the Patiala Gharana. Never performing in public, Riffat’s mom sang in private homes at Sufi ceremonies instead.

My mum had a very beautiful voice, and my father fell in love with her when he heard her music, She is a very good singer. She is singing in a home party, some kind of wedding, and they’re sitting over there, and she’s sitting with the women. And she plays dholak and she sings so good some kind of song. My father is just like, wow! And my mum [is] very beautiful, too.

She is a very special person too. She will pray five time namaz. And she worshipped her guru, she loved her Sufi saint, his name is Shahbaz Qalandar. He’s very big Sufi saint in Pakistan. My whole family has big devotion for him.

A natural singer like her mother, Riffat Sultana also finds natural oneness between singing and prayer, musical sound and the Divine.

Music is kind of like a prayer. It’s prayer. When we have a note, one note, and touches your heart, it’s kind of like God is right there, like we said, “Music is God, Allah.”

Saregamabadanisa. Sanetagamabanisa. When we say Sa… ah… ave Allah… sometimes we say Allah… Allah is God. So it’s like a spiritual thin. It’s like we’re praying. We memorize our God. We’re just telling him, putting a hymn in our heart. And music is all like God, and has a feeling inside. Music has a feeling. Even classical music, even Sufi music, is kind of like they do prayer, is feeling inside, is the God inside.

In each of her performances, Riffat Sultana will start with a Sufi devotional song, and end with another. She knows from deep in her heart that the vibration of the musical sound, or the note, is itself Allah. So then I sing in front of you, in front of Americans, different kind of culture people. They are not listening [to the] word.

The sur. Sur means note. Sur is Allah. Sur is God. The note is Allah. Sur makes everybody together, and feel feeling. So that’s why people [are] into my music, Pakistani, Indian, Pakistani classical music, or Sufi music, people [are] in trance, they go right inside. Sur goes in their inside. God goes inside – touches [them].

Let us now enjoy a beautiful Sufi devotional song composed by Riffat Sultana’s brother, Shafqt Ali Khan. Like many Sufi songs, this song is a dance song, describing the excitement and ecstasy of meeting God.

Unconcerned of the world, I danced today with such passion that, my ankle-bell broke.
Unconcerned of the world, I danced today with such passion that,
my ankle-bell fell apart, my ankle-bell fell apart, my ankle-bell fell apart,
my ankle-bell fell apart, my ankle-bell fell apart, my ankle-bell fell apart.
I was bursting with youth, and it was craze of love too;
I was bursting with youth, and it was craze of love too;
Each wink of mine became an arrow, Each lock of my hair became shackles.
When I took hold of my lover’s hand,
When I took hold of my lover’s hand,
my hand shook so hard that my ankle-bell fell apart,
my ankle-bell fell apart, my ankle-bell fell apart,
my ankle-bell fell apart, my ankle-bell fell apart, my ankle-bell fell apart,
I will dance all night even if my ankle-bell fell apart,
my ankle-bell fell apart, my ankle-bell fell apart, my ankle-bell fell apart.

Spirited viewers, it was a pleasure having you with us today. Please tune in for the second and final part of our feature, “Sur” Is Allah: Riffat Sultana’s Pakistani Sufi Devotional Music,” next Friday on Enlightening Entertainment. Up next on Supreme Master Television is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. May your heart be forever filled with the sound of music and love of Allah.

For more on Riffat Sultana and her music CDs, please visit