Sufi superstar Abida Parveen – a giant of world music – is an arresting presence. Dressed in flowing robes and scarf, her hair a mass of handsome dark curls, she seems to carry a little bubble of grace around with her – despite being anchored by pink sneakers.
Best known for her command of the ghazal, kafi and qawwali – classic forms of Sufi music and poetry – the colossal artistic stature of Parveen in her homeland of Pakistan is hard to convey for the western reader. As Kamile Shamsie wrote in 2005, “you could find entire neighbourhoods, possibly towns, in Pakistan where the residents would be delighted to be kept up until dawn by the sound of Parveen”.
Melbourne gets her for a single night only, in an exclusive concert that’s part of the three-month Asia Topa festival of Asian performing arts. “I’m very peaceful, it feels like there’s a lot of peace here,” she says when we meet.
Parveen began singing as a three-year old, encouraged by her father Ustad Ghulam Haider – himself a famous musician. At his knee, she imbibed the Sufi canon and a respect for its power.
Even as a young child she had a “thirst for learning”, she explains through her translator. She would often observe her father with his music students at home, where she learned “the respect of the honour of what this is”.
“Every shrine has a different culture, every Sufi saint has a different culture, and you learn through spirituality as well … The true culture is of Sufis, is [about] spreading peace. This culture is coming from the Prophet, peace be upon him, and this then travels through the Sufi saints and spreads through the world.”
What does it feel like when she’s singing?
“Once you’re in this space, this spirituality actually liberates you,” Parveen explains. “You’re not tied by any worldly or materialistic thing.”
Every concert is like her very first, she says. “So I pray every time to receive, and once the Divine listens to that, he creates a gathering where I become a channel, and then that flows to everyone who is interested. So that gathering becomes a spreading of the message.”
Parveen’s mysticism can belie a more worldly approach to the industry. She is a highly successful commercial artist in Pakistan, and has even appeared as a judge on the Indian-Pakistani talent show Sur Kshetra.
But the core of her music is her spirituality, evident not just from her performances, but in the philosophy she brings to her art.
“The soul of the heart is what is connected to the Divine. It comes first in my heart, and then to my lips,” she says, in a reference to the great 14th century poet Hafez.
Parveen’s manner of speaking has been called “densely poetic”, and it is also in Urdu, which I don’t speak. But even without translation, her lilting cadences are mesmerising, enlivened by flashes of humour.
“You will never understand this through logic and brain; it always comes through the heart, the heart understands this.”
When I ask what that means, she giggles.
“You don’t understand it, you can’t understand it yourself!” she tells me, her eyes crinkling with mirth. “Once the heart accepts and submits, then the guidance comes.”
At this point Parveen’s translator, Ayesha Bux, explains the word she is using here is ilham, by which she means not simply a message, but divine inspiration.
The power of music in a cruel world has never seemed more important than in 2020, a year which has already been dominated by drought, bushfires, a fast-spreading virus and deadly sectarian violence in India.
“Even if one person understands in the world, it could bring salvation,” Parveen tells me.
“When things like this happen, or when they explode, this is coming from somewhere else – but the solace comes from the Divine.”
Here Parveen quotes a well-known Qur’anic reference to David: “The prophet David, peace be upon him, when he started singing, the mountains would sway and the birds would sing.”
Called “Abdaji” by her entourage, Parveen seems to effortlessly command any space, even an empty cocktail lounge in the bowels of Melbourne’s Arts Centre. Maybe I’ve had too many coffees, but it seems the room gets quieter when she talks, and time gets all bendy and loose.
It’s a phenomenon her fans talk about too, with her performances regularly transporting audiences to a higher plane.
“With music, there are only 12 notes. You can’t increase or decrease them. Those 12 notes are coming from the Divine. And the whole world is within them.”
• Abida Parveen is singing at the Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne on Saturday 29 February, as part of Asia Topa festival
