Word: sufis
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...markets - their warm hues and intricate tribal patterns are showing up in carpet showrooms from Sydney to San Francisco. Unfortunately, clever imitations are turning up, too. So how does a novice buyer spot the fakes? We asked two experts - third-generation carpet trader Abdul Tawab and his father, Hajji Sufi Abdul Wahid - for advice. The pair hail from Herat, the center of Afghanistan's carpet business, but moved to the Pakistani capital Islamabad 20 years ago, after fleeing the Afghan-Soviet war. There, Wahid set up the family shop, Herat Carpets, and today father and son stock some...
...Lord of the Rings), is a world traveler from way back. Born A.S. Dileep Kumar, he began playing piano at 4, and when his father died five years later, the precocious child hit the road, touring the world with tabla maestro Zakir Hussain. The family converted to Sufi Islam, and Dileep took the name Allah Rakha Rahman...
...father's tiny but unusually diverse record collection, consisting of just three, wholly different LPs?one from China, one from Latin America, and the third by American country balladeer Jim Reeves. Rahman's Hindu family was also devoted to a local Muslim pir, or saint, who was a Sufi dervish. Sufis share the same devotion to Allah as other strands of Islam, but none of the rigid stoicism. Instead, Sufis believe the way to God is through vehement, ecstatic self-expression. With such a teacher, Rahman says he can't remember a time when music, and mysticism, wasn...
...Although Rahman's music has made him rich and famous, he remains something of a Sufi ascetic. He wears handloom shirts and jeans (though he admits to owning "suits and things" for special occasions), and drives a modest Toyota Qualis because "I don't need anything else." Gesturing at his studio, stuffed with the latest mixers and synthesizers, he says: "This is my BMW." He shares his house in Madras with his wife, his three children and his mother, who still handles his finances; Rahman asks her for money whenever he is short. "I like to be a musafir [vagrant...
...cinema, they also found a master composer. If one song triggered Rahmania among non-Indians in the West, it was Chaiyya Chaiyya, from another Ratnam terrorist tragedy Dil Se. Shahrukh Khan stands atop a speeding train and (using the thrilling voice of Sukhwinder Singh) performs this update of a Sufi chant. It remains Rahman's most pulsing, irresistible piece, and when it opens the second act of Bombay Dreams, it has audiences stamping their feet and cheering...