Music of the Mystics: Sufi Qawwali Night with Fanna-Fi-Allah

Fanna-Fi-Allah return to Warwick Arts Centre after their 2026 visit with Music of the Mystics, a night of traditional Sufi qawwali. 

Now in their 27th year of international touring, the ensemble carries the devotional music of the South Asian shrines in the classical lineage of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: eight musicians seated in the traditional way, with harmonium, tabla, dholak and a chorus of voices and handclaps that builds from a single whispered couplet to full, ecstatic cycles of rhythm. 

Led by Tahir Qawwal, the group sings the poetry of Amir Khusrau, Baba Farid, Bulleh Shah and the Sufi saints in Punjabi, Urdu and Persian, without fusion or electronics, and is joined by the whirling dervish Aziz. Whether this is a first encounter with qawwali or a return to it, the evening is an invitation into a shared space of listening, in two sets with an interval.