The Rock Star and the Mullah

Page 23
Q-News, Issue 361
March 2005

Salman Ahmad is no stranger to controversy. His rock band Junoon, is one of Pakistan’s leading cultural exports and its unique brand of spiritual rock draws on South Asian Islam’s rich Sufi tradition. He is an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s politically powerful mullahs, yet supports the presidency of General Musharraf. In a frank conversation with Q-News, Salman speaks about his music, cultural revival and the future of the ummah. 

Q-News: What does Junoon represent in the musical scene in Pakistan?

Salman Ahmad: There is a Sufi aspect to our music, which I take responsibility for because I was deeply influenced by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I learned from him for many years during the late 80s and early 90s. He opened my eyes to the fact that modernity and Islam aren’t at odds. Qawwali is a spiritual art form but was relegated into a genre of music sung at weddings. Nusrat, through his voice and personality, brought it to the world stage with collaborations with Western artists like Peter Gabriel. This inspired me to look at music differently. Junoon has an instrumental song called Heer, inspired by a song by Nusrat, which was a spiritual metaphor for Heer and Ranja. I have always been drawn to the spirit. I searched hard and long during the early part of my career. I wrote a song called Saeein in 1995, which was the first ever Pakistani spiritual rock song. People were amazed, because Junoon was pushing the boundaries of what is culturally acceptable in Islam. Music comes from the spirit and the spirit knows no boundaries. People from different cultural backgrounds can come together and share their cultures through music. I understood western culture when I listened to Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and Pink Floyd. What we have done in the Islamic world is hijacked our own culture. We do not share. We are insulated and isolated.


Q-News: What kind of people show up at your concerts?

Salman Ahmad: In the early 90s we played to an urban Pakistani audience. After the success of Sayonee, which was No 1 on MTV Asia and after winning the best international group in an Indian awards ceremony, we were thrust into the international limelight. In 1998 we did a tribute concert for Nusrat in New York’s Central Park and 20,000 people came. These people were not only from the Asian diaspora but also Hispanics, Jews, Christians and secular Americans.


Q-News: What about your Pakistani audience?

Salman Ahmad: 50% of Pakistanis are under 25. That is a huge youth force which can be inspired either towards creative endeavours or towards militancy. It all depends on what cultural visions a nation has.


Q-News: What were you trying to do with The Rock Star and the Mullah?

Salman Ahmad: I was initially just asking questions. I wanted to find out what Pakistan felt about music and Islam. You see, when I became a musician, I faced immense opposition. Being a musician isn’t generally accepted like a career in finance or medicine, although I am a qualified doctor and so is my wife. This social resistance intensified when Junoon gained nationally renown. A few years before The Rock Star and the Mullah, I received a message from Islamic scholar Farhat Hashmi. She sent me a parcel through a group of women associated with her. They told my wife that as a responsible Muslim wife she should play her part in ‘guiding me’. After a brief argument, my wife took the package, which contained some CDs and a letter from Farhat. In the letter, it said ‘Salman you have veered from the true path and you are heading towards damnation. What is worse is that you have influence on young people and you are basically like the Pied Piper leading them astray’. I was disappointed by her narrow vision of what a musician stood for. She had no idea about my music and what I do. That provoked my quest for the truth about the relationship between music and Islam. In the CDs she sent, it stated that music in Islam is haraam. Now, I am a practicing Muslim and I have read the Quran and there is no mention of music being haraam. I had to find out why people believed this. I met scholars around the country. It appeares that there was never an edict against music being haraam. It has somehow just become common knowledge that one shouldn’t listen to music. What really annoyed me was that the lead singer of Vital Signs, the band with which I first launched my career, had a similar episode with Tablighi Jamaat and as a result, he stopped listening to music. Junaid Jamshed is one of my closest friends but I was shocked by his change. I told him he had gone out of his mind. It is illogical to allow a guilt-trip to get the better of you. Some people think his change is a sign from God.


Q-News: Do you think Muslims will ever reach a consensus over music?

Salman Ahmad: This is not just a Muslim conflict but a universal one. Many Christians believe rap music is the devil’s music. In the 12th century, Amir Khosro spread spirituality through music and dance. He invented Qawali music and the sitar. He used music as a vehicle for spiritual connection. Baba Bullhe Shah, a 17th century Sufi, faced massive opposition from the clergy. He was a man of faith and his poetry and music was about God. By the way, one of our albums is dedicated to the Baba Bullhe Shah. He started questioning the lack of spirituality in people’s rituals from a very young age. Once he was in a madrasah studying with his spiritual mentor. When it was time to make wudu, Baba Bullhe Shah asked what the point in washing his hands was when the heart was not clean. His mentor insisted he never ask the question again. So Baba left the madrasah and became a poet. One of the most powerful poems he wrote is ‘Who am I’, inspired by a poem by Maulana Rumi. The poem questions the core of man. In it Baba writes, ‘Who am I? I am not pure. I am not royal neither am I believer in a mosque. I am no Moses and I am no Pharaoh, so who am I?’ 

Ultimately, what he is really saying is that we are all part of God. But society resisted his transcendent ideals. When he died they wouldn’t allow him a decent burial. But now, three centuries later, Baba’s influence is tremendous.


Q-News: What does this mean to the ordinary person, this struggle for the identity in Islam which you are so passionate to convey?

Salman Ahmad: We belong to a global community which is one and half billion strong. Most people live their lives without a thought to their responsibility to the future of this ummah. We have abdicated this responsibility to a minority who do not have the understanding of how Islam should be in the 21st century. They think that they are 7th century Arabs. Their whole idea of Islam is about women in hijabs, pulling your trousers up and having long beards. Muslims are themselves responsible for giving them this control. I have great respect for my faith and its traditions but Allah put me in the modern world. I have to harmonise both my spirit and my material life. When you do nothing, you are nothing. We have to stop blaming everything on a third party. We have to stop wallowing in the idea that the entire world, including the Western media is engaged in a conspiracy against us. Every conspiracy starts at home. We need to define who we are. Muslims need to stop and think - do we have any vision for the cultural identity of our young people? I know being Muslim is certainly not just about having beards, wearing hijab and pulling the trousers up.


Q-News: Does it really matter what the mullahs say if the public is on your side? Are you trying to assuage your guilt over your music by working on this documentary?

Salman Ahmad: Certainly not. There is this scene between a  mullah in Peshawar and myself. The mullah says very clearly that there is no room for music in Islam and that all musicians are  hell-bound. And yet at the end of his sermon, he starts singing. I can only conclude that the anti-music mullahs are merely human and are just playing these puritanical beliefs for the gallery. I don’t believe they have conviction. If they did, it would show at the grassroots level. They have nothing to offer. There are so many young people in the madrasahs. The mullahs offer nothing but militancy. It’s a dead end. I asked them, ‘What is your vision of Islam?’ Maulana Bijli said, ‘Put the woman at home, cut the hand of the thief and stone the adulterer’. Now, that’s what I call a narrow vision.


Q-News: Your documentary sets up an almost over-simplistic dichotomy between the stereotypical mullah and the stereotypical rock star. The voices in the middle are missing?

Salman Ahmad: I wasn’t in control of the editing. We went to Peshawar, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. We went through a cross section of society during the three weeks of shooting. I learnt that 99% of Pakistani society do not have problems with music. They are simply getting on with their lives. But what becomes very clear to me is that the clergy want control of society. Music attracts a tremendous following in Pakistan. This intimidates the clergy as they feel they are losing control over the common people. Therefore, they attack popular symbols, like me. They feel threatened that I can comfortably balance my faith with ‘modernity’.


Q-News: You say people are getting on with their lives. What then are the three main concerns of a young, ordinary Pakistani?

Salman Ahmad: A good education is paramount, followed by a good job and getting married. [Laughs.] The media and pop culture in Pakistan has expanded at a blinding rate in the last decade or so. So many musical bands have established themselves. Video directors, sound engineers and record producers are becoming more prominent. Pakistan is going through a metamorphosis. We have tried and tested the mullahs’ vision. It has failed us. We want to do it our own way now.


Q-News: You could be accused of being an upper middle-class person who is more comfortable in English than in your mother tongue. Aren’t you just trying to shape Islam according to your bourgeois values and “liberal” interpretations of the faith?

Salman Ahmad: I come from a conservative family. My mother and sister wear the hijab and they have performed the hajj. But their value system is not based on symbols. By the way, the hijab is such a red herring now but women have been wearing hijab for centuries and it was never a symbol of oppression. My grandmother, my mother, my sister and my wife are working women. I genuinely believe the middle class are in a position where they have the means to navigate a modern vision of Islam. In the film there is a scene in the madrasah, where I argue, in Urdu, with the students. On camera they condemn my music, but when the cameras were turned off, they asked for my autograph. They knew most of my songs. There is no such thing as a distinctive elitist point of view anymore. Society has changed.

Q-News: Don’t you think that to Western eyes, your documentary reasserts the assumption that Pakistan is backward?

Salman Ahmad: No. It was an honest depiction of what different segments of the society are thinking and doing. Even the madrasah students, in their own way, are thinking about social uplift, although their vision is radically different to mine. President Musharraf has said that every Muslim is passionate about their religion so let’s not make issues like listening to music, growing the beard and wearing hijab, points of conflict. Rise above them. Pakistan has a tremendous cultural diversity. Pakistanis are a diverse, headstrong group whether they are conservative or liberal.


Q-News: How do you reconcile your support for Musharraf with the fact that he is an unelected dictator?

Salman Ahmad: He is a man, who by a twist of fate came into power. He is a good leader. He has completely opened up the media. People are free to criticise the government. Journalists no longer get thrown into jail. In the top echelons of power there is little corruption. MPs I have spoken to say corruption still exists in the lower ranks but accountability in the cabinet has increased. There are more women in parliament than ever before. We can talk freely about sensitive issues such as the AIDS problem and Indo-Pak relations. Any public discussion on these issues were unheard of only few years ago. In the last five years, there has been 7.5% growth in the country. I am proud to call President Musharraf my leader. Pakistan is a work in progress. It took America 160 years to get women to vote and only in the 20th century did they give black people basic human rights. Musharraf is very conscious of the fact that proper democracy has to be established. I am not saying everything is perfect, but we are making progress.


Q-News: You stated earlier that you are a practicing Muslim. There is a lot of debate over what a practicing Muslim is. How would you define one?

Salman Ahmad: Religion is a private matter. You cannot wear your religion on your sleeve and insist you are the greatest Muslim on earth just because you say your prayers five times a day, perform the hajj and pay zakat. If you do, good for you. But the fact is that no one is here to judge anyone. It says in the Quran that only God can judge a person’s faith. But I will say I am a believer and hence, a practicing Muslim. I believe in the five pillars. Beyond this, I don’t think it’s anyone’s responsibility to look into the heart of others and judge whether he is a good or bad Muslim. Forget trying to figure out who is going to heaven or hell and just get with your life.


Q-News: The heart of Islam is the Prophet, peace be upon him - how does your work reflect your approach to the Prophet?

Salman Ahmad: The Prophet was a man way ahead of his time. He believed in women’s rights. He believed in democracy and the establishment of shura. He came from an argumentative tribe who could launch into violent discussions over the smallest of issues. The Prophet bought rational thought to all debates. In the Treaty of Hudabiyah, the Muslims were given awful terms by the Quraysh. He accepted them. When they asked him to write his name and leave out the title Prophet of God, he agreed. He was a flexible man. His faith had depth which was not entirely bound to outward rituals. There is the story of a woman who used to throw garbage at him. Rather than retaliate he allowed her to continue. One day when she didn’t show up to throw garbage at him because she was ill, he went to check how she was.
I learn from the spirit of who he was.


Q-News: What role have you taken in the reconciliation of India and Pakistan and what influenced you to get involved?

Salman Ahmad: My mother’s family come from India, so as a child I grew up listening to my grandparents speaking about their lives there and I grew curious. When Junoon toured there in 1998, I got the chance to see India. Indo-Pak hostility is borne from politics and it is a huge waste of human resources. Ever since 1998, I have tried to building small bridges through my music and United Nations work. We composed a video called Ghoom Taana. The team behind it consisted of both Pakistanis and Indians and we demonstrated how India and Pakistan can and should interact with each other. I received an award for it in Norway from Mahatma Ghandi’s grandson. He told me that the only way peace will be established is if ordinary people express themselves. Governments are never going to decide. We have shifted responsibility to the mullahs and the government for the last 50 years. What have they given us?


Q-News: What projects are you working on now? What’s next for Junoon?

Salman Ahmad: The next album is called Infinity and we should have it recorded by May. I have recently finished a documentary about the lives of Muslims in America after 9/11.  It’s a really powerful film; it shows that Muslims can live with their religious traditions in the modern world. There is no clash of civilisations. Infinity will have a completely new sound. I am part of two different cultures - I spend half my time in New York and the other half in Pakistan. Also, my documentary work is affecting my song writing so I think it will be an interesting album. I’m excited.


Q-News: What are you listening to and what are you reading now?

Salman Ahmad: The book that has inspired me to make this music is a book called The Power of Intention: Tap into the Universal Energy Field and Transform Your Life by Wayne W. Dyer. Dyer states that human beings have immense potential but we have to reach into ourselves to realise it. Iqbal, the great poet too said about Khudi (the self), that we are infinite beings and limit ourselves by imagination.

Ahmad’s documentary on American Muslim will be aired on BBC2 on 15th March 2005.