jawab e shikwa
Shikwa 3 Vol 88 — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Iqbal Qawwali MP3
The third iteration of Iqbal's Shikwa — Complaint — in Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's recorded output speaks to how central this text was to his engagement with modern Urdu literature. He has all qawwali in audio and video formats. He has participated in and won many qawwali competitions. He is not the only qawwal who sang this qawwali — Iqbal's poem has been performed by many artists — but his specific engagement with it through qawwali form gave the text a devotional resonance that literary recitation alone does not achieve. Vol 88 within a Shikwa series is extraordinary evidence of how important this material was to his recorded legacy.
Iqbal Through Qawwali
iRulz has a fabulous collection of all his qawwali including the Shikwa material. Nasha Sharabi Kahani, Wadali Brothers and Abdul Habib Ajmeri represent different traditions of engaging with the complaint theme in South Asian devotional music.
Free Streaming and Download
Shikwa 3 Vol 88 is available on iRulz for free streaming and urdu qawwali mp3 download. The complete Nusrat Iqbal material is in the same library.
FAQ
What is Iqbal's Shikwa about? A dramatic dialogue in which the Muslim community complains to God about its current suffering and diminishment — a theologically bold text that was controversial when published in 1911 and remains one of the most read Urdu poems.
Why perform Shikwa in qawwali format? The complaint-and-response structure of the poem maps onto the call-and-response structure of qawwali performance, making it particularly suitable for the form. The devotional context also shifts the register from literary complaint to devotional petition.
Does Vol 88 contain the same text as the earlier Shikwa recordings? Each session may use slightly different text variants or different musical arrangements of the same foundational poem. Check the iRulz page for specifics.
You may also enjoy the qawwali of Nasha Sharabi Kahani, Wadali Brothers, and Abdul Habib Ajmeri. Listen to more qawwali of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.