The Music of Pakistan includes diverse elements ranging from music from various parts of South Asia as well as Central Asian, Middle Eastern, and modern-day Western popular music influences. With these multiple influences, a distinctive Pakistani music has emerged.
The Pakistan Movement was a political movement in the first half of the 20th century that aimed for the creation of Pakistan from the Muslim-majority areas of British India. It was connected to the perceived need for self-determination for Muslims under British rule at the time. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a barrister and politician led this movement after the Lahore Resolution was passed by All-India Muslim League on 23 March 1940 and Ashraf Ali Thanwi as a religious scholar supported it. Thanwi's disciples Shabbir Ahmad Usmani and Zafar Ahmad Usmani were key players in religious support for the creation of Pakistan.
Muhammad Taqi Usmani is a Pakistani Islamic scholar and former judge who is the current president of the Wifaq ul Madaris Al-Arabia and the vice president and Hadith professor of the Darul Uloom Karachi. An intellectual leader of the Deobandi movement, he has authored 143 books in Urdu, Arabic and English, including a translation of the Qur'an in both English and Urdu as well a 6-volume commentary on the Sahih Muslim in Arabic, Takmilat Fath al-Mulhim and Uloomu-l-Quran. He has written and lectured extensively on hadith, and Islamic finance. He chairs the Shariah Board of the Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI). He is also a permanent member of the Jeddah-based International Islamic Fiqh Academy, an organ of the OIC.
A nasheed is a work of vocal music, partially coincident with hymns, that is either sung a cappella or with instruments, according to a particular style or tradition within Islam.
Muhammad Rafi Usmani was a Pakistani Muslim scholar, jurist and author who served as the President of Darul Uloom Karachi. He was an alumnus of Darul Uloom Deoband, University of the Punjab and the Darul Uloom Karachi. He authored books including Ahkām-e-Zakāt, Al-Tālīqāt al-nāfi'ah alā fath al-mulhim, Islām mai aurat ki hukmrāni and Nawādir al-Fiqh. He was a syndicate member of the University of Karachi, vice-president and a member of the executive council of Wifaq-ul-Madaris. His brother Muhammad Taqi Usmani is also a senior scholar.
Ashraf Ali Thanwi (often referred as Hakimul Ummat and Mujaddidul Millat was a late-nineteenth and twentieth-century Sunni scholar, jurist, thinker, reformist and the revival of classical sufi thought from Indian subcontinent during the British Raj, one of the chief proponents of Pakistan Movement. He was a central figure of Islamic spiritual, intellectual and religious life in South Asia and continues to be highly influential today. As a prolific author, he completed over a thousand works including Bayan Ul Quran and Bahishti Zewar. He graduated from Darul Uloom Deoband in 1883 and moved to Kanpur, then Thana Bhawan to direct the Khanqah-i-Imdadiyah, where he resided until the end of his life. His training in Quran, Hadith, Fiqh studies and Sufism qualified him to become a leading Sunni authority among the scholars of Deoband. His teaching mixes Sunni orthodoxy, Islamic elements of belief and the patriarchal structure of the society. He offered a sketch of a Muslim community that is collective, patriarchal, hierarchical and compassion-based.
Islamic poetry is a form of spoken word written & recited by Muslims. Islamic poetry, and notably Sufi poetry, has been written in many languages including Urdu and Turkish.
Taqwacore is a subgenre of punk music dealing with Islam, its culture, and interpretation. Originally conceived in Michael Muhammad Knight's 2003 novel, The Taqwacores, the name is a portmanteau of "hardcore" and the Arabic word "taqwa" (تقوى), which is usually translated as "piety" or the quality of being "God-fearing", and thus roughly denotes reverence and love of the divine. The scene is composed mainly of young Muslim artists living in the US and other Western countries, many of whom openly reject traditionalist interpretations of Islam, and thus live their own lifestyle within the religion or without.
The Taqwacores is the debut novel by Michael Muhammad Knight, depicting a fictitious Islamic punk rock scene. The title is a portmanteau of taqwa, an Islamic concept of love and fear for Allah, and Hardcore, the punk rock subgenre. Some of the most popular taqwacore bands are: The Kominas, Al-Thawra, Secret Trial Five, and Fedayeen.
Attaullah Khan Niazi, SI PP, known professionally as Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi also known as Lala, is a Pakistani musician from Isakhel, Mianwali, Punjab.
Michael Muhammad Knight is an American novelist, essayist, and journalist. His writings are popular among American Muslim youth. The San Francisco Chronicle described him as "one of the most necessary and, paradoxically enough, hopeful writers of Barack Obama's America," while The Guardian has described him as "the Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature," and his non-fiction work exemplifies the principles of gonzo journalism. Publishers Weekly describes him as "Islam's gonzo experimentalist." Within the American Muslim community, he has earned a reputation as an ostentatious cultural provocateur.
Mahmud Hasan Deobandi was an Indian Muslim scholar and an activist of the Indian independence movement, who co-founded the Jamia Millia Islamia university and launched the Silk Letter Movement for the freedom of India. He was the first student to study at the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary. His teachers included Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi and Mahmud Deobandi, and he was authorized in Sufism by Imdadullah Muhajir Makki and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi.
Muḥammad Zakarīyā ibn Muḥammad Yaḥyá Ṣiddīqī Kāndhlawī Sahāranpūrī Muhājir Madanī was a Sunni Hanafi Hadith scholar of the Deobandi school of Islamic thought in India, popularly known as a "Hazrat Shaykh al-Hadith" and an influential ideologue of Tablighi Jamaat, the missionary and reform movement founded by his uncle Maulana Muhammad Ilyas. His notable works are Awjaz al-Masalik, an Arabic commentary in six volumes on Imam Malik's Muwatta, and Khasa'il-i Nabawi, an Urdu translation and commentary on Imam at-Tirmidhi's Shama'il.
A number of overlapping punk rock subgenres have developed since the emergence of punk rock in the mid-1970s. Even though punk genres at times are difficult to segregate, they usually show differing characteristics in overall structures, instrumental and vocal styles, and tempo. However, sometimes a particular trait is common in several genres, and thus punk genres are normally grouped by a combination of traits.
Secret Trial Five is a Canadian five-piece political punk rock band formed in 2006 in Vancouver.
Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam is a 2009 documentary film, directed by Omar Majeed and produced by EyeSteelFilm, about various Taqwacore bands and performers touring the United States and Pakistan. The documentary was filmed between 2007 and 2009. It was pitched at the 2007 Sheffield Doc/Fest MeetMarket prior to completion.
The Taqwacores is a 2010 film adaptation of the 2003 novel The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight. The film was directed by Eyad Zahra and stars Bobby Naderi, Dominic Rains, and Noureen Dewulf. The film imagines a fictitious Islamic punk rock scene through characters living in a punk house in Buffalo, New York. It was filmed in Cleveland, Ohio.
Muḥammad Shafī‘ ibn Muḥammad Yāsīn ‘Us̱mānī Deobandī, often referred to as Mufti Muhammad Shafi, was a Pakistani Sunni Islamic scholar of the Deobandi school of Islamic thought.
Karwan-e-Zindagi is a voluminous autobiography of Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi in Seven volumes which is a contribution to the history as well as to Urdu literature. Originally, the book was written in Urdu.
