HIS father, Ghulam Farid Sabri, sang that way. His uncle, Maqbool Ahmed Sabri, sang that way. His ancestors had done so too, right back to the time of Mian Tansen, a favourite musician at the Mughal court, who received 100,000 gold coins for his first performance. The Sabri house in Karachi was full of the wheeze of portable harmoniums, the patter of drums and the joyous, repetitive mantras of qawwali, the songs of the millions of South Asian followers of the mystical Sufi strain of Islam. So it was no wonder that from early childhood Amjad Sabri joined the chorus, hauled out of bed by his father at 4am to wash, say his prayers, fetch his instrument and sing the first raga of the dawn. The long preparation was worth it, to feel one with the sunrise.

He knew this was not ordinary music. It was a love song to the prophet Muhammad, to Ali, his son-in-law and closest disciple, to the Sufi saints and above all to God directly, music being the only sure way to evoke and approach Him. Qawwali was a plea to be noticed at the court of heaven, admitted to the presence, absorbed into the heartbeat and the breath, as in his father’s most famous song, “Tajdar-e-haram”, “King of the Holy Sanctuary”:

What should I tell you, O Prince of Arabia,

You already know what is in my heart,

In our separation, O Untaught One,

Our sleepless nights are so hard to bear

In your love I’ve lost all consciousness

Tajdar-e-haram, tajdar-e-haram

As he or his relations sang, the audience would start to sway, clap, sing along, dance and lose themselves in the ecstasy of God. His father would cry “Allah! Allah!” in the midst of his singing, an invocation so powerful that even non-Muslims would start to shout it after him. In adulthood Amjad, always careful to preserve his father’s modulations, did this too, enjoying the effect it had on his listeners. Indeed, his whole performance radiated calm, confidence and joy: a big, burly man with luxuriant long black hair, brown karakul hat, one small gold earring and many chunky rings, effortlessly smiling and gesticulating through his glorious baritone singing. “Bhar do Jholi” was his most famous song, “Fill my Bag”, or “Fulfil my Wish”:

Fill my bag, O Lord, Fill all our bags,

O Lord, Fill the bag,

O Guide, Fill my bag,

O Lord of Medina,

I won’t return empty-handed!

Bhar do jholi, bhar do jholi…

He was not doctrinaire about this. He would sing in Sufi shrines, cross-legged on a mat with a skull-capped chorus, or perform like a rock star, standing at a mic under bright lights in a flamingo-pink cotta. On TV he sang regularly for the morning shows, especially during Ramadan, and would take part in the silly games too, if the presenters asked him. He sang all over South Asia (being a star in India and Bangladesh as well) and took qawwali to Europe and America, where he performed backed by saxophones. Bollywood invited him, and he was happy to sing on film; Bollywood actresses posed with him. The only problem with all his globetrotting, for he liked his food, was the difficulty of finding good halal meals, but he taught himself to cook a fine aloo gosht, beef-and-potato curry, to keep himself going.

Filling the wine-cup

Much larger obstacles reared their heads at home. To the Pakistani Taliban the wildness of Sufism, its decadent Persian origins, its veneration of saints, its reminders of an Islam disseminated through art, music and dance, were all anathema. So was its easy openness to all faiths and people, demonstrated in the way its greatest living qawwal would stroll around the narrow, teeming lanes of Liaquatabad in Karachi, shoot a piece or two on the carrom boards, treat some hapless batsman to his off-spin, chat to the man in the cigarette booth and, indeed, mix Hindu ragas naturally with his songs. He also declared that his own favourite qawwal was Aziz Mian, who played on the much-loved Sufi metaphor of drunkenness in God’s love to cry “Let’s drink! Fill my wine-cup to overflowing!”

So Sufi shrines began to be bombed by the Taliban, and singers shot at. The establishment failed to take the Sufis’ side, preferring to blazon its respect for orthodox religion. It was the high court, not the Taliban, that accused Mr Sabri of blasphemy in 2014 for singing a song that mentioned members of Muhammad’s family on one of those morning shows. The threats came closer, extra-legal this time: six months ago three men burst into his house, retreating only because they did not find him there. Some friends said he had asked for protection; others thought he never would. His last song on TV included the refrain “When I shudder in my dark tomb, dear Prophet, look after me.”

He was on his way to do another morning show when two men on a motorcycle riddled his car with bullets. The Pakistani Taliban declared that they had done it, killing a blasphemer. It happened close to the underpass that had been named after his father in more tolerant times.

His father had sung that way. His uncle had sung that way. And his 12-year-old son defiantly performed his “Karam Mangta Hun” (“I ask for Kindness, Lord”) in tribute to him; for the greatest message of Sufi Islam to the world is the unshakable primacy of music, peace and love.