Poet & writer
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
ਨੁਸਰਤ ਫ਼ਤਿਹ ਅਲੀ ਖ਼ਾਨنصرت فتح علی خان
Qawwal of Faisalabad who carried the Sufi songs of the Punjab to the whole world.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was born in Lyallpur, now Faisalabad, in 1948, into a family of qawwals going back six centuries. He took over the family party after his father's death and became the greatest qawwal of his time.
His voice could hold a single phrase for minutes and rise through improvisation into ecstasy. He sang the poems of Bulleh Shah, Amir Khusrau and the Punjabi Sufis, and in the 1980s and 1990s he collaborated with Peter Gabriel and western musicians and filmmakers, making qawwali known across the world.
He died in London in 1997, at forty-eight.